Countless online meetings, hundreds of friends on Facebook, walking with parents, volunteering, a conversation during a break at a professional conference: these are some of the situations in which we connect with others.
The opportunities to connect are almost endless – even if in Corona times, digital opportunities tend to come to the fore. ‘Being connected’ means objectively having the (technical) possibility to get in touch with others, to do or develop something together.
To varying degrees, we all perceive this because we need contacts. And yet almost all of us have experienced feeling lonely in company, somehow wrong, superfluous or not in the right place. So being connected doesn’t necessarily mean that we feel connected. But what distinguishes connection from connectedness?
Connectedness describes the subjective feeling of belonging, a sense of being lifted up, the feeling of being embraced. Connectedness is a vital need. It is what we all instinctively long for.
However, connectedness does not only refer to the emotional experience we have in relation to others. Rather, with this connectedness to a counterpart or group, we can at the same time feel connectedness to ourselves and a sense of belonging to something “greater” – be it God, the universe, or nature.

1. SELF-CONNECTEDNESS

To be connected to oneself means to be aware of oneself – one’s sensations, thoughts and emotions, one’s instincts and behaviors. The idea of self-awareness is not linked to the goal of perfecting oneself, but to gaining insight and self-acceptance.
In short, accepting oneself as one is.

2. CONNECTEDNESS WITH THE OPPOSITE

The feeling of connectedness within a partnership, in a good friendship or even towards strangers is the antipode to loneliness.¹ We feel connected to another person when we have the confidence to be accepted as we are and when we can ask them for help even in bad times.

3. GROUP CONNECTEDNESS

Connectedness with a group of people, or a collective connectedness with each other², means that you feel you are in the midst of people you know or don’t know. We feel this kind of connectedness when the people in this group share one’s interests or attitudes and see the same meaning in something. To feel connected to a group is to be integrated, to feel a part, and to feel seen.³

4. SPIRITUAL CONNECTEDNES

Spiritual connectedness is the feeling of being connected to something “greater”, something “higher”. Here we can feel One with the universe or with nature, or feel a connectedness to one or more gods. The feeling of spiritual connectedness can also arise when we have realized our purpose in life, or have accepted that we cannot know or grasp certain essential things.

The four dimensions indicate that we can feel connected to other people, ourselves, or something “greater” without being concretely, presently, connected. Conversely, we can be in connection with others and feel lonely at the same time because the sense of connectedness is not there. And we can consciously activate and strengthen the four dimensions of connectedness. They provide a valuable resource for health and social participation. And how simple this can be is shown on the next page.