The struggle to connect

With all your head stories, sad stories or happy stories there is a desire to connect, to fulfill the sense of belonging and to be part of a pack which welcomes you. The true desire of the heart is to be involved and to connect. This fundamental need is the one that brings a couple together and is the one that put communities and families in harmony and in success. When the need to make a connection is not fulfilled couples walk apart, communities disintegrate and families become dysfunctional.

If we all have this fundamental and important desire to connect what makes this ability to connect fail? As long as you have a story in your head you won’t be able to connect. Often we are not fully aware of what type of story we are telling ourselves, and what type of stories we create about the person with whom we wish to connect.

The inner stories can come in the form of:

Blame – “You are not connecting the way I need or want”.

Hurt – “It hurt when you do or say this to me”.

Doubt – “I am not sure if you are a true teacher”.

Fear – “I am scared of the unknown”.

Holiness – “I only connect with my type and the rest are not good”.

Expectations – “You should be this way, not that way”.

Demands – “Be the way I want so I can connect with you”.

Love – “I am doing this to you because it is best for you, because I love you”.

Evasion – “I am not sure what you want; I don’t understand”.

As long as there are any stories in your head you will not be able to connect with the other person or to the present moment. Sadness, anger and despair are the result of the feeling of deep loneliness and a deep sense of not belonging.

Your inner stories are based on pride and insecurities. You want to have your way and you are insecure in front of the organic flow of life. Your stories want to fix and fit a reality that is non-existing. You are trying to connect with something that does not exist.

Internal silence is the true connector. Your stories die when you enter the silence, and kindness emerges as a connector of all. In the flow of the heart, kindness compassion and forgiveness are the very essence of the ability to connect. I am referring here to silence in the absence of your stories, which are just really a choice and awareness of what you are really doing. When I refer to kindness, I am talking about the respect you create for others and for yourself to be, to follow your own personal path without judgments. Finally when I refer to forgiveness, I am referring to the innocence of not seeing any inner motives of other people. We don’t really know why people are behaving in a certain way and we don’t need to give a meaning to every single behavior they have. Those behaviors are often far from being against us or about us.

The formula to connect is simple. Abandon your inner chatting, your opinions and come forward in playfulness, kindness and innocence. You don’t have to say much to be part of what you are already part of: the Love that embraces all of us the way we really are.