Ten Signs I’m Disconnected from My Heart

Sometimes I just feel disconnected from myself.

You? Do you ever feel irritable, grumpy, or just plain dull?

Have you ever felt like all you want to do is pull away from the people you care most about?

Or…

Have you felt like an upsurge in your sugar consumption? facebook surfing, or like you just want to take a nap and turn it all off for a while?

Prior to having any tools, I did all these, and more.

I called it my “funk.”

I wasn’t pleasant to be around.

Everyone annoyed me.

But then when I finally found space to be alone, I discovered that I didn’t really want to be alone either.

Hmmm…

What is going on here? 

Once I started working on myself and learning about my issues, I learned that when I behave like this, I’ve got a low grade trigger going on which has me disconnected.

Disconnection is the issue, and something triggered me into feeling this way, so I have two areas of myself I need to address.

This was a major discovery, and changed the course of my relationships forever.

But why do we disconnect?

Disconnection is a resilient strategy we all learned in childhood to escape our immediate experience which very few of us knew how to be with. We dissociated or “ran away” in our mind and from our body. This is the nervous system’s “flight” response and it’s brilliant.

Knowing this can help us be gentle with ourselves when we inevitably run away in a relationship.

There’s more…

After you discover you are disconnected, you need to find the trigger, or the source.

But we’ll get to that in a moment.

First, how do you know you’re disconnected, and what are the signs? Here’s my menu of the 10 most common signs (feel free to leave yours below):

Signs and symptoms I’m disconnected:

1. Fighting and disconnection with my partner
2. Feeling a low grade funk. I’m the grumpy guy at the grocery store
3. Irritability, easily annoyed. My porcupine quills extend. I’m less approachable and others can feel it
4. Flatter affect. My face looks serious, dull, and emotionless. If I smile, it’s fake
5. General depressed vibe, unmotivated, uninspired, and wanting a hit of dopamine to take the edge off
6. Easily triggered by minor things thus I get into silly fights with my partner and let small stuff bother me
7. Objectifying women which eventually leads to porn use (before I quit porn)
8. I look for distractions. I eat more sugar. I snack when I’m not really hungry. I stay on facebook longer, I check email every 2 seconds, I click dumb videos to watch on youtube, etc.
9. I isolate, unconsciously pushing people away, but simultaneously feeling sorry for myself and wanting someone to notice me

I’m sure you can relate to a few of these eh?

Remember, the first step here is to recognize and be aware that I somehow lost connection…

…This took me quite a while to figure out. I would not have been able to see it on my own.

I needed trusted guides, a men’s group, a powerful woman in my life, and rock solid support.

Once you recognize you are disconnected, the second step is to find the source (see below), and the third step is to get connected again asap (see below).

Why?

Once you reconnect to you, it’s like the sun coming back out after a dismal cloudy day.

If you can learn how to re-connect with you, your life is simply brighter, you can accomplish more, you are more powerful, clear, and on point.

It feels freakin’ amazing to come back home to who I am.

Okay fine, so how the hell do I get there?

The way back into self-connection

1. When did this feeling start?

2. What caused this feeling? What happened in the past few days/weeks that is noteworthy?

3. Isolate the incident, event, or relationship fight or issue that “triggered” you into feeling this way.

4. Get in your body. Disconnection is another form of dissociation and not being present, in our bodies, or in our heart.

5. Dive in an feel it. That’s right, just Feel like you mean it. It’s just like a wave and will pass soon.

6. Get in-relationship with a close friend. Find the closest person in your life and ask them to “connect” with you. I find, one of the fastest ways back to self-connection is through another. Own what is happening. Start by saying “I’m scared” or something else that is vulnerable and true (I go through this process extensively in my trainings and classes).

7. Commit to taking care of the root issue. Finding the core issue and beginning to clear it, will set you free. The next time you get triggered like that, you will be less and less likely over time to get “taken out” by that experience. See how the trigger is serving you in your highest growth.

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Prior to any inner work, I spent months and years feeling the above signs and symptoms and thought it was normal and like I just had to live this way.

Once I recognize these signs and symptoms (Some of these are so subtle it’s tricky to catch on quickly. Sometimes, it might take me a few hours or a few days), I know that I must make it a top priority to feel.

I must dive into my heart-body and feel. Feel my hurt, rage and grief. The more I feel these friends of mine, the more I come back into my center, back into my heart, back into my soul’s body. And, once again I’ve come back home to myself and it feels soooooo good.