Human Connection: Challenging the Status Quo

With my last blog I seem to have hit the connection button. That is to say that the responses I got from you all were all about connection. Some of you felt a strong resonance with me and my words, some felt willing to try to meet me in that “opinion-less” place to further our connection, and some felt our bond was being threatened by my present point of reference, and that I might want to soften that stance because we are “interconnected after all.”

It feels like many of you heard, and in turn reflected to me, what was at the heart of the blog. My longing for connection. My longing for deep emotional connection. Maybe for a simpler, more authentic connection. I suppose that is the startling part of my desire to be alone so regularly. It seems counterintuitive to want to be alone when I also long for connection. Or maybe it isn’t so unusual at all. It would be interesting to know how many of us seek solitude when we long for connection. I have noticed that solitude is less irritating to my system than, for example, connection that is in some way not particularly satisfying. I believe that kind of ‘connection’ is the perfect breeding ground for loneliness. For the moment, it still feels incredibly soothing to my system to exist in a bubble of opinion free space. My life-long and current longing for human connection seems to be taking second fiddle to my desire to not have to navigate so much. To not have to be so alert, and considerate (honestly).

My personal astrology and birth card both point to responsibility as a big topic in this lifetime for me. Finding the balance of taking responsibility for the things that are mine to care for and learning not to feel responsible for that which isn’t mine. I feel that I have spent most of my life (up until a little over a decade ago) honoring my responsibility to others while neglecting my responsibility to self. I tend to be a diligent student, and at a young age I learned and took to heart the lesson, with its expectations of me as a female in patriarchal society, that everyone else’s needs always come first. Hence, I feel my current lessons around responsibility have to do with learning to be more responsible to myself. (I’m sure what I just said will have pushed some of your buttons. I too used to judge people in my life, who were better about taking care of themselves than I was, as selfish.)  
 
Challenging the status quo pushes our buttons. More so when we question some part of it that many of us still align with. I push my own buttons all the time when challenging certain structures and precepts of the white patriarchal society we live in. Especially when I push up against the more subtle and therefore more accepted parts of it. I have learned, however, to trust that there really is an oppressive mechanism at play when something makes me feel like I am stuck in a corner and must fight my way out.

Like the sharing of opinions, which to me often feels like a rigid form of communication that has very specific rules, to enable very specific outcomes. It doesn’t feel authentic or connective. Since I need something from life that isn’t permissible within that system, I’m challenging the status quo of its social structure. If I can make visible the cracks and incongruencies in it, then I feel justified in bucking the system. So that ultimately, I can honor my own needs without feeling like I am misbehaving in some way. And then openly turn (with a clear heart) to the task of meeting my own needs. Like my need to not have to wade through so many opinions.

In this stage of my journey, I am being challenged to practice responsibility to self. It has never been so apparent before now. I have always been a champion of the so-called underdog. I am quite good at fighting for other’s rights and fair treatment. It is newer for me to be such a vocal advocate for myself and my rights. It feels strange to buck systemic structures on my own behalf. I’m guessing, based on my past experiences with learning a new skill (especially anything to do with boundaries), that I have come on quite forcefully with my first public attempts to ask that my needs be met. There is always a lot of built-up energy behind something that we are just learning how to do, especially when practicing it with others for the first few times.

My tone will likely soften and feel less forceful at some point in the future. Once I have truly mastered this new skill. I ask for your patience. And yes, I still want to connect with all of you, in all the ways possible. Especially when we can both arrive with an open and curious heart, to simply share in each other’s love and companionship. Basking in our individual and combined beauty. Floating on each other’s divine opinion-less grace when possible and peacefully navigating our human grace when that is all that is available to us.

Sending you so much deep, juicy, unconditional love,
Tawa
 
P.S. Be sure to check out our upcoming class. Dates and times have been finalized. I look forward to stretching myself out of solitary life, to connect and commune with you all about our self-soothing patterns and their origins. As you’ve seen, seeking solitude is a strong self-soothing pattern for me.