The Yin & Yang of Connection & Alonenss

I’m thrilled to notice the attention that connection is garnering, related to our mental health.  It is true. We are relational beings and we need healthy consistent connections to not only survive but  to also thrive.  These connections feed our souls, hold our hearts and challenge our minds. A poverty of safe connections, especially over time, has an immense negative impact on a person’s sense of self and their ability to form and maintain safe relationships. 

Yet, it is also true that we are living our lives alone, even if we are among others. Even when we feel seen and heard, valued and supported, we are the only ones inside our skin, having the experiences that we call our life. Existential philosophers like Kierkagaard and Sartre wrote extensively about these ideas in their works, generally saying that grappling with aloneness is an existential crisis all humans encounter.

Developing a strong conscious relationship with connection and aloneness cultivates a deeper awareness and trust in both ourselves and others;  it becomes a guardrail to prevent veering off a cliff into hyper independence or faulty dependencies on other people or other things.

A few years ago, I experienced a family crisis and within 24 hours, a dear friend flew halfway across the country to be with me. She stood alongside me as I began to process the event and help my children absorb and process the event. She was with me at the start and end of each day for over a week.  Her presence steadied me, comforted me and reminded me how we truly heal in relationship.

The day after she left, one of my sons had a sudden medical issue that necessitated immediate surgery. And I was alone. Not in every sense alone, there was hospital staff, and friends I was connecting with through text, but in the surgical waiting area at 1am, it was me and a sea of empty chairs.  It was a sobering moment that felt like an opportunity to explore the hidden potential of aloneness in part, because of the stark contrast from the week before, when I felt seen, supported and held. So I sat with it, just like I invite my clients to do.  I found it within my body; where that aloneness lived and how it communicated with me. I got curious about it and asked what it wanted me to know.  

The answers weren’t deeply profound, or surprising.  Instead, they were more intimate and grounding. Intimate because in my aloneness, I reconnected with the felt sense awareness that being alone, experiencing my unique life from my perspective, in that moment, felt sacred, like something to privately honor. Even though I was there physically with my son, he was experiencing the surgery alone and even though I had friends checking in;  I was physically alone experiencing this event as his parent. 

It felt grounding because even in the physical absence of people that love me and can support me, I felt their emotional presence, I felt all the love and support that they have poured into me.  Also connecting to those truths, opened me to the sacred space available to me in that moment. The aloneness became centering; I could hear myself and I could listen. I could stay focused on his needs and I could trust the staff to do their jobs while I advocated for him.

I wonder how that experience may have been different if I had “gone into my head” and spun a narrative of isolation as opposed to being curious about the aloneness?  I wonder what other choices I may have made if I needed to “get away” from the discomfort, if I had in various ways either abandoned myself or him or both of us in the experience?

What I do know is that the choices I did make, connected me more deeply to myself, more deeply to him (he recovered well) and more deeply to other relationships in my life. That feels like a conscious harmonizing of connection and aloneness, like the perfect salty and sweet snack.

Honoring the importance of safe connection while also honoring the sacred reality of aloneness feels like the harmonizing balance of yin and yang.  Both are important - distinct in their value, yet together creating a grounding, steadying foundation. May each of you reclaim and reconnect to the beauty of safe connection and the hallowed ground of conscious aloneness in your own life.