How Do We Stay Connected to Something Greater Than Ourselves?
When your dog gets sick, a war erupts, the entire world is <gesticulates wildly>
Everyone in my life knows how much I love my dog.
“You talk about your dog a lot — kind of like he’s a person,” a rollerblader once told me. I took that as a compliment.
Herbie is part of my identity and I am part of his. If one of us feels bad, the other feels it, too. When I’m down, he climbs as close to me as he can, often relying on daring feats of athleticism to get there, and places his head on my neck and chest, smothering my heart with the weight of his chin. If I cry, forget about it; he is right there. A few years ago, he learned the word “hugs.” Let me apologize to the therapists in the room for putting it like this: What we have is codependency, but cute.
Herbie turned thirteen this winter, and with the exception of some serious dental care over the past three years, we’ve never had a health issue. When he started refusing food three weeks ago, the possibility of illness didn’t even cross my mind, because Herbie is always healthy. I hadn’t considered till now how lucky we’ve been.
But I know my dog. Herbie is food-motivated, and he does not turn down meals. Over the course of several days, it became clear that he was not tired of his food, and he was certainly not over treats. He showed interest in everything yet wouldn’t take a bite.
A trip to the vet revealed inflammation of the pancreas, which they expected to heal quickly, but once we reached week three with no improvement, it was time for an ultrasound. After a very anxious waiting period, we were briefed on the state of all Herbie’s organs, and overall, the news is good. Our situation — blessedly — is treatable.
Watching Herbie struggle for a month has taken a toll. I underestimated how much time and vitality that worry could take from me. Living with heightened anxiety, my mood dictated by his ups and downs, which fluctuate daily, dimmed my energy and my outlook.
I am a person who tries to stay connected — to myself, to humanity, to the divine spark that runs through every living thing. You can call it whatever you want: the universe, source, god, kindness, peace. Nomenclature doesn’t matter; what matters is that it’s there. When I'm tapped into that undercurrent, I believe everything is possible and overflow with love. But I don’t always feel that way. Being consumed by worry makes it hard to feel connected at all.
Worry is no stranger to me. We are well-acquainted — cozy, even — but this month, it invaded my mind in a new way. Herbie’s situation felt more acute. Less within my control. It became more difficult to do the things that keep me feeling tethered to that divine spark.
In her book Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World, Sharon Salzberg writes that “No matter how despairing or cut off we can feel at any given time, we are not actually severed from the essential flow of life or from one another. If we get quiet for a while and pay careful attention, this is what we realize.”
Brené Brown comes to a similar conclusion in Atlas of the Heart, a book that promises to help its readers “map meaningful connection.” Her research shows that people today mostly feel connected to each other by shared fear and disdain, rather than love or trust. She points out that our fundamental connection to one another as humans never goes anywhere, but we often lose the ability to see it.
Even the Enneagram (if you just groaned, stay with me), the popular personality assessment system, asserts that “the feeling of being disconnected from source…is part of the human condition.” They call it Holy Origin, which is one of their nine Holy Ideas, the “highest essential qualities of the human mind.” The Holy Ideas represent our purest potential, completely unobstructed and undistorted by personality. They arise out of “a clear mind when we are truly present and awake.” In other words, they’re enlightenment.
Feeling disconnected from source is a challenge all personality types encounter in one form or another, though it is particularly related to the challenges — and gifts! — of Type Four. But all humans — no matter their type — are seeking, on some level, a return to wholeness. We want to restore our fundamental connection to meaning and purpose. Something greater than ourselves. You can call it whatever feels good.
This idea of fundamental separation is not new; it is one of the foundations of Buddhist teaching. Thich Nhat Hahn famously said, “We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.” In 1998, he used this story to illustrate the interconnectedness of living things in a dharma talk:
When you touch the flower, you touch the cloud. You cannot remove the cloud from the flower, because if you could remove the cloud from the flower, the flower would collapse right away.
You don’t have to be a poet in order to see a cloud floating in the flower, but you know very well that without the clouds there would be no rain and no water for the flower to grow…
And earth, and gardener… if you continue, you will see a multitude of non-flower elements in the flower. In fact, a flower is made only with non-flower elements. It does not have a separate self.
I get it: I am the flower. I am the cloud. And I am me.
Anxiety, these days, is something I manage fairly well, thanks to a lot of deep breathing, some meditation, and frequent walks around the block, but when it comes to my angel sidekick, my little terrier, I can barely regulate myself at all. When fear moves in and worst-case scenarios loom, my mood tanks. I do not feel like the flower. I barely even feel like me.
On the heels of two hard days for Herbie, it finally happened: A war erupted. Innocent Ukrainian people were ambushed by fear and loss. I am very sensitive to other people’s suffering, which can feel overwhelming. I was glued to Twitter for the first two days, where I followed Russia’s attacks in real time and was repeatedly moved by stories of Ukrainian resistance and survival. When I saw the photo of Russian protesters risking everything for peace, tears sprang to my eyes.
The war did not help my mindset or my mood. As I continued caring for Herbie, I wondered how we all might reconnect to a sense of inner peace in the face of chaos and destruction.
In other words, is it possible to tap into a divine current of wellbeing — something greater than ourselves — when very little in the world makes sense?
For me, the answer is yes. But how? This is a question I am still asking, so I can only share the honest, messy in-between-ness of how it’s going right now.
“Returning to my body,” which is wellness-speak for getting out of my head and into a more embodied state, always helps me feel at ease. If I close my eyes and focus on my breath, or take a walk, I feel more present and alive. It’s like magic. Fresh air and doses of nature also work, leaving me refreshed. These practices are powerful, but I’ve used them for years, so they come as no surprise.
What I’ve observed this month, amidst the ups and downs of Herbie’s illness, is that doing something for someone else makes me feel good every time.
At one point, I mailed a card to my old roommate. I made soup for John. I checked on a friend who’s going through it. On Thursday, I pushed everything aside, ignored my work, and drove thirty minutes to a holistic pet shop, where I received wonderful advice and purchased new foods for Herbie to try while he heals. Next I went shopping for organic pureed baby food, which is also good for pups, and, as a result, felt tethered to what I value most: showing love and care to those around me.
When your life twists and turns, I can’t say for sure what will lift your spirit. But small acts of care seem to provide a direct line for me to connect with the universal love and connection I always crave.
The stories of communal care from Ukrainian bomb shelters hold a similar message. That even when disaster strikes, even when bombs fall from the sky, even when people are hurting, we can pull threads of goodness from thin air.
It’s a miracle, if you think about it. Humans are capable of astounding things. We have the opportunity to choose humanity, no matter what. We can choose hope, no matter what.
Holding all of this at once — beauty and suffering, love and war — is what makes life worthwhile.
Between you and me—
Two of my closest friends have checked on Herbie and me every day and shown us the most exquisite care. They keep me connected, too. I don’t have to tell them I am suffering; they just know! Girlfriends, if given the chance, could save the world.
My favorite sources for information from Ukraine are Jane Lytvynenko, a Ukrainian misinformation researcher and reporter in the U.S., The Kyiv Independent, English-language journalism from Kyiv, and Illia Ponomarenko, a defense reporter for The Kyiv Independent. If you feel called, you can donate to keep The Kyiv Independent going. They are only three months old, and they are engaged in the fight of their lives.
The Kyiv Independent is where I learned that this morning, Russian TV stations were hacked to broadcast Ukrainian songs.
May the songs of love and harmony and connection carry us forward. My wish this week, more than ever, is for peace. Thank you for being here. Take care out there.
The audio version of last week’s essay, which explored how I survive life as a numbskull inchworm, is available on Spotify, Apple, Substack, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Feel this so much. Creating space for both the individual human and humanity is a delicate balance that I’ll forever be searching for. Essays like this remind me that being vulnerable enough to admit this struggle is part of the process.