Making connections is how we find and experience meaning in our lives.

Is my life just a game I play and hope I don’t lose too badly? Sometimes, that’s how it can feel. The singular feeling of loneliness which is common to so many of us invites that sort of question, that sort of concern. Does my life have meaning? Is it just a random game that I hope not to lose (too badly)? I’m not convinced that’s the way it works, despite what loneliness might suggest to me. Here’s why.

From the beginning of our lives we explore the things and beings around us. We reach out to them, touch, taste, smell, hear and see them. Our curiosity makes us wonder: what, who, how, why, when? And we explore, more and less at different times in our lives. Even in the womb, developing fetuses can be seen sucking their thumbs, pleasuring themselves, stretching, making sucking movements with their mouths. Twins in utero touch each other, hold hands and embrace. 

We are inherently beings who must connect with life around us, and that includes connecting with ourselves, our bodies, our feelings, our thoughts, and the various energies that run through us. 

As we make those connections, two things happen: we get to know ourselves better, and we begin developing an awareness of an energy (or energies) much larger than ourselves. 

What do you love? What’s important to you? What are you doing with your life? Those are big questions, and in some sense we take a lifetime to answer them, but they are all rooted in the connections we make with life around us. 

Out of those connections (even unhappy ones!) we can, if we find ways to pay attention, begin to perceive a kind of meaning taking shape–a meaning that we will recognize as our own. That requires some intention and some work. The meaning that is ours is waiting at the door for us. We just have to open it.

Robert Patrick

If these kinds of questions and experiences sound familiar, you might find spiritual direction a good way to explore them.  Here’s how to get started.

Or, write me: robert@corconnection.us