Quiet is such a gift. Alone in the silence of this morning I was listening in on my thoughts. I noticed a part of me was thinking about someone, wondering if they were going to come back to my casita and visit me. There was an energy in this thought like I was pulling them toward me, willing them to connect. Then judgment came in. Judgment that I should not be wanting anything or needing any connection.

All of a sudden, like a veil parting and light coming in, an understanding came to me.

Connection is our natural state. It is the truth under every other reality. Wanting connection like I was is not necessarily a weakness or a problem. It is that we are naturally connected and feeling not connected is the problem.

Our society has an expectation of being okay being not connected. And so many of us are trying to figure out how to be okay with it. We go to therapy and analyze and try and think our way through not needing connection.

I think trying to be okay with something as unnatural as not being connected gives rise to all kinds of problems. I think we can get co-dependent, anxious, sad, drained, lose interest in things, get insomnia, and more. It can even cause physical illness as I witnessed recently in a young woman here in Mexico. We had a talk about it and when she saw she was longing for connection and denying this longing she decided her longing was okay as long as she was balanced and healthy with it. The next day every symptom she had was gone.

I think denying my own longing has made me feel lonely and I have ignored the loneliness or denied it. But this morning I saw it in such a different way, as something so natural. And when I saw this a light came into my heart and I could feel that my longing is a longing of love, not of weakness. It is a longing for something natural that all of us should and must have.

In this moment any weirdness and judgment dissolved and so did the pulling toward the other person. I felt love and my whole self opened to the connection that is all around me. The trees and bugs and dogs and hummingbird met me in this space of love and my need for connection was fulfilled and my own wholeness and truth restored.

What happens if you give yourself permission to need connection? What happens if you open to all the connection you have and not just the one connection you are focused on?

Thank you to everyone who is, without conditions, connected to me. I love all of you and draw strength, sanity, and wholeness from our bond.