Have you ever asked yourself how connected you really are to your family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, or other people you know of but have no direct relationship to like politicians, celebrities, local, national or world leaders?
Do your thoughts and feelings about these people say something deeper about you that you’ve never shared, even with those you believe you’re close to? How much do you really know about how connected you are to the rest of the world? Our relationship therapists offer marriage counseling that can help you find out how connected you really are to everything around you, especially your lover.
Rosalind Watts, a psychologist and Clinical Director at Imperial College in London has created a series of 20 statements you can agree with using a scale ranging from Entirely to Not at All. It takes just a few minutes to answer the statements which as a whole provide a good sense of how connected you really are to everything in your life. Here’s how to answer them.
Reflecting on how you have felt over the past 2 weeks, please rate the following statements on a scale from ‘Not at all’ to ‘Entirely’ according to how you have felt over this time period.
1. I have felt trapped in my mind.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
2. My mind has felt connected to my heart/emotion.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
3. I have felt connected to my senses (touch/taste/sight/smell/hearing).
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
4. I have felt connected to a range of emotions.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
5. If I had chosen to, I could have ‘sat with’ painful memories.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
6. I have felt connected to my body.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
7. I have been able to fully experience emotion, whether positive or negative.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
8. I have felt alone.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
9. I have felt connected to friends and/or family.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
10. I have felt connected to a community.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
11. I have felt connected to all humanity.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
12. I have felt unwelcome amongst others.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
13. I have felt separate from the world around me
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
14. I have felt connected to a purpose in life.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
15. I have felt connected to nature.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
16. I have felt connected to a spiritual essence (in the secular or religious sense).
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
17. I have felt connected to a source of universal love.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
18. I have seen things from a broad perspective, ‘the bigger picture’.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
19. I have felt that everything is interconnected.
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
20. I have felt connected to my land. (to my ancestors)
Entirely 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Not at all
Using these items, our relationship therapists at Marriage Counseling in New York City helped Thomas and Caroline realize how connected they really are to the things in their lives, deepen their couple dialogue and get more connected to each other.
Thomas feels trapped in his mind, not often in touch with his heart or emotions, separate from the world around him, not good at sitting with painful feelings, not connected to his body and unwelcome among his work associates. On the other hand, he believes he has a purpose in life, is connected to a spiritual essence and is proud of his ability to see the big picture.
Caroline in contrast feels connected to her senses, is in touch with her body, is able to experience all of her emotions whether positive or negative, feels connected to nature and is in touch with a source of universal love.
How different Thomas and Caroline are from each other! He is not who she thought he was when they first met. He will not go where she goes. He’s like a shoe that walks away. Yet he tries to follow her, be with her, hear what she’s trying to tell him, even when it kills him. And she tries to hear what he yearns to say but cannot say to her, see that he’s made of steel that bends in the breeze.
The only way that Thomas and Caroline can ever feel more connected to the world is by first feeling more deeply connected to each other.
Our relationship therapists at https://www.marriage-couples-counseling-new-york.com/ offer marriage counseling in NYC that will help you create a couple dialogue in which you will deepen your connection to the rest of the world and to each other.
