Connect 4

con·nec·tion  (k-nkshn)

n.

1.

a. The act of connecting.

b. The state of being connected.

2. One that connects; a link: made a connection between the two pipes.

3. An association or relationship: There appeared to be no connection between the two crimes.

4. The logical or intelligible ordering of words or ideas; coherence.

5. Reference or relation to something else; context: In this connection, the agreement can be seen as a step toward peace.

6. A person, especially one of influence or importance, with whom one is associated, as by kinship or common interests: used her connections to land a job.

7. A conveyance or scheduled run providing continuing service between means of transportation: missed my connection in Atlanta.

8. A physical link, such as by wire or fiber-optic cable, between two or more points in a telecommunications system: established a connection to the Internet.

9. A means or channel of communication: couldn't hear due to the bad phone connection.

10. Slang

a. A drug dealer.

b. A purchase of illegal drugs.

I love to puzz. Puzzling is one of my favorite Winter activities. I love figuring out how all the pieces connect and you can start to look for the pieces that fit together (you even start dreaming in puzzles after a while...maybe that's just me!).  I'm finding that the puzzle pieces of my relationships are much more difficult that those Ravensburgers that I love so much.

As of late, my social and work calendars have been so packed--I feel like I'm short circuiting due to over-connecting. It doesn't help that I've lost my voice, yet once again, which doesn't allow for me to communicate and connect the way I like to. I'm still learning my lessons of connecting with disingenuous people and realizing that there are very few people in life who are honest, caring & have the capacity to have a genuine connection. Gotta keep listening to my instincts and sussing out who is genuine and who's just a jerkface. Whew. It's rough work. Maybe I'll just take a short hibernation....

Here's to a Tuesday of connection--with your self, your community, your friends, your favorite book...Happy Tuesday!

We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness. 

-Albert Schweitzer

Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and to feel connected with others. Instead, we often contract, fear intimacy, and suffer a bewildering sense of separation. We crave love, and yet we are lonely. Our delusion of being separate from one another, of being apart from all that is around us, gives rise to all of this pain. -Sharon Salzberg

Only through our connectedness to other can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.

 -Harriet Goldhor Lerner

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect. -E.M. Forster

Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Own own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller,  and we increase our capacity for connection--or compassionate action. -Daniel Goleman

The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention.... A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.

- Rachel Naomi Remen

We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.

- Herman Melville