Cultivating Connection in a Disconnected World

Cultivating Connection in a Disconnected World

By Stephanie Sarazin

Posted on June 23, 2025

Physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual intimacy are all important for our collective well-being. So why aren’t we prioritizing them? (Hint: It may be technology.)

Oh, the pleasures of the modern world! Groceries are delivered to our doorstep within hours, drive-throughs dispense curated coffee in mere minutes, and endless entertainment options are available in just a couple of clicks. Sure, today’s conveniences save time, but what are we doing with that time? Two recent reports released by the US Surgeon General offer worrisome clues that we’re not using our saved time to meaningfully connect with our loved ones.

These reports, issued in 2023, reveal that American adults are experiencing an epidemic of loneliness, and that social media is likely negatively impacting the mental health of our tweens and teens. On closer examination, a more sobering sentiment surfaces: While technological advances allow us to connect faster and farther than ever, they also may be causing us to be lonelier than ever.

If that resonates, or if you realize that you’re in a relationship rut, consider why that may be. Are memes now your main mode of communication with friends? Do you text your teen more than talking face to face? Whether craving meaningful connection in your romantic, platonic, or familial relationships, getting honest about the role technology plays in life can be helpful to cultivating, restoring, or even deepening intimacy.

Reconnecting in Family Relationships

Sharing personal space with anyone fosters a unique dynamic. These are the people who see us in our many ages and stages, and we can often feel emotionally vulnerable around them. If you feel unsafe, separating yourself from those you live with may be wise. But if those you live with are provoking a normal amount of frustration, there are ways to improve those relationships.

Up until the last couple of decades, the average American family ate most of their meals together; however, that’s no longer the case. A combination of busy, conflicting schedules and the ease of pre-cooked, drive-through, or delivered meals means we are eating alone more than we are together. Committing to regularly scheduled face-to-face time—by sharing a meal or having a daily 10-minute check-in (perhaps over coffee or tea)—allows both parties to share and listen in real time.

If you don’t live with your family, or if distance makes in-person visits rare, technology can actually be of service. FaceTime them, schedule a Zoom call, or reach out over the phone in lieu of texting or emailing. Emerging research shows hearing a loved one’s voice is good for us, as it can nurture a sense of trust and help us feel seen and heard—because, unlike texting, we are seen.

Reconnecting in Friendships

Recent studies indicate that adults are reporting fewer close friendships than they once had. This decline is likely due in part to the rise of social media platforms that build “friends” and “followers.” We start by friending and following our families and former classmates, then our colleagues and community members. But soon enough, we’re accepting requests from people we don’t actually know, but know of. Eventually, our social media “friends” are totaling into the thousands and include our third cousins once-removed and every bridesmaid you stood with in your former friend’s wedding party. Prior to social media, these people would be called “acquaintances,” and both parties recognized one another as such. In today’s culture, the lines are less defined.

Taking an inventory of our friendships can help us gain clarity on who means the most to us. Be it two friends or 20, we can engage with intention and act from a place of sincerity in simply letting them know they are important.

Reconnecting in Romantic Relationships

When considering physical intimacy, it’s easy to understand why our smartphones, along with our tablets, laptops, and desktops, are causing trouble. Not only are we tech-addicted, but sexually explicit sites easily accessible across our devices are causing problems in the bedroom too. Social scientists are finding that consuming explicit sexual images impacts our brains, desensitizing both our mental and physical arousal centers. Ultimately, this rewires us in a way that is linked to sexual dysfunction in both men and women.

If you want to revive your relationship with sexual intimacy, commit to opting out of manufactured sexual imagery entirely. This kind of tech cleanse actually works to reset the brain. Also, consider practicing mindfulness when you’re sexually intimate. Before long, our neural pathways begin to form new tracks, allowing us to replace transactional sex with connected intimacy.

Taking an honest, personal inventory of all your relationships and your own behavior will help identify if tech is the culprit in disconnection. In doing so, be open to what you find—you may discover it isn’t a problem! However, if it is, tiny tweaks to your tech hygiene may help you to cultivate intimacy and connect more deeply.

Stephanie Sarazin

https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/tender-practices-to-honor-endings

7 Tender Practices to Honor Life’s Endings

7 Tender Practices to Honor Life’s Endings

By Stephanie Sarazin

Posted on January 31, 2024

A grief guide offers seven techniques for honoring the many endings in our lives—death, divorce, big moves, and more.

Whether grieving an important relationship, a community, or a phase of life, experiencing an ending can be painful. It’s probably no surprise that scrolling social media doesn’t help ease the ache.

That’s because today’s social media culture makes it easier than ever to celebrate the joy of beginnings. Simply scroll through your feeds to find images of engagements, weddings, gender reveals, births, and business launches. But the sorrow of breakups, divorces, miscarriages, downsizing, closed businesses, and deaths—not so much.

Honoring a significant loss is an important part of healing, so until the telling of our endings is normalized on social media, consider other ways to honor yours. If you aren’t sure how, here are seven tender practices to try.

Give Gratitude

Acknowledge your ending and what (or whom) is involved by writing a thank-you letter. Whether you are addressing it to someone (e.g., your ex), someplace (e.g., the town from which you’re moving), or something (e.g., your marriage), write from your heart and without judgment.

Summarize your experience, share your feelings, and include what lessons you may have learned while paying attention to the ways you’ve grown and what you’ve discovered about yourself. In doing so, you are connecting your heart and head through creative expression and actively honoring your ending in loving gratitude. Once finished, what you do with the letter is your choice: Save it, share it, or burn it. It doesn’t need to be physically received by the addressee in order for you to receive the benefits.

Create Your Own Ceremony

Because grief often begins at an ending, ceremonies are terrific tools for tender hearts—especially when witnessed with compassion. It need not be a costly or complicated event: Select a location, share your feelings, and invite your witness(es) to share, too. Light a candle, say a prayer, offer a reading (a gratitude letter, perhaps?), and play a special song. For those honoring an ending marked by physical death, consider doing something special on your loved one’s birthday. For those honoring an ambiguous ending, holding a “faux-uneral” ceremony may help.

Check Your Hope

The experience of hope is the belief that things will get better. But, when hope is misdirected, it can be as dangerous as it is helpful. This is because how we hope is just as important as why we hope.

When feeling stuck, it’s important to check in on your hope. Are you hoping that your ending will somehow be rewritten? For example, that your loved one returns asking to rekindle your romance or that your boss realizes their mistake and begs you to return. Such “external hope” keeps us looping back in a longing of what was, thus making it harder to let go.

So, when you catch yourself hoping for something you can’t control, make note and redirect your thoughts to “internal hope.” This hope is directed to yourself, the present moment, and the life ahead of you. The best part: Internal hope is 100 percent in your control.

Mind Your Mind

Thinking about your ending can be helpful, but when unchecked, it can also be hurtful. That’s because too much time pondering “what was” keeps us from integrating “what is.” Paying attention to how and how often you are consumed with distressing thoughts about your ending is key. Whether you are ruminating about what you did or didn’t say or do or finding yourself down the rabbit hole of unhealthy reflection, overthinking your ending is rarely helpful. When you recognize these behaviors, gently redirect your energy to the present moment and engage in a loving awareness meditation or breathwork practice to send love to yourself, calm your nervous system, and re-center.

Revisit Your Routine

Whether you chose your ending or it was chosen for you, you’re not only grieving a person or place but the innumerable nuances of your relationship and its routine. For example, it may be too painful to visit your son’s favorite park, your ex’s beloved date-night diner, or your former colleagues’ after-work hangout spot. Conversely, such places may give you comfort and help you feel connected to your loved one. But are you choosing to do so, or are you on autopilot?

Intentionally examining your routine can pinpoint what helps and what hurts, empowering you to make choices that best serve you in the present. When you’re ready, give yourself permission to create something new. Try a new restaurant or join a social club. Enroll in a class or venture into a new coffee shop. It could be the beginning of something beautiful. At the very least, you’re creating space for experiences that are new to you.

Move Your Energy

Endings are difficult for many because they often involve intense feelings. Whether grieving a sibling’s death, an estranged friendship, or the end of a marriage, the pain we feel in someone’s absence is often internalized as the last little bit of the relationship we have left. But, like a rope wrapped around your wrist for too long, holding on can cause its own painful burn and eventually create new problems. For help in releasing the metaphorical rope, find ways to healthfully release your emotions. There are many modalities to choose from, some of which include talking to a therapist or trusted friend, expressive journal writing, singing, or body movement exercises like dancing, running, yoga, or qi gong. Though less gentle, private pillow-punching and scream-crying are also effective.

Adopt a Mantra

Like learning to swim or ride a bike, healthfully grieving our endings requires patience and practice. That’s because it doesn’t happen all at once but little by little, in countless moments both big and small. When such moments arise, reciting a mantra can be a soothing touchstone that ,when repeated, brings thought into speech and speech into action.

For example, “Love them, bless them, let them go” or “I wish them peace, I wish them joy. I wish me peace, I wish me joy” are two to recite as you let go (again and again). As you do, know that in each act you aren’t just honoring your ending, but your love—and yourself as well.

Stephanie Sarazin

https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/tender-practices-to-honor-endings