When You Feel Disconnected
As human beings we are hard wired for connection with others.
We have a universal hunger for meaningful social contact and belonging. We evolved as a tribal species and being part of a group was what ensured our survival. Our drive for social connectedness is so deeply engrained that our brain associates disconnection with rejection and death. In fact, loneliness acts on the same part of the brain as physical pain, and exclusion can hurt as much as an actual wound. Research shows that social disconnection poses significant health risks and is a predictor of premature death, cognitive decline and disease. In other words, if you feel lonely, you are more likely to get sick and less likely to survive.
While research has traditionally focused on social isolation as the cause for loneliness (for example, people who live alone, have physical barriers, or don’t have many friends or family), new research shows that the internal feeling of loneliness and disconnection is at the root of the problem.
So it’s true. You can indeed be in a room full of people or having dinner with your closest friends and still feel completely disconnected.
It’s all about how you feel.
Feelings really matter.
When we talk about disconnection, what is often not addressed is that we have a role in creating it.
And this is good news. Because this means that connection is always available to us – always.
Connection is a Feeling.
Connection is a feeling produced by a thought in your mind and usually it feels really great.
Most of the time we think connection is something that just objectively is (or isn’t). We think that it is something that we find.
But the truth is, we create connection based on our thoughts
Sometimes it is really easy to come up with thoughts that create feelings of connection.
Think about the last time you really “clicked” with someone. Maybe this person was into all the same things as you and the conversation flowed easily. Maybe you’ve had similar life experiences, or you’ve been through some kind of experience together. Or you did something kind for them and they reciprocated. And then you felt connected.
You likely had thoughts like “This person gets me”. It probably felt amazing and effortless. As we know, we usually don’t pay much attention to our thoughts and so you probably didn’t notice what you were thinking. But you were most certainly aware that you felt connected. And this is where we get confused. We think the feeling comes from others. But connection happens in our mind.
Connection comes from the way you are thinking about another person.
When we start to look at relationships, it can be hard to remember that our feelings of connection only ever come from our thoughts. We usually think that it is other people that are making us feel a certain way, or that we are feeling their feelings towards us. But I want to offer that this is never the case. We cannot feel other people’s feelings. We can only feel our own feelings.
When your partner says “I love you”, you feel connected because of the thoughts you have when they say these words.
When your sister shows up at your door with a latte to cheer you up, you feel close to her because of what you are thinking in that moment.
We think that we need other people to create the love and connection we want to feel. But in reality, we create it ourselves. We can feel connected to someone who isn’t with us physically based on our thoughts about them. We can feel close to someone no matter what they do (or don’t do) because thoughts cause our feelings, not other people.
We feel disconnection because of our thoughts too.
We think it just happens. Maybe you’re going through life and all of sudden you come to the realization that you feel distant from someone you love. As if disconnection is something that you have no control over.
We blame our feelings of disconnection on other people. Notice the expectation we then place on our loved ones to fix our emotions.
He seems distant. She didn’t ask me to come for dinner. I wasn’t included in the conversation. He doesn’t seem interested in my day.
Or we attribute our disconnection to external circumstances, which gives away all of our personal power.
Life is busy. We haven’t hung out much. We haven’t had a good conversation for awhile. The kids are taking all of our time. We are preoccupied with work. The pandemic is causing my loneliness.
We talk about disconnection as a state of being, but really, it’s a feeling. Even though it feels uncomfortable, it is still just a feeling.
We think that changing the circumstance will change our emotion, but it doesn’t work that way. You can be sitting right next to a loved one at a coffee shop and feel completely disconnected if you are having thoughts that they don’t care for you or notice you.
We compare our feelings now to our feelings in another time.
We remember the days when we were so in sync. When we felt close, loved, included. Then we compare it to how we feel now. We make it means things about ourselves and our relationships like rejection or exclusion or distance. We make it mean that we have grown apart. That we are alone. That we are disconnected.
The difference is your thoughts.
At other points in your relationship, you had different – likely more positive - thoughts than you are having now, and they created feelings of love, connection, and intimacy.
Remember - you feel the way you do because of what you’re thinking. It is nothing to do with the other person.
Feeling disconnected always prevents connection.
The brain always wants to be right so we will always prove our thoughts true.
The thoughts that create feelings of loneliness and disconnection usually cause us to show up in ways that actually prevent the very intimacy and closeness that we really want.
There was a time when I felt very disconnected from my husband. I blamed him for it, I had lots of thoughts like “He’s so distant”, or “He doesn’t even ask me about my day”. Those thoughts created feelings of loneliness and distance. And what did I do when I felt disconnected? I actually pulled away. I became withdrawn. I busied myself with other things. I become more critical of him. I snapped at him. I was on alert for evidence of how we were disconnected. In doing this, I was actually creating the distance in our relationship when what I wanted most was to feel close.
Connection to yourself matters.
If you can’t connect to yourself you cannot connect to other people. Being with others can become a temporary distraction from your own thoughts. If you are constantly rejecting or avoiding yourself, it doesn’t matter how often you socialize or spend time with others. You will always feel lonely and disconnected. You will end up relying on others to solve your emotions and create the feelings of connection that you don’t know how to create for yourself. If you aren’t careful, you’ll even project your emotions onto other people.
Most people don’t know what it feels like to connect with themselves. We avoid our own thoughts by keeping busy, working, eating. We don’t know how to just be with ourselves and our own brains.
The truth is, your relationship with others can only be as good as your relationship with yourself. You can only connect with others to the same degree that you can connect with yourself.
Here is a powerful question: Do you enjoy being with you? If the answer is no, then this is your most important work.
When you’re feeling disconnected try this:
1. Find the thoughts. Always approach this step with compassion, curiosity and nonjudgement. When you’re feeling distant with someone, or just experiencing a general feeling of loneliness, take a piece of paper and write down all your thoughts. Then take a look. These thoughts are creating your feelings of disconnection. Remember, we never judge or shame ourselves. We just want to become aware of what we are thinking.
Then we can take the most powerful step, which is to DECIDE what to think, instead of just letting our brain run automatically. When you choose thoughts that create feelings of love and connection, you will create completely different results.
2. Look for the connection. Notice what your mind is focusing on and practice redirecting it. Look for connections instead of reasons for separation. Just a warning - this is not going to feel automatic at first.
Notice the ways you are the same. Notice what you admire or like about the other person. If there’s judgement, notice it, and remind yourself this is always a projection.
Disconnection is fuelled by fear. Remember, the main job of your brain is to keep you alive. It’s always looking for threats to your relationships. You brain will constantly bring any potential differences to your attention. And if we aren’t careful, we may confuse these thoughts with actual facts. This is why we must be constantly monitoring our mind and noticing the thoughts we are choosing.
3. Ask great questions. Our brain loves to have a job to do. When we ask ourselves questions, our mind will go to work to find the answer and provide lots of evidence for it. In other words, whatever you look for, you will find.
Ask yourself empowering, high quality questions. Here are some examples:
· If I was feeling close what would I be thinking?
· How do I want to show up in this relationship?
· How can I connect?
· Does this thought serve me and my relationship?
· What do I want to feel?
4. Connect to yourself. A lot of times we don’t want to be alone with ourselves because we don’t like what is going on in our own minds. And if you aren’t used to having time alone, it may feel really strange at first, even uncomfortable. I highly recommend you embrace the discomfort. Face your own mind. Taking time to be alone, without distractions, is an important and powerful way to start to reconnect to yourself. How can you enjoy your own company? How can you connect to yourself?
Remember, connection is always available.
The option to feel connected to anyone is there no matter what – it doesn’t matter if you have things in common, if you agree on everything, or if you are seeing or talking to this person often.
I am not saying that just because you can create a feeling that you should. Just because connection is available, this doesn’t mean you must choose it.
But if you are feeling disconnection and loneliness with someone you love and you want the feeling of closeness in that relationship, you will never create it by just sitting there waiting for things to change on their own. It doesn’t work that way. You become more connected to people by managing your thinking better. The thoughts that create feelings of love and connection will help you show up as the person you really want to be in your relationships. You don’t have to expect other people to change for that to happen.
You are the one who creates closeness and connection with your thoughts. It is always available, and that’s a beautiful thing. Now go out and connect!
