What Happens When You Engage And Connect With Someone?

Every relationship has its ups and downs. If they are not, ask them what brings them peace, and where does that center of peace live within or outside of them. We are subatomic particles moving at the speed of light and therefore are all connected. Inquire within, engage with others. If we ignore our relationships and think they will simply continue as they always have, then we’re not paying attention. If we think things will eventually change for the better, but we don’t have a plan for change, then we’re not actively pursuing what we want. Being in a relationship is among the highest forms of spiritual practice. For many of us though, when we are in a relationship and in love, we think about all the ways our relationship could be better. In contrast, when we aren’t in a relationship, romantic or otherwise, we think about what it would be like to be in one. The mind always wants what seems better. When you are first dating someone, you experience the excitement, joy, and ecstasy of being with someone new. The butterflies in your stomach, the giddiness of getting a message from them, the excitement of being in the person’s presence.

Everything in its Right Place

Those feelings eventually fade away. The cloud of newness dissipates, and that’s when you get to know the person. You’re no longer intoxicated by the hormones coursing through your body during the attraction phase. The beginning of relationships is really you, just experiencing yourself. One can sense the love, but really, the experience of love is happening within you. It takes a lot more than initial attraction to see who the other person is. You can then make a conscious choice to actively engage with that person or not. Have you ever gone to a yoga class and smiled at someone but only because you don’t have to engage with them? Engaging with other humans is difficult for some of us. During my early days of practicing yoga, I enjoyed the comfort of a yoga studio. I liked being with people, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone. It would be like, Hey, I’m here, but don’t talk to me, okay? You stay in your joyful space over there on your mat, and I’ll stay in my joyful space over here on mine. Then when I’m done, I’ll leave without making eye contact with anyone lest I have to engage in conversation.

All The Time You Need

See what I mean? The difference between engagement and connection is this. Engaging with someone is an intentional practice. If we say someone is engaged in writing, we mean that they are making a conscious effort toward the practice of writing. If someone were to say that they were connected to writing, we might assume that is simply a mental attitude about writing. We can achieve connection through engagement, but we can’t achieve engagement through connection. One is the product of the other. We can’t say we connected to someone and subsequently engaged with them any more than we could say that we had eaten a meal and then made it. Both are important, and there’s a specific sequence of events. Growing up, I avoided eye contact with people because that could potentially put me in a bad situation. Engaging came at a dangerous cost. My romantic relationships had also not been great, so my examples of how to connect were all over the place. When we are in a relationship, engaging and connecting are a fluid dance that requires our active participation.

Deep Deep Feeling

For me, this was a scary process. What happens when you engage and connect with someone? At some point, it ends. When Torry and I were going through a difficult time, we had to face this reality. One evening, we decided to go to Venice to have dinner at our favorite restaurant. We hadn’t gone out anywhere for a long time because we couldn’t afford it. When we arrived, our conversations were more pleasantries than anything. Small talk filled the space between us, so we didn’t have to feel the thickness of impending doom. There was so much I needed to say, but I didn’t have the words. I had spent so much time convincing myself that everything was okay. I was in the repression phase. I didn’t want to engage because I knew that if I did, we were going to have a very difficult conversation. However, my inability to express my feelings created a deep level of resentment toward him. We ate our meal and quickly headed back to the car. We walked along the sidewalk and got to the car when he asked, Do want to go stick your toes in the sand? I nodded, and we walked toward the water. I kicked off my sandals so that I could feel the tiny grains of sand between my toes. We found a spot and sat down. We sat in silence, the sky still glimmering from the passing sunset. You’re not happy, he said, breaking the quiet. You’re not happy with me. I hoped my silence would be enough to alert him I didn’t want to have a conversation. I had disengaged months prior so that I would be equipped to end it. We went home, and when we got there, I burst into tears. I didn’t know what I wanted, and I was confused, angry, and full of resentment. My inability to be honest with Torry kept me from engaging with him. I didn’t have any solutions, and truthfully, I didn’t believe it would get better. That night, between feelings of sadness and a tiny sliver of hope, we decided to give our relationship another chance. To bring a relationship back to life, there must be two willing participants. You don’t have to know how you are going to get there, you just must be willing to try. We both agreed to create a plan for change and proactively did what we needed to do to make it better.