Restoring Connection: The Most Vital Work Of Our Time
by Mike Brcic,
Founder/Chief Explorer, Wayfinders
Restoring connection at Phajoding Monastery: Wayfinders Bhutan, Oct. 2022
We live in an age of disconnection.
Disconnection lies, in my humble opinion, at the heart of our current crises, from climate change to polarization, to income inequality, to increasing authoritarianism, and so many of the giant issues of our time.
Disconnected from each other, we fail to recognize our common humanity and find easy targets in people who are ‘not like us’.
Disconnected from the natural world, we see the Earth as ‘natural resources’ that are ours for the infinite taking.
Disconnected from ourselves, our existential crises play out in pain, anger and trauma.
Disconnected from a sense of something greater, our spiritual crises play out in violence and systems that sow misery, even for those that purportedly benefit from those systems.
None of the big issues of our time can be solved without solving the crisis of disconnection that lies at their root.
Technology won’t solve our environmental crises because without addressing the disconnection central to our way of life, we will continue to plunder the earth’s resources in a vain attempt to fill that deep void through consumption - and technology can never keep up with that voracious hunger.
Electing the ‘right’ officials won’t solve our increasing polarization because we’ve become so disconnected from self and from others - and in so much pain as a result - that all we want to do, collectively, is find a target for our pain, and the ‘other’ has always been an easy target for that pain.
We cannot apply bandaids to a patient - our species - that is suffering from a profound internal wound.
So what do we do?
We start where we must: at home. With ourselves. With our surroundings. In our neighbourhoods. In our living rooms. In our wild places.
We begin the work of restoring connection: with and within ourselves, with each other, with the Earth, with something greater. In so doing, we begin to restore connection all around us and we begin to heal together.
I call this the ‘4 Cs’ of connection, whose work of restoration is the most vital work of our time:
Restore connection to self: We need to remember and recognize that we have an inner wisdom that provides us with incredible guidance if we will only sit still long enough to hear its whisper.
Restore connection to each other: We need to re-learn how to connect with one another - not just people ‘like us’, but all humans. We need to stop worshipping the cult of the individual and remember that for hundreds of thousands of years we have depended on each other. This reliance is, in fact, what it means to be human.
Restore connection to the natural world: We need to remember that we are not separate from the natural world but an inextricable part of it. Harm to the natural world is harm to ourselves.
Restore connection to mystery: We need to restore our connection to a sense of something greater, beyond our false and myopic sense of a finite self. In so doing, we remember awe, gratitude and wonder, and we remember the interconnectedness of everything.
As we work to restore these connections - connections that ancient cultures around the world have cultivated and understood for thousands of years - we begin to heal not only ourselves, but those around us and, in so doing, the world.
Once we start to re-establish these connections, the work of solving the big issues begins to take care of itself. It’s also less daunting than trying, for instance, to solve climate change through technology or political change. Instead, we can solve what lies within us that leads to climate change.
When the void at our spiritual centre is filled through deep connection to ourselves, we no longer fall prey to the hollow and false promises of advertising and we longer feel the same need to fill the void through consumption. Buying something to make ourselves feel better - an urge that lies at the heart of so much of our consumption - starts to feel silly and we recognize its ultimate futility.
When our humanity is nourished through deep connection with other humans, and when we remember that we truly need each other, we begin to see the shared humanity that binds us all, and our fellow humans are restored to their rightful place as sisters and brothers. Polarization starts to feel foreign to us. We start to take care of each other. We argue less.
When we spend time in deep connection with nature, we begin to see the interconnectedness of all life, and plundering the Earth feels like harming ourselves. We take responsibility for our choices and our actions.
This is deeply nourishing work, much more effective than tackling the symptoms and outcomes of disconnection.
I can hear the critics’ and cynics’ accusations of naiveté:
You want to solve climate change by meditating in your living room?
You want to solve our financial crises by having tea with a neighbour?
Go ahead and call me a starry-eyed hippy if you must, but in fact, that’s precisely what I’m saying.
The work is not out there, it’s within ourselves. It’s not about carbon taxes, or political change, it’s about the ripple effects of internal change.
This has been the focus of my own personal work over the past few years, and it’s become the focus of my work with Wayfinders.
At my international events, we spend time - deep time - with other cultures that understand the vitality of connection.
The monks of Bhutan, the shamans of the Amazon, and the Batwa people of Uganda live very different lives from each other, but what they share is that they all understand, to their core, the interconnectedness of all things and all beings. How they act in the world, as a result, is very different from how a disconnected person acts in the world.
At Wayfinders events we spend time in deep connection with each other, fostering and nurturing bonds that sustain a rich and ongoing community.
We spend time in silence and stillness and in beautiful places, restoring our connections to ourselves and to the natural world.
We do the work of restoring connection in ourselves and in so doing, we start walking the collective path back toward connection.
Yours,
Mike Brcic,
Founder/Chief Explorer,
Wayfinders
This is the first in a mini-series of articles I’m writing about restoring connection, including steps you can take to restore connection in your own life. If you want to be notified when I post new articles, complete the form below.
p.s. I’m heading back to Uganda in May 2023, where we’ll be deep-diving connection on many levels. If restoring connection feels important to you, take a look at the event overview and complete this short application.
If that’s not in the cards, I urge you to take a few small steps this week towards restoring connection: make time for stillness; make time for connecting with friends and loved ones; spend time in wild places; contemplate the mysteries of existence.