When I was a teenager, I remember going on a spiritual retreat and we ended the weekend with a hug line. We made a big circle and went from person to person embracing our friends in a hug. With all the boundaries in our modern world, displays of affection like this are no longer common. And even though they are many good reasons to be cautious with touch, I remember these hugs being a healing and healthy experience for me.
Later in life when I discovered The Five Love Languages Test, I was not surprised to discover touch is my primary love language. So in order to feel connected to God, myself, and others, sensory experiences like hugs, prayer hands, my feet touching the bare earth, or palms at my heart space all help me feel connected.
Perhaps you too remember times in life when you have felt a deep sense of connection to God, nature, yourself, your purpose, others, or even life itself. I invite you to remember a moment, when you felt a deep sense of union with life? As you remember this instance of feeling connected to life or others, can you remember any emotions, thoughts, and sensations in your body?
When you don’t feel connected to life or others, you are living in a state of disconnection. You might disconnect from your body, your emotions, your purpose, your values, your loved ones, or the divine. This might look like isolation, going through the motions, narcotizing on video games, avoiding people, feeling dispassionate about work, annoyance with friends or colleagues, or a lack of motivation.
I can remember working as a hospice chaplain and feeling so exhausted by the demands of my job that I would go the long way to my car so that I didn’t have to see as many of my associates on my way out of the office. In other words, I was dancing around people’s cubicles in order to avoid conversations with my colleagues. I now know that I was experiencing “compassion fatigue.” I was so exhausted by the many needs of my hospice clients, colleagues, and also my family and personal commitments that I started to avoid my colleagues.
When I worked as a hospice chaplain, I would also often start my day at a client’s home, because I knew if I started at the office, I wouldn’t have the emotional energy I needed to see all of my patients and meet their emotional and spiritual needs. Perhaps you can look back at your own life and identify a time when you felt disconnected from yourself, others, or your vocational identity.
In order to reconnect to yourself, life, and others it is important to evaluate the ways you might disconnect from parts of yourself such as your body, your values, your emotions, your purpose, others, or God.
I often detach from my body through not drinking enough water or even forgetting to take regular bathroom breaks. I disconnect from my emotions through pushing down my feelings or tears. I disengage from myself and God through avoiding spiritual practices like silence.
The 20th century theologian, Paul Tillich, referred to disconnection as sin or estrangement. Paul Tillich identified that humans have a tendency to be estranged from God, others, and ourselves. He said that when you separate from yourself you no longer live as who you truly are. Tillich said when you separate from the divine you alienate yourself from there “Ground of Your Being.” He identified that being cut off from God, others, and yourself leads to anxiety, a loss of meaning and purpose, and isolation.
Paul Tillich argued the answer to this estrangement is to accept grace or the wisdom that you are accepted and then once you lean into this grace, you also must have “the courage to be.” This “courage” involves facing fears like your mortality, but also living fully in spite of the fear of your pending death. This “courage to be,” is strengthened by a connection to the “Ground of Being” who constantly reminds you that you are loved and accepted and calls you to find union with God, others, yourself, creation, and even life itself.
If you are estranged from yourself, others, or the “Ground of Your Being,” can you think of any ways to return home to yourself, your loved ones, or life itself? I know in my own life returning to my values of grace, connection, empathy, and gratitude are pathways back to myself. I also feel more connected when I have dance parties with my kids, sing in a worship service, practice yoga, walk with friends, hold sacred space for my clients, or lock hands with my husband.
I started this article sharing a memory of a hug circle I experienced in high school. If you are feeling disconnected from life or yourself and haven’t had a hug in a while, I encourage you to try the “Butterfly Hug,” a practice rooted in both yoga and therapy. Simply cross your arms and hands over your chest so that your thumbs meet at your torso. Your palms will be touching your chest and a portion of your shoulders. If you wish, you can interlock your thumbs. Your eyes can be closed or open. You might bring your chin towards your chest. You can breathe naturally or slowly and intentionally. In order to connect to yourself you might compassionately observe your thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, or sounds. You might alternate your hands and tap one shoulder and then the other one. Or you might turn your butterfly hug into a moving meditation and vacillate between bringing your arms to a T and giving yourself a big hug.
I pray these words will be a hug to you that gently reminds you how worthy you are of union with life and others. You are hardwired for connection and I hope you will seek out people, places, and practices that help you come home to yourself, others, life, and the “Ground of Being.”
A version of this article was originally published in the Lookout Mountain Mirror.
