I didn’t feel like going out last night, so I didn’t. I rarely do anything anymore because I think I “should” do it. This week I went to a few holiday parties, and although at one level I enjoyed the festivities, I noticed a few things too.

I’ve just come out of several weeks of doing very little other than meditating. What I noticed first and foremost about the parties was how loud they were.

Why so loud? It reminded me of my recent blog posts on vulnerability and the guru problem about all the things we do to avoid feelings. Do we really need the music so loud? Or are we covering something up by doing that? I noticed it was hard to feel myself at all in such a loud environment.

It would be different if we were at a concert, if we were dancing and becoming one with the music. But we weren’t. It felt like we were competing with the music, at odds with it.

I also noticed that, with a few exceptions, most of the conversations I found myself in felt very disconnected. It felt like we were going through the motions. Speaking words that nobody actually cared to hear. I heard people talking about “making an appearance.” I heard a lot of talk of logic and logistics and things I can’t even remember because they were so disconnected.

When my friend got really honest, she said she doesn’t think most people even really want to go to these parties. That it feels like an obligation.

I felt like I was walking around in the Matrix, already unplugged, with one and only one desire: to unplug everyone else.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working with clients on themes of disconnection. It has made me realize that we have one and only one fundamental problem in our society: disconnection. Every other problem stems from this one.

I see with Erika Awakening Coaching Testimonials & Reviews how absolutely devastating it is to grow up in families with disconnected parents, whether that happens through divorce, violence, violent communication, neglect, or just plain lack of presence. These patterns stay with people throughout their lives unless they get them healed. This is where What Is Holistic Belief Reprogramming? can be so powerful for people.

There are lots of obvious ways to disconnect: blocking someone on Facebook, refusing to communicate, dumping someone abruptly, leaving one person for another. Death, illness, divorce. But there are a lot of non-obvious ways to disconnect that are equally tragic, such as judging, criticizing, shaming, or blaming someone.

I look back at how I was so upset that Entropy wasn’t willing to leave his girlfriend sooner to be with me, and I come to a profound realization: I didn’t want him to leave her. She was moving to Africa, and I didn’t want him to bail on her before that. It was painful to me to imagine him leaving her because if I were in her shoes, I wouldn’t want to be left behind.

When I got angry, I had forgotten the power of my own subconscious mind: that we will never allow ourselves to have and keep something that we believe will hurt someone else. I felt guilt, and guilt is the great saboteur. How different it might have turned out if the two relationships could have been brought together instead of kept separate.

Anyway, disconnection is devastating. It undermines our sense of self-worth at a fundamental level. When it happens to children, they often develop strategies for receiving love that sabotage them throughout their adult lives, such as approval seeking, going up into their heads (becoming very intellectual or analytical), tolerating abusive relationships, or all of the above. The relationships with their parents become the templates for all of their adult relationships, for better or (often) for worse.

All that said, what do we do about the disconnection problem?

Certainly Erika Awakening Coaching Page. I help my clients transform their past relationship karma so that they can begin to create brand new templates for their relationships.

I am now also setting a very powerful intention in my own life to raise awareness. This is my Connection Manifesto.

1. I choose to become aware of every impulse I have to disconnect, whether it’s through asking someone not to contact me anymore, dumping someone, avoiding someone, judging, blaming, or criticizing, etc.

2. Every time I become aware of an impulse to disconnect, I vow to stay connected instead. I vow to stay connected until we are both happy with the outcome, no matter how long it takes to get there. I will never disconnect again without at the very least creating an avenue for reconnection (this might look like: “I’m feeling really overwhelmed by your emails right now, and I need to take a few days to get grounded again. But I will reconnect with you when I feel ready, and please if it feels very urgent, please feel free to reconnect with me first.”)

3. No matter what the other person does, I will leave the porch light on and the welcome mat out. If the other person disconnects, I will not retaliate. I will make it clear that I remain open to reconnection.

4. If the other person disconnects and then seeks reconnection, I will give instant forgiveness and reconnection. I will not withhold reconnection in order to punish that person or “make them appreciate me.” If I feel any doubts about reconnecting, I will express them. (for example, “I am feeling a bit wary about reconnecting because it felt so stressful last time. I wonder what we could do this time around so this feels better for both of us.”)

5. Whenever I feel angry with another person, I choose to do my Shadow work and find where I am really angry with myself. Where in my life am I doing the same thing that I am angry with this person about?

6. Whenever I feel critical of another person, I choose to instantly search within myself for compassion and empathy. I choose to see the situation through their eyes, put myself in their place, and search myself for the very human reasons that they may be doing what they are doing.

I have decided that this is what I would want from others if I were in their shoes. This is my way of being the change I want to see in the world. Because life mirrors back to us what we have become, the more compassionate and connected I become, the more I will receive that back from the people in my life.

Imagine how powerful a person you will be when you have learned how to stay connected no matter what. Do you realize what such a person can do? If you have learned to stay present no matter how charged a conversation has become, and see it through to resolution, eventually

– you can walk anywhere in the world and be safe,
– you can mediate disputes between people in the most war-torn regions of the world and bring peace everywhere you go,
– you can live a life of joy and deepest intimacy,
– you can live a life of vibrant relationships that endure forever,
– every conflict in your life will disappear, one by one,
– all the myths of what everyone told us was impossible between people will melt away.

We will usher in a new era of universal peace, trust, and prosperity.

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My next post will like address the theme of this week: clearing out sexual guilt and shame.

Almost everyone in our society is carrying around hidden sexual guilt and shame. Think about it: our parents (most of them) were so ashamed of their own sexuality that they put us off in separate rooms while they engaged in intimacy. We were taught from our first days on this planet that intimacy means (a) something that must be hidden, (b) something we must exclude others from when we engage in it. How could we not believe it is dirty and shameful if it cannot be shared with others and must be kept private?

Yeah, I’m getting into major big-time taboos here, and they all need to be brought to conscious awareness so they stop having unconscious power over us …