Reach out and touch
Connection is one of those words you hear everywhere: in the media, on Facebook, from politicians and scientists. I hear “connected” all the time, and not just in the context of being connected through social media or smartphone messaging. “Let’s connect some time” or “I don’t feel connected to anyone” or “I feel deeply connected to this place; I feel at home here.”
Experiencing connectedness is essential for realising our potential and life satisfaction, yet it’s importance and the health consequences of disconnection are rarely discussed. Here, I’ll explore the link between connectedness and wellbeing and offer some simple actions to bring it into your life.
There’s connecting and then there’s connectedness
The word “connect” has a spectrum of meanings related to joining together, the original meaning of the Latin connectere. There are at least four verbal constructs to which connect refers:
1. To join
2. To establish communication (“I can’t connect with Linda on Skype”)
3. To associate with (“I connect the sound of seagulls with my beach holidays”)
4. To establish rapport with (“I feel connected to Gus despite just having met him”)
All these meanings are about “joining together”, yet connectedness is more than this. Rather, connectedness is about being aligned in some meaningful way to another being, place or spirit.
