How I Choose Connection as a Practice
Snowstorm coming and my internal barometer registers “antsy.” I hear the voice in my head say: “I don’t’ know what to do with myself.” Thirty options topple over each other, and I can’t pick. I choose “walk in nature” not because it’s a good idea (7 degrees out) but because my body wants the rhythmic motion, the open spaces and trees. Some days I walk and listen to the trees and spaces. Some days I need the trees and spaces to listen to me.
Today I needed to feel connected, to feel I am not by myself. This is something I feel, not something I pretend, think, fantasize or imagine. I behold a tree, such as the massive willow at the end of my street, with my heart. I focus my awareness on my heart and tune in to what I perceive. Today the feeling could be expressed by the words, “here with you, baby. We got you.” As I walk the trail through fields, I realize that tens of thousands or even millions of other humans are walking a trail through fields or woods at this very moment all over earth. I look down at the crystalline-frost-lined fescue grass and wildflower stalks, glistening like jewelry. No one is seeing what I’m seeing in this moment, but collectively, all those walking through fields are seeing earth, plants, nature. We are together in this experience, together in this moment if not in location.
When I travel by plane, I look around at all of us at the gate or in the plane on the tarmac, and feel with my heart, “here we are, all together.” I feel warm and loving, open and expansive. The same when I travel on the freeway, I take in all the cars I can see ahead, beside, and behind me, and I feel in my heart, here we are, all together.
Not only does this practice leave me feeling peaceful in my body, but also, when I do encounter beliefs that seem hateful, it’s not too difficult to recall the feeling of here we are, together in my heart. The only thing separating us is my belief about hateful beliefs. (The Work of Byron Katie has given me invaluable insight about this.) And if my nervous system is triggered into fear anyway, I have somatic practices like rocking, shaking and toning that can help me downregulate my fight response to recover my precious inner peace that makes me able to feel connection.
No one can steal my peace. No one can steal my open-hearted, expansive love if I own my power to keep it. This takes making a conscious choice. It takes practice to own my power, to continually become aware of the ways and places I give my power away. Like every other person, I’m free to feel separation and I’m free to choose to connect. The ego prefers separation, but I’ve had enough decades of that, thank you.
Instead, right now I choose here we are, all together along with millions of people choosing to connect.
