How Do We Heal the Disconnect?

We are more digitally connected than ever and yet more disconnected from ourselves and each other.

Well-being is not an app.

Apps are great because they give us access to resources, and social media helps us stay in touch with our friends' activities. However, these technologies also isolate us because we watch the world go by.

When I was with my dad during his final five months, knowing he was dying, we were in the same room 24/7 because tumors on his spine had paralyzed him. What struck me deeply was how the world kept going outside, but inside, our world was still—not stuck. In that stillness, I learned to connect deeply with myself and my dad.

TOGETHERNESS

The loneliness epidemic isn't really about being alone or together. We can be in a room with many people and still feel utterly lonely. As an only child growing up, I longed for friendships, thinking they would fix my loneliness, but being a bit of an outlier, I often felt more alone with others than being on my own. I remember a mentor introducing me to this thought: being alone and lonely are not the same thing. I have since been fascinated by researching and understanding how social well-being is foundational to our whole human thriving.

Many still think of Maslow's hierarchy as placing basic survival needs at the foundation for growth and thriving. Yet, you can have all the physical safety in the world—shelter, food, money—and still be miserable. The missing link is that humans needed each other to build shelter and hunt food, which is why community was and still is foundational for thriving.

In our modern society, however, community has been replaced by connections on social platforms, communication has become sharing and liking posts, and engagement has devolved into activity rather than listening. Instant messages fragment our attention; we've lost the art of meaningful connection and authentic interaction.

THE POWER OF ATTENTION

Togetherness is not a place or an activity; it's creating space for conversation—not merely an exchange of ideas but an exchange of thoughts and feelings received by others with space and grace—the art of listening.

The distinction is crucial: loneliness isn't about physical isolation but emotional disconnection. We can be surrounded by people yet feel profoundly alone when authentic exchange is missing. Conversely, we can experience deep connection even in brief interactions when we're fully present.

Dr. Carol McCall, one of my mentors, researched the effect of listening years ago.

She found that oxytocin is released in the brain when we feel truly heard—not just "I hear you," but genuinely listened to. Oxytocin is the hormone released when we feel loved, essential for connection. So, togetherness isn't a party; it's a conversation.

But why are conversations so difficult? We talk at people, we listen to people, but we lack the true skill to connect—which is where Power-Pausing comes in. In a world moving ever faster, where we've been taught to fix problems and keep going, we've become conditioned to have answers ready, so we react instead of pausing to ask more questions before responding.

In today's work environment, we find ourselves in the messy middle of change, transitioning from "work faster to be productive" to "work better to solve problems." With that, we must transform ourselves—or rather reconnect with ourselves—as human beings instead of human doings.

The challenge is the demand on our attention. We already know that we are constantly distracted by notifications, and it's not easy to maintain boundaries of space and time for deep work. However, we are also conditioned to think that pausing means taking time off. It could, but we urgently need to create pauses that prevent our minds from being hijacked by FUD—fear, uncertainty, and doubt. When our minds constantly churn on the hamster wheel in the background, we cannot listen to anything but our thoughts, endlessly wondering what to do. This makes us miss out on the conversations that could help us find new ways forward.

THE NEED FOR CONVERSATIONS

It's not just because of COVID-19 that we have lost the power of community and gathering. We lost the power of pausing a long time ago. We wanted coffee and fast meals to go; we believed that multi-tasking made us successful (it has been debunked, even though some believe they are good at it). We fell into the trap of thinking that entertainment would keep us from being bored, so we ended up binging movies together or alone. We have stopped using our minds to self-reflect, connect, and interact, believing that doing is how we solve problems and grow. It's not. We grow from reflecting on our experiences and need a shared space to do so. We need conversations.

Supportive relationships can buffer stress if we engage in conversations that pause to allow room for true listening. That's also how we build resilience through connection, and that's why we must understand the difference between togetherness and merely being in the same room.

In our modern world, our work culture is part of our community, so we must embrace a new paradigm at work—to stop competing to be seen and rewarded and instead collaborate by being heard and included.

HARNESSING WHAT MAKES US HUMAN

Our unique human advantage lies in our ability to pause, listen, and ask more questions, which enables us to think, engage, and act with discernment, care, and purpose.

Power-Pausing is more than just taking a break; it's a conscious choice to interrupt our automatic patterns. When we pause, we create the mental space needed to truly listen—to ourselves and to others.

In a world that's moving and changing faster than ever, we must learn to transform stress and overwhelm into growth, one Power-Pause at a time, so that we can cultivate conversations that not only heal the disconnect but also reconnect us with our inherent human capacity to collaborate and innovate.

By implementing Power-Pausing in our interactions, we create the conditions for healing. We move from superficial exchanges to meaningful connections, from digital noise to human resonance. This practice doesn't just alleviate individual loneliness—it repairs the social fabric that supports our collective well-being.