BEING PRESENT AND RECONNECTING WITH THE REAL WORLD

As life returns to a new normal we need to ensure that we begin to reconnect with the world around us again.

WHAT'S BEEN MISSING IN MY LIFE LATELY?

Over the last six months of so, I've been feeling a little out of sorts. I thought it might be due to the imminent approach of my 60th birthday later this year (I always have issues with changing decades). But then I realized it wasn't anything to do with that, it was the realization that my online life had taken over my in-real-life. Covid played a large part in tipping the scales in that direction - it's been so easy to stay home and to chat online, to write blog posts, to update my blog's Facebook page etc etc. But in the process, I can now see that my real world has shrunk and withered away due to neglect over the last couple of years.

Have I actually become a stay at home recluse? Or do I just need to make a few adjustments?

WHAT'S REAL?

I often think of those people who have hundreds of Facebook friends and yet very few people they connect with in their day to day lives. They have an enormous circle of "friends" but do they reap the benefits of face to face interaction with them? Are they deluding themselves into thinking their life is full of people who know them well, when in fact they have a multitude of superficial interactions that don't come close to real friendships?

Blogging can take you down that same path. I feel like I "know" so many wonderful women, I even "talk" to some of them online or by video chat, but that doesn't negate the need to have real face to face conversations with a variety of people who aren't part of one specific area of my life. I think the disconnect for me lately has been that I've relied on those virtual friendships to the detriment of my IRL contacts. It's so much easier to sit in my pjs at home and type than it is to get dressed, get out, and fully engage with people who have different interests and who are at different stages of life.

ROOTS AND FRUIT

A lightbulb moment for me was a passage I read from a book (God Calling) that I was given 40 years ago. It's a thought for the day from "the Two Listeners" about the need to put down deeper roots if you want all aspects of your life to flourish.

Remember the lesson of the seed - it sends a shoot down so that it may be rooted and grounded, while at the same time it sends a shoot up to be the plant and flower that shall gladden the world.

The two growths are necessary. Without the strong root it would soon wither. The higher the growth up the deeper must be the enrooting.

Many forget this. Beware of the leaves and flowers without the strong root.

I realized that if I want to flourish, I need to be more rooted and established in the world around me. It might feel like my life is full and blooming in my virtual world, especially when the we were all locked down, but as things have become more "normal" I can see that the dissatisfaction I've felt with being online so much probably stems in part from not having re-established a "real" life to balance out my blogging world.

putting down roots to help your output flourish

HOW RECONNECTING TIES IN WITH MY #WOTY

A lot of my pondering about this conundrum brought me back to my #WOTY (Cultivate) and what I was hoping to achieve by choosing it. The idea was to cultivate all the different areas of my life and bring balance in the process. I think that reconnecting more with the real world will help get my life back into sync and hopefully I'll feel more settled within myself.

I don't have to walk away from my laptop completely or shut down my beloved blog, I don't need to become a social butterfly and join a whole lot of clubs or coffee mornings IRL, I just need to adjust things a little to bring back the missing equilibrium. And I've begun by making a few small changes here and there with the time I spend online. My friend Erica referred to this process as "disconnect to reconnect" and I loved that term.

CHANGES, CHANGES EVERYWHERE

Two changes I've made over the last couple of months have included stepping away from the lovely Zoom group I was part of for several months, it was a tough choice but I needed to let go to give myself a little push to get out of the house and into the real world. I looked around to see what I could do locally instead, and decided to join a Ladies Discussion Group at my church. The women there are older than me, and think a little differently, but they've been very warm and welcoming. It's not the same as my Zoom friends and not as much repartee, but it feels good to get out and to talk about a world where blogging is a complete unknown.

I also made the decision a few weeks ago to turn off the comments section on my blog and to interact through my blog's Facebook page or by email instead. This reduces the amount of time I spend popping in and out of my blog to reply to comments and then getting distracted and ending up being online for hours instead of a few minutes. I'm keeping my blogging to once a week on Mondays (feel free to subscribe in my sidebar if you'd like an email reminder when they publish) and to keep my commenting on other blogs to a more manageable level.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

I'm already feeling more centred and settled with my choice to be more present in the real world and to reconnect with the people around me. It's so easy to let that slide and to find that life is too centred on one particular area (whether it's online, or too many work hours, or too much study, or too many social engagements etc). I think it's good for all of us to check our inner self and see if things are in balance - and to make a few changes if they're not. How are things in your world?