Fulfilling the Need for Connection
I recently completed a guided meditation on loneliness where it was suggested that hunger and loneliness are spurred on by the same need in a person’s brain. When our tummy tells our brain it needs nourishment, we act on that need, but do we act on our need for connection when we’re lonely?
Like many of you, my yearning for connection grew by leaps and bounds during the height of COVID. With very little recourse, my personal world became smaller and smaller, and although my husband is great company day in and day out (for over 26 years now), I still craved interaction with others. Then the world opened up, and doing something and going somewhere finally became an option.
But I was still lonely and didn’t know how to satisfy that hunger.
I have very few friends nearby. It seems that once a person no longer goes to work each day, exhausts their desirable volunteer activities, and their neighbors move away, there are fewer opportunities to make healthy connections. Fortunately, that ache was met 3 years ago when I attended a weekly Tai Chi class at a local community center. And since meeting a female class attendee who is the same age as me, that attendee has become a valuable friend with whom I spend quality time, although we no longer attend the Tai Chi class.
The need to connect is still there, but if I hadn’t sought that initial connection, the possibility of a deeper one would never have developed. I guess a good way of summing up matters is to say that if I hadn’t done my part, I would still be as isolated as I was during the pandemic, and suffering the same mental health deficit I felt at that time. As Yoda of the Star Wars movie franchise fame so succinctly said:
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
If you don’t set a goal, you’ll never reach it. If you don’t ask, you’ll never receive. We only have one life to live. Please don’t let it expire without your participation.
You do you.
Living: the ultimate team sport 