Experiencing Disconnection and Beginning the Journey Back Home to Yourself
Have you ever had someone ask you a question–something seemingly simple like, “What do you enjoy doing?”–and you realize in that moment that you don’t even really know? So many of us are walking around, living our daily lives, completely disconnected from our own souls. Even worse is that we don’t even know how disconnected we are because we’ve been living like this for so long it feels NORMAL. And when we do begin to realize it, we have no clue how to imagine what it would feel like to actually BE CONNECTED to ourselves again, no less actually BEGIN that reconnection process.
The conversation around this disconnection/reconnection and developing a better relationship with ourselves has been a recurring theme with pretty much every human I have worked with. If you’re a woman+ in your late 20s and beyond, it is VERY likely that you either have experienced this feeling of disconnection or you are still experiencing it currently. If you’re not sure what I’m really talking about when I say “disconnection” it can look or feel like this–
Not trusting yourself and not knowing what your intuition feels or sounds like
Not knowing what you like or dislike because you’ve been doing what other people prefer for so long
Not knowing what you’re feeling at any given moment
Intellectualizing your feelings (aka turning your feelings into thoughts instead of actually feeling them)
Ignoring sensations in your body (hunger, fear, anxiety, intuition)
Operating from a place of obligation or meeting others’ expectations without ever pausing to consider if it’s something you actually want to do or feel good about doing
Being a chameleon who just does whatever is needed to make the people around them happy
Inability to name your strengths or best qualities
Not knowing what brings you joy
Can’t remember the last time you experienced truly loving yourself (if ever)
Intellectually being able to name qualities about yourself that you like or value, but not actually FEELING the self-worth and self-love of embodying those qualities
This list could probably go on, but you get the idea. Essentially, you’re existing intellectually, but you’re not actually living IN your body. You’re not connected to your own spirit. There’s a barrier between you and your truest expression of self.
This disconnection happens over time for various reasons. Nearly every human has experienced some kind of trauma in their life and this is a major contributing factor to our disconnection from ourselves. This might be physical trauma such as abuse or it could be emotional trauma such as being raised by emotionally absent parents. It could be the trauma of being raised in a particular religion, or it could be being bullied repeatedly in school. There are, unfortunately, countless ways we experience trauma in our lives, and they essentially all contribute to our disconnection from ourselves, sometimes even layering on top of one another to make the disconnection even more challenging to overcome.
Add on to that internalized oppression whether from white supremacy or patriarchy or any number of other systems of oppression that exist in our world, and the ways that women+ are trained to deny their own experiences, wants, and needs in favor of others’ and it’s really no surprise we’ve found ourselves well into our 30s and 40s before we’re beginning to recognize that this disconnection is affecting us and our ability to live fulfilling, connected, and joyful lives.
So what do we do? It sounds cliche, but the first step to pretty much everything is acknowledging that the problem exists. Recognizing the disconnection is key to beginning to dismantle it. Once you’ve recognized just how disconnected you are, there are countless ways to begin the journey back home to yourself, but they pretty much all take time and effort, and they’re pretty much all “small” things.
After having this conversation with several clients and friends, I decided to create a resource with a collection of ways that help you find your way back home to yourself. I’ve put it all into a calendar to break it down into just ONE small thing you can do each day to help you move towards reconnection. Of course you can take the actions and do whatever feels good for you–pair them up… if you find one you love, do it every day… if you find one that doesn’t resonate, toss it out, etc.
Deep down we all want to live lives full of joy and fulfillment where we feel connected to ourselves and others, and where we feel safe to be our whole selves. Navigating this disconnection to find our way home to our true selves is absolutely vital to being able to access the life we’re dreaming of.
I’ve linked the calendar HERE. And if you’re feeling called for deeper support on this, I will be launching my next Deep Dive–The Polaris Session: Reconnecting to Your True Self & Inner Wisdom in the next couple of weeks, and I also support women through this in my one-to-one coaching series, which you can learn more about HERE.
If you want to be the first to hear about the launch of the Polaris Session, you can sign up for my email list HERE.
Experiencing disconnection from yourself can be incredibly disorienting and even scary. Choosing to dismantle everything that’s keeping you disconnected will change your life. You just have to make the decision that you’re ready to find your way home.
xoxo.
