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Today I can open my phone and find a person on the other side of the world that is experiencing similar health challenges to me and I can connect with her on social media and see what she has for breakfast each day. I can join a Facebook group with people who own the same dog breed as me. Have Zoom meetings to discuss my favorite books with like-minded people. There probably never has been a time when finding community and connecting with people has been easier. And yet, I often feel like I don't belong here.
I find myself mindlessly scrolling for hours. Being bombarded with so many quotes and life advice I should have reached enlightenment by now. But instead, I am feeling more lost than ever before.
The last few weeks have been an exploration of what it means to belong and to connect. What it feels like. Why it is important to me and most of all how it strongly correlates with the joy I am experiencing. And it all started when I deleted all social media apps from my phone.
What? That might sound very counterintuitive. And to be honest I was not intentionally venturing out on a quest to explore the topic of belonging. It happened as a byproduct of me just being tired of wasting so much time each day online.
And contrary to my expectation I did not lose all my motivation because I was 'missing out' on all this inspirational content. I did not feel disconnected because I was no longer involved in the life of people I barely knew. Instead, I found it refreshing to no longer compare my reality to someone else's highlight real. I felt like I had permission to move in my own rhythm. I no longer was aware of what strangers on the internet had already achieved while I was still running around in my p.j.'s. Instead of listening to ten different gurus, I started to finally listen to my gut.
I still found myself opening and checking my phone about every 3 seconds just to put it back down and then really having no idea what to do with myself. So I often just sat there. Looking at my surrounding and observing my thoughts. I felt myself slowing down. And after a few days, I reached a place where I was craving even more introspection. So I started to wake up an hour before everyone else to sit with myself. I started with some stretching. This allowed me to land in my body and to check in. It felt like for so long I had been living outside of myself. Now I was finally coming home. For me, this is where the experience of belonging started to present itself. I became very familiar with my breath which lead to a deeper connection to my feelings that were present at that moment and also to my core. It felt like I reconnected to my energy source. I landed in my body. I was no longer just running around like a chicken without a head but I was actually consciously animating this body.
With less time spent glued to a screen, I also started to see more beauty around me and especially in nature. Breathing fresh air and connecting with the elements made me feel so much more vibrant. Noticing the texture under my feed and the billion different shades of the ocean. The presence, I all of the sudden could bring to many situations made me feel grounded and at peace. Like I belong here. And this energy carries through into my interpersonal connections. Instead of sending Instagram shorts to my friends and watching their stories which gave me a sense of knowing them I now pick up the phone and check in with them. It feels like the sense of belonging started in my own body, was then reflected back to me by the beauty of nature, and is now the fabric of the relationships I have in my life. As a result of this, I feel like there is less stress and anxiety in my life and way more joy. I am more present with everything that is going on inside of me and around me and that allows me to fully be alive.
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