The recurring thought for this month that continues to resonate with me is “connection.” I have heard this word listening to webinars about healing trauma through breathing at the Global Resilience Summit. I heard this word while listening to the audio book, “Waking The Tiger: Healing Trauma” by Peter Levine. Very good read by the way. I even heard this word in my daily mediation for Lent this week on The Bible app, as it asks us to ask God “for grace of connection and dialogue in my relationships.” There is no escaping the idea that connection is a powerful word that transcends mind, body, and soul. Whether we realize it or not we are connected to someone else starting at birth, and those connections vacillate over time as we go through life. Some will argue that even in death we are connected because we turn back into dirt and connect back into the earth from whence we started. I would argue that connection is more powerful than money. Think about the ways that we use money. We buy clothes because when we encounter others we must be clothed (it is the connection to the outside world norms). We go out to eat with one another (connection). We educate ourselves in private and public institutions (connection). There isn’t anything that we do in this life that doesn’t connect us to others in some form, whether we like it or not. Can we do things alone? Of course. This doesn’t stop us from being connected though. Even people that consider themselves introverted seek connection. Monks that don’t speak gather together. Often times we associate the word connection with relationships such as with friends, family, co-workers; however, I would argue that it’s deeper than that superficial meaning of physically being in the presence with someone else.

The experts often call trauma, “The Great Disconnector.” Allow me to break down why. When we are going through something that requires high emotion each of us deals with that emotional state in a different way. There are often common themes of action that arise. If what we are going through turns into a traumatic event for us (emotionally or physically) then often times we don’t allow ourselves to feel that emotion that goes along with the traumatic event. We often have this idea that our emotions are TOO BIG to feel, as they may consume us. It is in these moments that instead of connecting with others, we tend to withdraw from others, as we don’t want them to pick up on our emotional state of being. We may shut out our friends or family because we don’t want to “burden” them. This is shame working against us. Shame DIS-connects us from others. We don’t like to call it shame, because that word alone invokes strong feelings which in turn DIS-connects us with the truth. When we deny ourselves to feel our emotion, we are denying our bodies from doing it’s natural process, which has now DIS-connected us from our own body sensations. An example of this would be stopping yourself from crying. While oftentimes we don’t even realize that this is occurring, the more we DIS-connect from our emotions, we are also DIS-connecting from our own bodies.

This is where people end up getting stuck. I continue to believe in the lie that my emotion is TOO BIG to handle and I experience the shame of feeling that emotion at all related to the issue, so I DIS-connect from others, which in turn also DIS-connects me from me body. Let’s Learn how to Re-Connect! We can RECLAIM our emotions! ASK ME HOW TODAY!