Exploring Connection
I’ve been writing a lot again lately. It feels good. Little pulls of inspiration here and there, urging me back to spilling my soul in ink, fingers smudged in black. And maybe that will always be the case, for when I touch my inner psyche, it’s never clean. A messiness in thoughts and beliefs and experiences… pulsing through me.
I’ve been working on a longer thought piece about inspiration, finding my muse, and returning pen to paper—more on that later—but that’s not why I’m here. I hope this to be a quick jotting of thoughts (plot twist, it’s not).
Lately, I’ve been contemplating the way we are connected to others. And the vastness of connection. Obviously, each connection is unique in its own right. And yet, there seems to be an underlying energy represented in the big and important connections in my life.
It’s so interesting to me that some connections feel as if they span time and space. Like meeting was inevitable. And maybe it was. Whether you or I believe in karma and past lives and fate and free will and all that, the meeting and merging of some souls are simply meant to be. For this, I loosely use the term soulmates, of which I think we have many in this life. Outside of my family, I’ve already met and nurtured relationship with a handful of mine. Maybe you’re rolling your eyes at me, but most of them are my best friends, and only a few became lovers.
And this is why I think we need to break the hierarchy of romantic love, not because it’s not important—it is one of the most life changing loves we get to experience, and yet, life becomes so much more loving and fulfilling when we take people off the hierarchy of experience and importance.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be the priority and one of the most important people to my lover, and them to me, and there will always be space within that importance for exploring deep and fulfilling connection with others. When we break from the modern idea of the nuclear family and look back to our ancestral roots of communal living, there is so much more space for love to flourish.
The older I get, the more clarity I experience around the type of life I desire to live. And it’s not the one that’s been advertised to me through media and the majority of people I know. It’s radical in its remembrance of how things used to be. A shared life, with support and love and importance placed on every member of my community. And in this reclamation, I also realize that I’m not meant to find a community, but forge my own. This isn’t my bid for cult leader, although it can sound that way to someone who hasn’t experienced this type of certainty within loving relations. The type of certainty that makes you want to build something bigger to create a better life for everyone around you, not just your children, but your friends and their partners and their children.
But I digress. That also isn’t what this spilling of thoughts is meant to explore. Back to connections…
I know some people are meant to be lessons. And even in that, they are typically a blessing first. I don’t think time is wasted on people. Yet, I can waste my own time by saying yes to people that are clearly not in alignment with what I deeply desire. This is a lesson I’ve had to learn and am still learning in many ways.
I tend to be an all or nothing type of person. As I age, I realize that I don’t care to hold onto things that are just “good enough,” like satiating in some ways but clearly not the right fit in many other areas. A younger me was content with the attention that these connections offered, but 30 year old me isn’t.
The more we fill our time, energy, and space with good enough, we give away capacity for things that can be greater than we imagine. And this desire, lack of self knowledge, and settling feels childish. And maybe that isn’t the right way to describe it because children don’t do this, they tend to be all or nothing too. Maybe its a lack of belief in self, a miscommunication with values, or a deeper rooted doubt about deserving everything that will create total fulfillment. And even that statement is convoluted. Because total fulfillment can only happen through self, yet, the pathway to some of the greatest fulfillment is through connection with others.
And then of course there is the issue of grasping onto others to be that key to love and fulfillment. I wrote more on this a long time ago—Contemplations About Romantic Love. There is a fine line to walk, because again, I don’t think that we’re meant to live life alone. I think the path of love and connection is the path to self realization and self actualization. Letting someone in often creates the clearest mirror to self.
Maybe this is where I’m innately selfish. It’s not that I love others because they are my mirror. I’ve had many transcendent experiences seeing others so clearly that I can’t help but to love them in totality—the good, the bad, the ugly, the unhealed, the projections, all of it is them and not me.
But the opportunity to utilize the deepest love to grow and see yourself more clearly is the spiritual pursuit of love. And in the face of experiencing that, all other connections can feel less substantial. This doesn’t mean that there is less truth to them, but for me at least it feels like incompatibility or a miscommunication, like we are not agreeing to experience the same depth through the other.
To hold two opposing truths is to practice non-duality. This is a constant spiritual march onward to expanded world views and expanded self knowledge. And I believe all of it is consciousness or God or whatever you want to call it. And really the point of it all is to experience that essence of the greatest creation within self and to learn to lead from that place of being. In a way, it is both incredibly selfish and with oneness. Again, two opposing truths taking up the same space.
To varying degrees we can experience this with anyone and everyone. Love really doesn’t have to be that deep and intimate. Yet, I will always desire that type of connection to love over the casual and superficial. That’s not to say that my desire is right or better than someone who desires love differently. Just because it’s for me doesn’t mean its the only way or the only thing to experience.
And in sharing all this, I don’t mean to belittle anyone who feels differently. Again, every experience is so incredibly valid. We all have something to learn from stretching our understanding of life and how it flourishes for different people.
Living Satya
I often come back to the yogic teaching of Satya. Part of the first limb, Yama, Satya is the practice of truthfulness is thoughts, words, and actions. And when one is out of sync, it creates discrepancy in lived experience. This is deeper than dishonestly or lying, whether intentional or not, it’s about living from the space of truth.
Satya is so much more than truth in relationship—it’s truth in the way we live and carry ourself through life. I highly recommend spending time in contemplation for what this means for you. This isn’t something that you can discover by reading my writing, studying the Eight Limbs, or practicing yoga. It’s learned through contemplation, lived experience, and integration.
The example that comes to mind within connection are people who paint the most beautiful pictures with their words, yet there’s misalignment with their actions. While they may believe their words to be true, their actions show a discrepancy in belief and follow through. Comically, it’s often easier to believe words and excuse actions.
If choosing to live Satya, that’s a breach in integrity. And that goes for me as well, if I am letting myself be deceived by pretty words, I too am sitting in a place of dishonestly. With romantic interests, there tends to be the phenomenon of fantasy, not just dreaming of a future together, but the painting of the relationship as the ultimate fantasy (more on that in a bit).
Maybe this is where discernment is most crucial. Am I willing to believe the story over concrete action?
Believing in the potential, believing in the pretty words over the actions shown and taken again and again is one of the greatest forms of self deception. And to an extent, I think most of us do this with those we love and desire to be in relationship with. As with anything, we will not be perfect at this 100% of the time.
There are times where it is more important to dream of the future, even when it isn’t the truth of the moment. To hold a vision and aspire to something greater creates a bigger and more fulfilling life, pushing us forward to grow and experience our greatest potential. We must have the pulse of inspiration first before we are able to live it. This isn’t that.
Rather, the blatant disregard for how someone treats you shows you how they feel about the connection. Within most connections (I’m not speaking to connections with abusive, manipulative, or narcissistic people here) the level of respect others show you is correlated to the respect you show yourself. If your boundaries and needs are wishy-washy, it’s going to be hard for someone to honor what you don’t honor yourself. And on the flip side, if the other person doesn’t have sure boundaries or the ability to speak desires and needs, they’re not going to be able to match, appreciate, and respect yours. This is where coherence is more important for sustaining relationship than general attraction and compatibility.
I think living Satya is the embodiment of knowing your wants, needs, desires, and boundaries. I don’t think we can live from a place of authentic truth if we don’t know this about self. That’s not to say this is set in stone, like everything in life this shifts as we grow and evolve. And knowing this about yourself will first make life harder (many people might not be a fit for you) but it makes living life so much easier over time. It takes away that back and forth and mental load of deciding if something is right for you or not. Either it’s in alignment or its not. And when it’s not in alignment, while saying no or goodbye in the moment may be hard, in the long term, it’s the deepest honoring of your time and energy.
Like most things in life, Satya is objective. What’s true for you is probably not the lived truth for another. This doesn’t mean that either experience is less valid than the other. Rather, this is just another layer of the discovery self. It’s really up to you decide what is true for you and how to live in integrity with this truth and how others can honor this aspect of you.
Testing, Conspiring & Surrender
I often say that the universe is conspiring in my favor. And I believe this to my core. It’s more than everything happens for a reason—the good, the bad, the ugly… all of it is here for my unfolding. If I am to trust the universe this deeply, knowing the right and wrong people are both coming and going, I can let go of the idea of controlling others and outcomes.
This shifts me into a state of surrender. And I don’t mean surrender in the sense of not taking action and just accepting what I am given, rather, the time I have with people is intentional and I can choose to see both the love and the lessons I am meant to experience. To receive the most out of life is to choose to be in a surrendered state. Almost everything is out of my control, and in my surrender to the chaos and unknown, I open myself to greater experience because I let go of attachment to the way I believe things should be. This is giving myself the gift of experiencing things the way they are.
In this state of surrender, the opportunity to learn becomes more potent. Because an aspect of attachment has been let go, the opportunity to experience the beauty and the greatness of what is expands. Letting go of attachment doesn’t necessarily mean letting go of desires or visions for a way of being, rather, it shifts the experience from a future outcome to a current experience.
Let me explain further. If we deeply desire a romantic relationship and are actively dating, seeking that relationship, we might settle for things that are good enough in the name of achieving the relationship, or we stay in relationship when things aren’t great and aren’t looking up for the sake of being in a relationship. The attachment is to the relationship status, and when that relationship inevitably ends, we feel as though time was wasted and we’ve failed.
When we shift the focus from the end goal of a romantic partner to the connection, the experience and time spent with that person becomes central. This opens us up to learn and experience everything within the connection. We can let go of needing to be perceived in a certain way to make the relationship work, giving space for more authenticity. We can let go of rushing into stages we’re not ready for, letting the connection progress more naturally and sustainably. We can still greatly desire a romantic relationship, and when it does or doesn’t work out with that person, instead of feeling failure there is more space for the opportunity to get to know that person, gratitude for the experience, and learning along the journey.
Whatever is meant to happen will eventually happen. This shift in perspective helps manage timing and grasping onto the should be. Enabling the space for shifting dynamics, opening and deepening in connection, and graceful letting go when it is naturally time.
When I am in this surrendered state, my awareness shifts and expands. Suddenly, the universe isn’t just conspiring in my favor, it is also testing me—the truth in my desires, the depth of my capacity, my ability to embody the lessons I’ve learned or the opportunity to learn them again. I think this is true for all life, but it is especially apparent through relationships.
Through experiences with different people, the universe is asking can I really hold all that I desire? Do I hold it within myself first, or do I give the responsibility out to others expecting them to fill a void within me? Do I have the capacity—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually—to foster depth in connection; can I meet someone on their level and can they meet me on mine? If I am asking for something/anything, are my actions supporting or betraying that request? If I value one thing within me, do I value that in another? Etc., etc., etc.
The Ways We Connect
Life is a woven tapestry. Some threads are incredibly bright and vital, significant in their weaving. Others are neutral, filling in the background. Some span the entire tapestry, while others are snapped and frayed. All these threads perfectly and imperfectly capture the totality of a life well lived. These threads are experiences, relationships, events that play every type of role in the shaping of us.
What is the thread that connects us to others? When time and connections blur, one forming into another, lesson after lesson, person after person to experience with, who am I with and without connection?
When we feel that string connecting us to another, the pull can be intense. Sometimes it’s magnetism, sometimes it’s a push toward a shared journey, sometimes its the need for a lesson to be learned. All of it is pulling, pushing, weaving us together.
All this leads me to contemplate what it takes to feel connected to someone. There has to be an aspect of attraction and intrigue, of wanting to know more, experience more, be more with whoever the person is. And honestly, I don’t feel this toward many people. That’s not to say that I’m not interested in others, I’m genuinely curious about how we all experience totality in life. I think all walks of life are valid in their experience, and that within itself makes me curious. But that is the zoomed out, general human to human interest.
With personal interest, there is a difference in intensity and depth that perpetually needs to be explored. Relationships with my closest friends and lovers have developed from this initial personal interest. Maybe this pull intensifies because we’ve agreed to explore it together, or we’ve already started weaving and now it must continue to completion.
I may feel this lightly toward strangers, like someone that I can’t help but to keep glancing at in a coffee shop. But it’s a subtle tug, a reminder to smile at strangers and not look away when they smile back. Maybe I tend to hold back because there is a fear of opening connection with the unknown. Maybe some connections are meant to just be that, a temporary intrigue that keeps me curious when I’m tempted to close my energy.
Regardless, there seems to be a stark difference in the way I am attracted to connection. Words are imperfect here, this is the realm of feeling and intuition and remembering someone’s energy/essence before they’ve made an impact. Like hello, it’s you again, we’ve spent lifetimes together and were only really apart for a blink.
What I’m really trying to speak to here is the pull of connection we feel. Why do we feel it? We have possibility and opportunity with everyone we meet, yet there is often a mismatch of energy and attraction. Before we see personality and intelligence and emotionality, what is it that attracts us to others? I know it is more than just physical beauty or sexual attraction. I’ve felt this to varying degrees toward people of all ages, genders, and walks of life. Sometimes there is just something more to someone that begs exploration.
Sometimes it means nothing. Sometimes it means everything—the pull heartbreaking in its totality, love and grief intertwining to anchor into another.
Love and Grief
A beautiful reframing around love that I’ve been forced to integrate over the past two years is understanding that the depth of my own love creates the depth of my grief. For if I am to feel that height, that bliss, I also must be grounded down through the dirt with mud caked fingers scraping at my own pain and darkness. Love will always lead to grief, whether it is a break up or physical distance or death… and yeah, that’s a bit dark, but it’s all part of the totality of experience.
If we love deeply, we will always grieve it.
Strangers and Magnetism
Within the realm of exploring connection, life is chaotic, yet the pull is insatiable.
As I explore new and different connection, many ghosts from my past have reappeared. Which has me pondering how deeply tied we really are. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how “clean” I can be with my own energy. People like to attach. And when that attachment is threatened, chaos ensues directly and indirectly. And it’s not always my chaos, for others and their connections are just as messy and convoluted as my own.
I was speaking to a friend and lover about magnetism in connection. There is often a facade—we see who we want to see and rarely take the time to get to know who the other is because we’re attached to the fantasy and the future.
I’ve experienced this a decent amount, especially with men, and have come to the conclusion that I often portray the fantasy, the unattainable, the drive to pursue but not understand. And this is typically one sided.
On the one hand, I like to believe the fantasy a love interest paints (reread the section on Satya), on the other, there is a mismatch in interest in which my general presence and curiosity creates the facade of deeper intimacy. Let me explain.
In general, I think I am good at making people feel seen and understood. I offer a lot of presence and depth to whoever I’m talking to, and most people aren’t used to being on the receiving end of presence. I think this is also why I can be challenging to be around, or maybe confronting if someone isn’t ready to be seen.
A lot of my mid-20s were spent working on myself, understanding myself on deeper levels, and creating sustainable nervous system regulation as a basis for experience.
I became a yoga teacher, facilitator, and active community member and leader. Through this, I’ve learned to share the more authentic sides of self because I no longer have desire or conscious capacity to uphold my own masks. This gives space and permission to others to be their more authentic self, without judgement, within my presence. Because I’m interested in philosophy, spirituality, occult teachings, wisdom of the ages, and am just very Sagittarius, I tend to share wisdom over my personal thoughts and feelings (unless you read my Substack, hello, this is very in my thoughts and feels LOL).
All this leads to people viewing me as wiser than I actually am, and probably pedestaling me a bit and thinking they’re a lot closer to me than I am with them. They try to cling onto the way my presence makes them feel by trying to maintain a fantasy of intimacy, rather than getting to know me and getting into real intimacy, because that may jeopardize the fantasy and good feelings. And men often take it a step further by showing a lot of interest and crossing boundaries, when they don’t necessarily have my commitment.
So then there is all this mystery and fantasy of closeness and intimacy that can be projected onto me, but it’s not reciprocated by me. Obviously each connection is different and unique, this isn’t a blanket statement for every person I’ve ever met, and, this is a general pattern that’s played out with many acquaintances.
And talking about my own magnetism so publicly feels a bit weird. Like I am so full of myself and think myself more important because of the way people often try to attach to me. That is not my intention here. Rather, it is an acknowledgement of the way I connect with others and others connect with me.
My writing tends to be an intimate and vulnerable place to explore my psyche and my experience. While I am aware that I am writing to an audience, some of whom I do not know, I also personally know many of my readers. Sometimes I get caught up in how much of myself to spill and admit, and which parts to keep protected and act oblivious to the way I am perceived. Laying it all out is just another act of vulnerability—an edge within myself that I am always trying to explore.
And this is all a part of being the observer, or metacognition as the cool kids online like to say. If I am aware of the pattern I am playing, I can change how I play it, or I can play it with more intention. I think building the muscle and capacity to be our own observer is the first step to breaking Samsara, the suffering of illusion within maya. If I can see the pattern, I can no longer claim to be a victim to it.
And the reality is, if people are desiring and latching onto me so intensely, there is likely a part of me that is getting something out of it. Maybe it’s a very human desire to be liked, appreciated, and validated.
Being a Woman
An innate aspect of being a woman who plays in polarity is to be magnetizing, desired, and attractive (in body, heart, mind, and spirit). I don’t want to minimize a woman’s experience to be only that—it is so much more and really can’t be confined to a box and generic experience—yet, it will always be a part of it. While there is societal conditioning around a woman’s presence and image, there is also something so innately beautiful and literally life giving about being a woman. (I’m not trying to argue for a hierarchy of women are better than men, simply sharing gratitude and appreciation for the experience of being a woman.)
Whether I’m considered beautiful or sexy or attractive or any other description that stakes claim to someone else’s perception of my looks as important doesn’t actually matter that much. It’s really all about me feeling those things about myself and you feeling those things about yourself, regardless of gender and sexual orientation. Despite what society tells us, the visual aspects of self don’t define who we are. Yes they are important, yes manicuring of self is one of easiest ways to care for self and nurture being, yes I think cultivating beauty opens doors to experience. But it is truly the most superficial and physically dense aspect of self.
What really matters is who I choose to show up as, how I choose to love and nurture myself and others, and the quality of my internal landscape—these are the attributes that create attractiveness and magnetism beyond physical beauty.
And maybe all this is just to give external validation to what I’ve been thinking about. It’s quite annoying actually—how often I think of myself through the lens of beauty and desire and others’ perception of me. Maybe that too is another edge for me to experience. Deep dive into my thoughts on embodiment of the feminine form and my journey to total acceptance of self in Experiencing My Body.
Blurred Lines
I think we like to put things in nice and neat boxes—especially relationships. Like I stated earlier and have deeply contemplated in other articles, we define relationships through a hierarchy of importance, with romantic relationships at the top. Which in a lot of ways, makes sense. Romance tends to be the most juicy and fulfilling of them all, and sexual connection in relationship leads to procreation. We have evolved and continue to live on because of romantic attraction and chemistry.
Yet, you don’t need romance to procreate. And maybe romance is the blurred experience between Eros and Philia.
A long time ago, I read a quote along the lines of “treat your friendships as the great romances in your life.” This has always resonated, because I do. From the outside in, my best friendships appear a bit romantic.
The more I think about the importance of my relationships, I realize how blurred the lines are. Many attributes that we hold out on for romance, I experience through my friendships: deep emotional connection, intellectual stimulation, affection and physical touch… We hug and hold hands and cuddle and are intimate and affectionate in many ways that society views as romantic. We call each other to cry and celebrate and make dinner together and take trips together. We go on long walks and pick each other up for dinner and dancing. We live life together and make plans for a shared future.
So is sexual attraction and sexual intimacy the only differentiator? For me, it might be. Is this the difference for most? I’m not sure. From the outside in, it’s been reflected to me many times how beautiful and powerful and potent my friendships are. And while I don’t think outsiders are jealous or envious of the friendships I’ve cultivated, I also know there is a desire for that in their friendships which seems to be missing, or maybe just isn’t experienced to the same depth.
While I am the common denominator, I know it’s not just me. It’s also my friends.
A Lil Backstory
I met my three best friends when I was 26 (it was a phenomenal year for me). What stood out about these women was how magnetized I was to them. Within minutes of meeting, I knew I had to develop a deeper relationship with each. We took it slow, we courted each other by going out to coffee, sitting by each other at community events, and going dancing. What became clear over time was they were just as pulled to me as I was to them. Maybe our meeting was inevitable, but once it happened, developing a deep and reciprocal relationship was intentional.
And maybe that is the key: intention. If you want to experience something deeply fulfilling, you have to put in the time and effort to create the safety and trust and depth. These types of relationships aren’t created overnight. While that initial pull can be completely magnetizing, it takes work, presence, and humility to continuously take it deeper.
A sad truth is not everyone has that desire. Not every single person you meet is meant to go there with you, whether it’s incompatibility, lack of time and energy, or other disconnects that happen in life. Maybe this is a no duh, but both parties have to be willingly committed and matched in curiosity to not just know but understand the other on a fundamental level of self.
A hard truth is we only have this type of space for so many people. While I’ll never say no to developing a deeper connection with someone who resonates and intrigues me, I only have so much time to give to any single connection. And the way that I like to be connected, the way I feel totally fulfilled within connection, demands a significant amount of quality time.
If I’m being so for real, when I look at my life, I am at capacity for depth in connection. Again, this doesn’t mean that I’m not open to deepening in connection, I just realistically don’t have the time I desire to give. I am dedicated to not just maintaining, but fostering continued intimacy and depth with the people already in my life. I don’t believe in the collecting of people to expand influence or self importance—more friends does not mean more fulfilling friendships. Relationships are a living and breathing organism of their own, they grow and change and need to be consistently nurtured. And nurturing my relationships is probably one of the most important things I’ll spend my time doing in this life.
Like much of my writing, this is all half baked. While there is always more to explore, I often spend a lot of time, probably too much time, making my words more clear and palatable for the reader. While that is so important to me for a lot of my professions, I’m trying to not do that with this one. There isn’t a greater lesson or insight here. I’m not necessarily disseminating big ideas or philosophical teachings, rather just trying to share more of my thoughts and inner world to get back into the practice of writing with an audience in mind. There is probably no point for you to read or learn here, but it’s cathartic for me nonetheless.
I guess if you take anything away from this, let it be contemplation on the importance of relationship within your life. How do they align with your desires and where can you be in greater integrity to the dream of your future? If you’re not getting what you need and desire from connection, what aspects of self are settling for good enough or fear opportunity for greatness? If those are uncomfortable questions, welcome to an initiation of the great work.
For we were never meant to live life alone.
With love,
Madison
How do you view connection? Are you interested in depth and intimacy or more comfortable with casual connection? What is it about others that magnetizes you to their presence? Let’s discuss :)