Why We Are So Disconnected From Ourselves—and How we can Reconnect (Loneliness Part II)

When we are disconnected from ourselves, navigating through the world requires a painful amount of effort, as if wading through molasses.

This lack of self-connection can reveal itself in countless ways. You may avoid committing to specific pursuits, or continually fail in carrying out promises to yourself. You might be unreasonably controlled by your emotions, often triggered by wounds of unknown origin. You may struggle to initiate and converse with others, or say what’s truly on your mind. You may struggle to love, or in-turn be loved. You may struggle to create purpose, or find meaning, in the existential void of reality. And to all of that, I say “welcome to being human”.

Many of these things are quirks in our human character, that arise from a disconnection between different aspects of ourselves: conscious & subconscious, mind & body, aspirations & actions. If there’s too much dissonance between these core parts, it disrupts our path towards authenticity, confidence, and spiritual development. In-turn, this affects our ability connect with ourselves and others.

I find it useful to split all possible pathways towards self-connection into three categories: mind, body, and purpose. These three are obviously intertwined, but for the sake of simplicity, I will explore how & why we might be disconnected from each, and what actionable steps we can take to reconnect. Below, I’ve outlined the different roadblocks I will explore in each of these categories.

Outline:

• Disconnection from the mind
  • Imbalance between high & low stimuli
  • Lacking a friendship between our subconscious & conscious
  • Lack of introspecting-on and leaning into feelings
• Disconnection from the body
  • Lack of interoception
  • Not stimulating or moving the body enough
  • Not nourishing the body enough
  • Not relaxing the body enough
  • Ignorance towards genetics & underlying disease
• Disconnection from purpose
  • Undefined values
  • Lack of goals

Each roadblock will be explored by first looking at its potential causes, followed by proposed solutions.

Without further ado, lets dive in.

Disconnection from the mind

Roadblock #1

Imbalance between high & low stimuli

We’ve created a society that runs on stimulation and attention. In-turn we’ve developed a psychological reliance on technology: especially younger generations. When bored, we whip out the phone. When solving a problem, we whip out the phone. When feeling lonely, we whip out the phone. We’ve been trained to escape from the present moment, through a digital fabrication of reality. The irony of it is, most of us know it’s the damn phone. Yet, we still get stuck doom scrolling, watching stupid Youtube videos, and binging Netflix.

We’ve eroded presence. One of the greatest gifts of human consciousness, to just be… unapologetically… now ruined. We’ve become so bad at being in the real world. Our internal wiring is being manipulated by algorithms that farm our time and energy. We’ve been bred into an existence driven by phantom stimuli (i.e. stimuli lacking benefit or purpose).

One key outcome is that we’re becoming progressively uncomfortable with states of low stimuli. We live in a society that glorifies and force feeds us high stimuli:

• Constant media feeds & ads
  • Attempting to manipulate your psychology through algorithms
  • Arousing content: fear, anger, envy, grandeur, sexual desire… and dare I say loneliness
• Unlimited streaming services
• Constant notifications (across all devices)
• Noise Pollution: Traffic, sirens, outside music
• Light Pollution: City lights, headlights, LED’s, screens
• Hustle culture mindset
• Quantification of self-improvement & productivity

There’s nothing wrong with momentarily being in states of high stimuli. But when it becomes chronic, that’s a problem. Living in a constant state of high stimuli is extremely exhausting. It’s a state of imbalance, and it’s a symptom that’s expressing the ailments of our poorly structured society. So what can we do about this?

The simplest way to reduce the amount of high stimuli in our lives, is to intentionally engage in solitude. This needs to be chosen solitude.

Dr. Kanoji (aka Dr. K)*, a psychiatrist & youtuber, talks about how the more time you spend in a chosen states of solitude, the more peaceful and content you will become. Then, this recalibrated, grounded, and content version of you, can more easily tolerate the crap of life and other people. This makes sense, low & high are a yin & yang. To be full, be have to find balance between the two. Now more than ever, finding this balance requires a lot of conscious effort.

But what is a state of low stimuli? I like to define it as being more in a parasympathetic state. Here are some examples:

• Any activity allowing the mind and body to settle, without doing anything “productive”. This could also be considered “unstructured time”
  • Going for a walk without your phone or earbuds
  • Sitting in a quite space or environment requiring little demand or attention
  • Meditation & breath-work (although some types of breath-work are high stimuli)
  • Eating a silent meal by yourself
• Calm interactions with others (not exactly solitude, but can be low stimuli)
  • Calm physical closeness
  • The silent, comforting presence of another
  • Relaxed conversation
• Slow creative practices
  • Journaling
  • Playing instruments or singing for pleasure
  • Drawing or painting
  • Different types of calming crafts

The key component here is being disconnected from sources of high stimuli: whether devices, arousing activities/environments, or specific people.

*I’ve embedded a video down below where Dr. K does an amazing job at breaking down high vs low stimuli, and how it contributes to loneliness.

Roadblock #2

Lacking a friendship between our subconscious & conscious

Our feelings and emotions come almost entirely from our subconscious. Then, in our conscious we interact with these feelings, and choose whether or not to act upon them. Our feelings are data inputs, and we are the analyzers. We get to try and decide what the data means, and in-turn how we can reprogram our brains. Obviously, this is much easier said that done.

I believe that developing a loving relationship with your own mind, is a crucial step in connecting with yourself. This is the essence of self-love. It’s having grace for yourself. It’s acknowledging each feeling, and inviting it into your conscious. There are two ways we tend to sabotage the relationship between our conscious & subconscious.

1. Avoidance
2. Shame

In the first, we’d rather stuff some upwelled emotions back into the closet of our subconscious. These upwelled emotions are our subconscious begging our conscious to attend to neglected psychological wounds.

In the second, we aren’t avoiding the emotion, rather we are negatively engaging with it. We might denounce it’s viability, or it’s necessity. We may see these emotions as products of weakness (a familiar problem for most men). Generally, we are demonizing the feeling, as if it shouldn’t be there. As if it deviates from some psychological norm.

Both of these reactions make us bad friends towards our subconscious. Many of us want to be good friends to others, and will even pride ourselves on it. Yet, we won’t extend the same standard of friendship towards ourselves.

Do yourself a favour:

Grace yourself with the same standard of friendship, and compassion, as you would a close friend.

Roadblock #3

Lack of introspecting-on and leaning into feelings

This section is more of an actionable framework for developing this friendship between our conscious & subconscious.

The way I see it, developing a positive relationship with oneself consists of 3 stages (each representing a higher degree of emotional intelligence):

1. Awareness: Acknowledge the feeling (rather than avoiding it)
2. Invitation: Accepting & feeling the feeling
3. Curiosity: Making time to introspect on the feeling

Firstly, we have to be aware that a feeling is there and influencing us in the first place. Without seeing the feeling, we cannot work through, or understand it. This entails acknowledging the presence of the feeling, rather than denouncing the feeling. You might try to still avoid the feeling in this first stage, but at the very least, you’re aware of its presence.

Next in line, is learning how to invite the feeling into your conscious experience. In short, it’s feeling the damn feeling. I’d consider this the most uncomfortable stage in the framework. We tend to only feel difficult feelings when their intensity overcomes our capacity to ignore them. Instead, we should intentionally invite the feelings in. We must open up the emotional floodgates before we can identify and repair the source of the emotional build-up.

Lastly, once we’ve released everything, and grounded our emotions, we can begin inquiring. We can begin to explore the fabric of our psyche, and how specific events might have weaved themselves into our subconscious. Here are some examples I’ve identified for myself:

• I tend to have chronic romantic anxiety when initiating or developing romantic relationships. I’ve linked this back to a childhood possibly void of sufficient affection, and lacking close frienships/connections.
• I tend to feel fear and frustration around exercise endeavours due to an insecurity about my athletic performance. This stems from a childhood where I consistently failed to keep up with everyone else, because I struggled with severe asthma.
• Additionally, as someone with a variety of autoimmune disorders, I tend to avoid states of peace because that’s usually when my body feels most like shit. Due to the nature of inflammation, adrenaline helps open up my lungs, relieve sinus pressure, and any tightness in my body. Therefore, I’ve always squirmed away from peace, into high intensity activities or stimuli, because they help distract me from my own discomfort.

I could go on endlessly with examples. My point is that, the more I explore my emotions, the more I understand myself, which allows me to more easily manage and reconfigure my emotional blueprint.

Through spending an appropriate amount of time in each of these stages, I feel like I’ve learnt more about myself at the age of 20, than a decent number of people do in a lifetime.

Disconnection from the body

Roadblock #4

Lack of interoception

Many of us don’t pay attention to the messages our bodies are shouting at us: from headaches, muscle aches, fatigue, acne flares, back pain… etc. Our bodies are trying to clue us into our bad habits, or lack of necessary habits. Whether it be better sleep, consistent exercise, healthy eating, de-stressing… etc. Before we can fix our bad habits, or develop new ones, we first have to be able to listen to our bodies.

Interoception is the skill of paying attention to, and refining your ability to feel, what is going on inside your body. It’s the fundamental medium we can use to connect to our body. This is one reason why practices such as exercise, yoga, breath-work, and meditation are praised. They are all activities that, when done right, help you develop a high degree of interoception.

At it’s core, most meditation practices focus deeply on developing interoception. These practices mainly revolve around observing the breath, bodily sensations, key senses, and thoughts. Therefore, meditation is an essential practice for developing interoception.

Once we’ve established a solid foundation of interoception, we can begin cluing in, and taking action upon, what our body is requesting. The next couple sections will explore the key body requests we often fail to fulfill, especially when we aren’t even aware of them.

Roadblock #5

Not stimulating or moving the body enough

We evolved for movement, not for sitting at a desk. Our body uses kinetic movement to its advantage: for hydration, blood flow, lymph flow, etc. Put simply, movement helps the body function smoothly.

Unfortunately, we’ve managed to create a society that defaults to stagnation and laziness. So how do we re-orient our lives for movement? As with any habit, this starts with a will to change, strong enough to overcome laziness, followed by daily routines that make movement a natural part of life.

A movement lifestyle consists of a wide variety of habits & incentives that continually keep us on track. I think of habits as the daily routines that, over time, become second nature. Whereas, incentives are an extra tool we can use to keep us on-track, when our discipline is unsteady.

Here’s an example of a movement lifestyle framework I try my best to abide by (I’ve included a habit and incentive component for most of them):

Daily

• Some movement in my morning routine:
  • Yoga (every-morning : wakeup & loosen body)
  • Band physio, some pull-ups (most-mornings : shoulder strength & stability for climbing)
  • Walk outside to check on garden (most-mornings : ground + get sun + see veggies)
  • Morning run on hot weeks (during hot summer periods : running in pleasant conditions)
  • Pelvic exercises (every-morning : :) )
• 25 minute Pomodoro work/study cycles
  • Habit: I like to work in 25 or 50 minute pomodoro cycles. Where every 25/50 minutes I either have to
    • switch from my sitting → standing desk (or vice-versa)
    • do some stretches and/or reps (10 pushups, squats or some pull-ups)
  • Incentive: A little break from working, and to loosen stiff muscles

Weekly/periodically

• Biking to school/work
• Regularly walking/biking to coffee shops or places remotely nearby (within 10km)
• Exercise
  • Consistent running
    • Habit: 3-4 times per week w/ long-runs on Sundays
    • Run-club (every-friday : socializing)
  • Rock climbing (ideally 2x/week)
    • Habit: Sunday/Monday OR Thursday/Friday climbing days
    • Incentive: Pure enjoyment & socializing
  • 4 proper workouts
    • Habit: always in the evenings. 4 workouts usually split into shoulders, push, pull, and legs
    • Incentive: Feeling good, looking good, and complementary training for other sports
  • ~1 ride and/or swim every week

Roadblock #6

Not nourishing the body enough

We can help nourish the body through movement, but we obviously need to consume actual substance as well. If we are to look after our bodies, we must be conscious of what we eat. It’s no secret that a diet mainly revolving around fresh fruits/veggies, ancient grains, and high quality meats is ideal.

The main challenge nowadays is resisting all the garbage. Almost everything processed is best to avoid. Any pre-packaged meals fall into this category, alongside the plethora of snacks & sweets strategically placed to catch your eye. Whether you know it or not, your body is craving real food. Some people tell me “but healthy food just doesn’t taste that good”, and to that I say “you just don’t know how to cook”. The truth is, eating healthy isn’t “convenient”. But it sure as hell becomes convenient when it allows you to feel better, have more energy, and a clearer headspace.

So read a bit about what a balanced diet includes. Begin experimenting with different whole foods. Learn to cook for crying-out-loud. Then reap the benefits of a healthy lifestyle: filled with real flavour, experimentation, and actual nutrition.

Roadblock #7

Not relaxing the body enough

It’s not just our mind that needs peace & rest, our bodies do too. Especially with the advent of online culture, we’ve gotten progressively worse about sleep hygiene. We all know we should go to bed earlier, and have a consistent sleep routine. We all know it’s foundational to our health: healing, mood, focus, etc. Yet, we suck at getting enough sleep and resting in general.

Here’s my mini hierarchy of practices for resting the body:

1. Sleep (ideally 8+ hours, within a consistent time-window)
   • Nighttime sleep
   • Naps (if you’re someone who can manage to do so)
2. Deep meditative states
   • NSDR/Yoga Nidra
   • Breath-related meditation
3. Breathwork
   • Tummo/Wim-Hof
   • Breath-hold tables
4. Stillness

Roadblock #8

Ignorance towards genetics & underlying disease

We all have specific pre-dispositions towards particular physical challenges endowed upon us by our genetics and development. But, it is our responsibility to uncover our biological blueprint, and learn how to better manage and take care of ourselves. Here’s the way I’m trying to approach this process:

1. Starting by paying attention to imbalances in health. Literally anything you notice to be troubling or out of place.
   • Difficulty with any of your organs. The most obvious are those closely related to your 5 core senses: eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin.
   • Then, go deeper. Perhaps you have problems with bloating, stool & urine, migraines, breathing, sinus pressure & allergies… etc. The list is endless.
2. Next, begin doing your own research.
   • Books, articles, and podcasts
   • Or begin consulting with professionals
     • Depending on what you’re looking for, an integrative health practitioner or holistic nutritionist is probably a great idea
3. Experiment with different diets, supplements, and lifestyles. The key components here are:
   • Treating underlying disease
   • Obtaining substantial nutrition
   • Reducing stress & tension (mentally & physically)

Disconnection from purpose

Roadblock #9

Undefined values

As Mark Manson puts it “values are what you decide to give a fuck about”.

Values help us decipher what to focus on. The more values we establish, the easier it is to make decisions in different areas of life. For example:

• If healthy eating is a big value of yours, you’re probably not going to decide to eat take-out all the time. You’ll likely end up preparing and cooking most of your food.
• If highly value peace, stability, and emotional connection in romantic relationships, you’re probably not going to find yourself with a string of one night stands. Whereas, if you highly value sex, novelty, and excitement, more-so than the former, then you’ll likely engage in hookups… assuming you have game.

The list is endless, and it’s important to learn how to develop values in all parts of life: career, money, hobbies, health, exercise, relationships, spirituality, etc. Without established values, you’ll be floating around in the abyss of daily decision making, constantly attempting to figure out where you actually stand on things.

Roadblock #10

Lack of goals

Goals are concrete ways to actualize our values. They give us objectives for growth, which help us expand in the directions set by our values. Goals give us things to work towards, and if set right, they help us do so in a timely manner. Additionally, the pursuit of specific goals helps us test our values through experience. This helps jump-start the process of recognizing which of our values are kinda shitty, which sooner than later, helps us replace bad values with good values.

Establishing values, and setting goals, helps us develop purpose. And purpose is what helps us feel connected to life as a whole. It’s what makes the pain and discomfort inherent in any meaningful pursuit feel worthwhile. It’s what also infuses our highs in life with fulfillment, instead of only having fleeting excitement and euphoria.

That wraps up my deep-dive into the roadblocks that might be preventing us from connecting with ourselves. I believe that any self-directed skills explored in this article, particularly those concerning the mind, play a vital role in cultivating the awareness and empathy needed to form deeper, more authentic connections with others.

Therefore, self-connection helps us with loneliness by two-fold. We become more connected to ourselves, and better equipped to connect with others.

I hope you enjoyed this article. If there’s anything you particularly resonated with, or think is missing, please comment it down below. I’m always curious to hear your thoughts :). Now, get off your device, and go do something to connect with yourself.

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