Connection - The First Order of Business

Connection is an experience everyone yearns for. It’s also essential for stepping into your greatness, connecting with others and key to your success. It’s painful to feel disconnected. Even if you are successful by external standards, when you feel disconnected, you experience that you can never do enough, have enough or be enough. It’s like being unplugged from your power source, from what juices you and makes you feel passionate and fully alive. Greater connection is the motivation for creating the internet, iphones, social media and other technology that make it possible to communicate with more people, from a greater distance and from wherever you are. But you have some other connecting to do before you can really connect with one other person - or to a million - live or through technology. Connection begins by first being connected with you! Then you can have real connection with others. For you who are in the people business, connection is core to the transformation that you offer through your work. And it is not something that you can think your way into. Your brain is important, but is only a part of your consciousness. Your consciousness lives within your entire body. A Secret Success Tool You have to be present with and within your body to feel truly connected. I call it “living in your body.” This is simple and not always easy, but highly satisfying to your soul. You might have heard the amusing but painful line in a James Joyce essay, “Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body.” This is disconnection and the image brings it home. You can “live in your body” rather than some distance from it. Here’s a simple practice for doing that. “Drop down” from your thinking brain into your energetic body. Simply shift your attention from the land of your head into the land of your body. Allow yourself to move into and feel your body. Notice the sensations, feel your own energetic presence. Plug into yourself, before you try to connect with someone or something else. I invite you to try it before you read on. Notice your breath automatically and naturally returning, without effort on your part. We are not always breathing, and when we are, it can be from barely to deeply. When you connect with you, your natural breath is unleashed. This return of your breath both energizes and relaxes you. This, in turn, increases your presence, and your connection to you. Being present in your body in this way anchors you to the present moment. It is in the present moment that connection happens - with you, with others or with what you are doing. You have to be present in the now moment to connect. Practice this and simply say or think “drop down” as your trigger. Practice it 100 times a day. It only takes a moment. Do this when you walk into your office, before every phone call, email, client session ... well, before any and everything. The pay-offs will be tremendous. Connecting with you opens the way for your vision, your gifts and what you stand for to emerge and grow strong. It allows you to truly connect with your people and is key to the transformation that is the raison d’être of your work. Connecting with you is a rich experience. And it is key to your soul-satisfying success. Step Into Your Greatness!rnDrop down, live in your body and connect!