The power of connecting

Some days, when you least expect it, something powerful happens… it happened to me this morning.

While I was wrestling with website and informatics issues and getting frustrated about it, I received a long message through Whatsapp from someone who had read my book. It is not the first feedback I received, but this one really made my day. It came at the right time, when I was really in need of a boost.

She mentioned how she couldn’t put the book down and that she did not want it to end, which I honestly think is the feedback any writer would love to receive! She mentioned as well that in her opinion a lot of people would be helped by reading my book, and that is exactly the reason why I wrote it. Oh, it was a sweet moment when I read this morning’s message! The result was an exchange of messages that moved me and during which I felt a strong connection with the person in question.

This made me wonder about the importance of connecting with people. From my point of view connecting to people can be done in different ways, but there has to be some profoundness to it. It is not by chatting about the weather that I feel I connect with people. Generally I feel a connection to people when there is some soul sharing going on: talking about feelings, talking about passions, talking about things close to your heart.

Lately I found I could more easily connect to people… maybe I have more peace in my head allowing me to pay more attention or maybe because lately I got lucky in meeting people I feel I can share something with… probably both factors play a role ;-).

With the slow and cautious easing of restrictions, I started getting into touch with people again in the real world. I went for a walk with some neighbours or people I connected to previously through online events or courses. This novelty of creating connections online is something that has obviously developed from this long period of isolation we were all forced into due to the current pandemic. Being the online contacts and the virtual meetings the only ones allowed, I think people were more open to connect in these new virtual ways. Probably openness to those new ways of connecting, has helped me to get into touch with people around me even though I am new on this Emerald Island. Strange how apparently unfavourable and difficult situations actually may be catalysts to new opportunities and possibilities to connect!

So lately, from a personal connection point of view I can only be positively surprised: even through lockdowns I got to connect with people I would probably never have connected with if the situation had been “normal”. Conversely, probably in a normal situation I would have probably had the chance to connect in a more conventional way: school meetings, sports events, etc, but I nevertheless am quite convinced those contacts probably wouldn’t have been as profound as the ones I have found in the current circumstances. It seems like people were looking to get the most of the rare connections they could have and valued them differently…

It is so special when you get to connect to like minded souls. It gives so much energy. I actually never gave it much thought and did not feel I missed it so much during lockdown, but when I actually got the chance to make new connections, I really felt so much better. We are social creatures in the end and we need each other to bounce ideas off each other and exchange ideas, emotions and experiences, to feel valued and included… so let us connect more and get talking, or writing, or chatting, or zooming, or skyping… 🙂

May 13, 2021