Disconnected Connection

Connection with one another and with our kids is a primary drive for most of us.  I have gone to whole courses on how to develop connection with our children, especially those from hard places.  Sometimes, though, the process of connection is a long and slow process that has many steps forward and back.  Sometimes we will never really have the connection with others that we so desire.  Sometimes we think we have a good connection, only to realize that it does not reach deeply into the heart of the person we are wanting to connect to.  Often people deeply wounded do not have the capacity for the connection that we so desire.  Sometimes our own hearts do not even seem to allow the full connection that we yearn for.  I am learning to be committed to deep connection, while holding the desired results of that connection with open hands.  Often I need to be consciously disconnected from behaviours and breaks in connection.  I am not good at allowing that disconnection.  I take perceived rejection or lack of connection personally. Anger and frustration over poor connection often builds quickly.  This has been a most challenging part of the adoption journey for me.

 I am slowly learning to work at strengthening my own connection with myself and with God first.  I try to put a circle of light around my very self that shines on others and on my own heart, while protecting me from the hard barbs of perceived failure in connecting.  I call it conscious disconnection from the response of others.  For those times when it is my own heart that lets me down, I step back, forgive myself, and disconnect even from the results of my own heart.  I consciously allow God's light to flow through me, checking for those places of tightness and restriction within me and paying loving attention to those inner places, letting the light warm and flow.

At first I was not sure whether to call this post "connected disconnection" or "disconnected connection."  Both connection and disconnection are important heart skills to learn.  They bring another of those central life paradoxes into our lives.  In my own heart I am completely committed to connection first and foremost.  I would not have adopted if that had not been the case.  I am in the process of learning how to grasp the right kind of disconnection in order to be alive and healthy in my world.  I am not sure I have yet got the disconnected part, so disconnected will be the adjective describing the connection for now.  Let's not be afraid of disconnection.  In many ways it is equally as important to learn as connection.  Perhaps a better word for "disconnection" is "releasing."  For today, take the pressure off the connection for both you and your kids.  Love through both connection and disconnection, releasing those ever present demands for perfection.  Help both yourself and your kids make those inner connections and heart love first.  Let go and disconnect from the desired results or connection, forgiving yourself and others. Dig deep for the warmth of love to somehow shine through it all.