How Society Frames Connection
Is loneliness necessarily the absence of company, or the result of how ‘connection’ is framed in society?
Similar to the majority of people, most of what I do is in pursuit of connection. As a social person who seeks and thrives from connection I value relationships with people and with the world around me. And at the same time circumstances have urged me to feel an increasing pull towards the richness of relationships beyond traditional frameworks or definitions.
The way society defines connection, tying it to roles rather than experience, often diminishes the ways in which true belonging actually unfolds. Furthermore if these traditional structures elude you for whatever reason, the sense of belonging and of inclusion can be elusive to non-existent at times.
I believe connection can extend to presence itself; a way of being fully engaged with moments as they unfold.
Navigating Exclusion and Assumption
Childlessness was one of the hardest realities I navigated through my thirties, filled with uncertainty and exclusion. Not knowing why it couldn’t ‘happen for me’ or whether I’d ever ‘join that club’ made those years feel isolating and highly fear-driven. I was also not lacking other circumstantial challenges during this time.
Then, after losing both my parents at 45yrs, I realised I had no immediate family in the traditional sense.
What struck me as much as my own grief, however, was the way it was sometimes assumed that these realities made my life… lesser, and how unhelpful this was.
The Structural Exclusion of Connection
When institutions cater to predefined groups, the exclusion isn’t just incidental; it’s structural. It’s striking how often this divide is reinforced, in church services centred around families, social events that assume certain relational dynamics, even casual conversations that frame family as the ultimate marker of fulfilment.
These structures don’t just overlook those who exist outside of them; they implicitly cast them as “missing something.”
Over several years, this conditions the nervous system to crave something broader in pursuit of meaningful survival and belonging.
Mindfulness and the Depth of Connection
The ancient, universal teachings of Buddhism, discovered on my part via mindfulness training, offer a depth of wisdom so reassuring as to be genuinely restorative. The relevance is such that they often illuminate what I’m experiencing in this very moment as though they were speaking directly to me.
One of my favourite of the contemplations of the body is in terms of the four natural elements; from this perspective we connect these elemental forces around us and within us and they offer us their gifts. This frames the body as the doorway to love, because the body is the doorway to every experience.
This kind of love is expansive, boundless and free of assumption. It doesn’t measure belonging by lineage or biological markers but simply recognises existence itself as a form of inclusion. Our experience of this is deepened through meditation which, over time, increasingly permeates our waking moments.
I had never previously come across such intelligence and care that truly considers every nuance in terms of every breath, every sensation, and every interaction without the labels and categorisations that can unintentionally exclude.
Connection Beyond the Human Experience
Within this, connection itself reaches beyond the human experience, woven into the fabric of being, unbounded by species or expectation. This brings to mind the unrivalled love that exists with my cat, the bond untethered from assumption or hierarchy, rooted purely in presence, trust and the profound understanding that needs no words.
For some, this same depth of connection is found in nature, in the quiet communion with the land, the trees, the movement of water and air with little separation of that inside and outside of the body. This relationship exists from participation and reciprocity where one becomes part of something infinite, held by the rhythms of the world itself.
A New Way to See Love and Belonging
This reframing is not only profound but deeply helpful because of the acknowledgement of experience as the foundation of connection, rather than predefined relationships. It moves away from social constructs and towards the immediacy of being, the way we engage with life at its most elemental level.
Society often assumes that loneliness is inevitable, as if connection can only be validated through specific roles. Mindfulness can show us that the absence of traditional family ties doesn’t mean a life devoid of richness. True connection isn’t determined by a family tree as much as it’s found in the world around us, in every moment we inhabit fully.
Mindfulness allows us to engage with love and connection beyond external validation and rooted instead in the immediacy of experience.
That is worth more than any predefined role or expectation.
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