Quote by Rutger Bergman

In Rutger Bergman’s Humankind: A Hopeful History he writes, “Is it any wonder then that loneliness can quite literally make us sick? That a lack of human contact is comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day? That having a pet lowers our risk of depression? Human beings crave togetherness and interaction. Our spirits yearn for yearn for connection, just as our bodies hunger for food. “

And that is why I talk about attachment and attachment wounds.

We are hard wired to connect and to want and need family, friends, and community, which are things that are often missing in our modern world.

Without those healthy human bonds we suffer – we suffer emotionally, we suffer cognitively, we suffer physically, and we suffer spiritually.

That is why social media as a means of connecting with other humans can be so vital to creating community, especially among groups that might otherwise have a hard time finding others like themselves, such as the queer community and disabled communities.

This is often why therapists encourage finding support groups and other peer groups to join, so that we increase our chances of finding others to connect to.

Faith communities or churches, cultural centers, sports clubs, book clubs, creative communities, all of these are potential places of community and connection.

And having relationships with animals or nature are also valuable ways of connecting and feeling part of, and can in turn lead to other ways of connecting to like-minded humans through events and causes around shared interests.