Connection Lost. Retry?

Well, it has been two months to the day since I clicked into my website to add a blog post. There’s been no informative YouTube videos recorded, barely any Instagram posts and a disconnection from quite a lot of things in my life. Why? Because at the start of the summer holidays I realised, I had lost connection with myself. How can I talk about wellbeing when I couldn’t feel more disconnected from my very being?

I think it’s safe to say, out of the 7.6+ billion people on the planet – the majority have been affected by COVID – everyone has their own story. I can put my hand on my heart and honestly say I crawled to the end of last term as a teacher. An indescribable year at work made heavier with isolation, loneliness, having COVID, the death of a loved one, depression; it all really took its toll. Last year provided me with the darkest emotional times I’d ever experienced. Being so far from so many I love while they were going through darkness too, made it even more unbearable. During this time, I would definitely say I experienced a ‘dark night of the soul’ as some call it.

But… after the night comes the dawn. Partly in the form of a baby niece who was born in Scotland and the thought of holding her tiny hand in summer was a soft, precious beacon. Thinking of her and my family was a dreamy relief from the reality.

I was extremely lucky, and beyond grateful, to be able to travel back to Scotland for part of the summer to see my family. My soul needed balm and they were the only keepers of the exact alchemy. Rather than quarantine in a Glasgow Airport hotel for 11 nights (and paying a small fortune for the privilege while football fans lived their best lives!), I revisited a health retreat in Spain that I had been to 5 years previously (to also live some of that best life!). Before I went, I had decided that the aim of the next few weeks or even months was to rest and recover. I spent a lot of the summer (in my massively conducive environments) connecting to myself again and leaning on old friends for help - the company being meditation, self-love, books, journaling and therapy. Giving myself space to explore my inner landscape and looking straight into what was there. Ever heard that phrase ‘speak to yourself the way you would speak to a loved one’? I tried it and it sparked a glorious, welcome glow.

How often do we lose connection with ourselves? Some also may call it connection to source/divine self/higher self. We often submit to the auto-pilot mode of life or just go into the day-to-day survival mode like many of us did last year. Everything is focused outwardly, we can collect distractions in the form of streaming services, social media, addictions, wandering further until we are well and truly lost. We panic if we don’t have WiFi connection (100% understandable as it was our only means of connecting with family & friends!), yet rarely do make time to consciously connect to ourselves, be in our being and hear our hearts. These phrases still feel a bit like the stuff reserved only for yoga studio walls or in tokenistic, rainbow-coloured diaries on the shelves at the supermarket. And yet, this deep self-connection is worth much more to us than we realise. Also, think of how much deeper our connection to others might be if we are deeply connected to ourselves?

Anyway, the point of this little blog is this; make time to connect with yourself. Learn more about who you are and what journey you are taking here on earth. Self-connection is steep path but a beautiful one (think Scottish Munros) and so very, very precious.

Hopefully, I can begin focusing some of my energy back into sharing the things I love about wellbeing. Especially now that I can authentically say, it is coming from a deeper place of connection with self and of wellness.

Love, Ashley x