“Being in Touch” on Earth Day
by Matt O'Grady
It is one of those sayings that have always struck a chord in me (pun intended for those who can get it). Lots of people say “stay in touch”, “keep in touch”, “are you in touch with him or her?” I have always wondered what is really behind that ‘in touch’? Because we usually do not mean actually touch someone even though the old saying from the 80’s was something like “Reach out and touch someone” and then they would show a son or daughter calling their parents or grandparents.
As a lot of us know, marketing has a lot to do with stirring up emotion and giving the idea of the possibility of healing an emotional pain or feeling of lack. However, there is no denying that they were on to something—look at the Internet. It’s just one big universe based solely on communication of information of every shape, color and size from the profane to the divine and everything in between. Communications and communication is something we do all day long, in person, in phone conversations, emails, faxes, and of course blog posts! The simplest definition of the word “Touch” seems to be: “To be in contact with.” That makes sense but doesn’t necessarily help me really understand what “Being in Touch” really means. In contact with what? When we say that about another person, does that mean in person, does that mean their body, their voice, their email, their cell phone voicemail, or perhaps their soul?
Well for me personally there are two reasons I find this interesting and I believe it to be important.
First of all, if we aren’t in touch with ourselves, we can’t truly or honestly be in touch with anyone else. We may say a lot of words, and we may make someone laugh or piss them off but there will be no real, long lasting, powerful connection and hey, maybe no one is concerned about—that but I am. By being in touch with myself I know it to be defined by exploring my heart and mind and asking myself some tough questions such as: How do I want to see my life when I am old and grey and looking back at my life? When I am dead if someone was to write my biography, what would I want to see written in it? What do I want to leave for my family and friends, my children and grandchildren in actual physical things as well as what kind of legacy do I want to leave behind? What are my greatest fears? How can I overcome them and/or act with courage in spite of them? What do I want most for my life? What is my greatest gift to the world? How can I spiritually evolve, in this moment and over this lifetime? How can I be a better friend, brother, husband, son, cousin, uncle, father, business partner, co-worker?
Anyway, you get the idea. For me, questions like this help me get in touch with how I really feel about a subject, a situation or an idea. Of course this is a very individual process and there an infinite amount of ways of engaging in this practice. I have also found that I can be in touch with my body by listening to it. Taking five minutes to see what is tight, what may be loose, what hurts, what part is swollen, or broken has been an invaluable practice for me. Whether its through yoga or chi gong, or just by sitting in my easy chair closing my eyes, and feeling this tremendously large organ called the epidermis, and then noticing the bones, the muscles, the tendons, the ligaments, the heart beating and the blood flowing, the air being breathed in and out of my lungs and seeing what is actually happening and noticing that there is this universe I call my body that I barely know and that each time I take the time pay attention to it if even for a few moments I am shown once again that I know nothing, and that I am thankful that I don’t have to understand why or even how it all works but I can just enjoy it!
Well, that’s a bit about how I get in touch with myself.
The second reason I find “being in touch” so interesting is because its how interact with our environment, other people, cars, food, our beds, our desks, and so on. I really wonder if we are not in touch with ourselves, or our environment how can we really even begin to be in touch with this big blue green, living and breathing being, magnificent spaceship that we all live on that is hurtling through space and around the Sun at 18.5 miles per second. If that’s not hurtling I don’t know what is!
Ah, well being in touch with our Mother Earth I find very interesting indeed. Are we in touch with our planet if we recycle? If we don’t throw our garbage in the streets? If we don’t drive big gas guzzling SUVs? Or are we in touch if we take off our shoes and put are feet in the dirt, the grass or the sand? Are we in touch with the earth when we place our hands on a huge oak tree with a triple trunk that’s several hundred years old and look up the trunk to the tops of the trees with the sun shining through and have a moment of pure awe for its beauty and its strength? Or are we in touch when we swim in the ocean and do the backfloat and let go, trust and let ourselves be held as if we were in the womb?
I can’t answer that for you, I think we all need to find out what it means to us individually, there is no one right way or answer. If we all get in touch with ourselves, and get in touch with our planet, in our own sacred and personal way, I think we will all both be much better off. Happy Earth Day.
13 comments
thank you… you inspired me to look inwardly and think about what “being in touch” means to me. my idea of “being in touch” most likely varies from that of many of my friends, family, and co-workers. i think that i am much closer with those people in my life with whom i share a similar definition of what “being in touch” means, or who understand my interpretation of “being in touch”…but, if nothing else, my eyes are opened a little wider to the notion of what “being in touch” with MYSELF means, and it’s more than just this body holding me…i am not alone.
Matt,
Thanks for reminding all of that now matter how busy we are just living life, we need to take a moment (longer actually) to take inventory of ourselves–physically, mentally and spiritually.
I know that I am definitely guilty of letting myself get consumed so deeply in the muck and stress of the ‘daily grind’ that I often forget myself, which is a huge mistake.
Being in touch really does start with yourself. Thanks for the reminder and the inspiration.
Hey Matt,
These are some pretty powerful pearls of wisdom you so eloquently shared with all of us.
I consider myself a pretty in touch kind of gal and even I find it a little too easy to get caught up in the business, “busy-ness”, of life and not slow down long enough to look at the bigger picture. Why am I here? What can I do to help? Thank you for the reminder. Being in touch starts with me…never underestimate the power of one.
Great thoughts!
I have found the more time I spend in quiet to get to know myself, the more at peace I am. We wake up to noise and have noise all day long. We are being surrounded by noise and advertisements most of the day in this crazy beautiful world. I feel it’s easier for me to reach out and “touch” someone if I’m at peace with myself. I can relate and be in touch with people better in this state of peace. Ten minutes of silence is how I start my day so I can better server others and myself. Happy Earth Day!!!
WOW…Very profound on many levels! First, thank you for such a wonderful article! I have no doubt that you have “touched” the lives of those who read it
For me, touch has become so important! Just today I had a conversation with a friend who is a massage therapist and “touch” is exactly what we spoke about.
Recently, my grandmother (who I am very close to) was hospitalized 3 times for a week each time with non life-threatning issues. During her hospitalizations, her condition became worse daily! She was more and more confused (to the point that her Drs. believed that she would never recover her mental capacities again) and she was also scared.
Everyone, except my husband, was telling me that I had to face reality, that she is 90 and this happens, but I refused to give up! With each hospitalization, my husband and I flew to Florida to be by her side!
Instinctively, I began to keep her connected to reality through touch. Holding her hands, rubbing her feet, brushing her hair, holding her as we walked the halls, laying in bed with her, comforting her, reassuring her, encouraging her to tell me stories, and staying connected to her through our shared love…and touch.
Guess what? IT WORKED! After coming home and receiving home care, she is practically fully recovered!!! My family and the Drs are still surprised at how far she has come!!
She is 90 (yes 90!!) and and there are other issues and problems that she faces daily but, the power of physical touch as well as emotional touch is something that has “touched” my life, so recently, in such a powerful way.
Thank You for allowing me to share my story…Happy Earth Day!!
Now go put your bare feet in the cool grass and dirt! :O) Jenn
As the years have passed I have recognized that there can be no true connection with anyone or anything, unless I am connected with myself first. It is impossible for me to fully experience life, the people in it, the beauty around me, unless I choose to look inward first and recognize my own beauty, flaws, and humanity in general. When I ‘forget’ to do this, I feel out of touch and out of sync and dulled. But when I do choose to do this, every day is Christmas, because I am giving myself the biggest gift ever. And by doing that, I can share that gift with everyone else. It is a gift of inspiration and love and happiness, and to me that is what being ‘in touch’ really means. Awareness of self, mindfulness of others.
Soothing words and reading what came from the mind of another person. I am still amazed and I wonder, as wondering about things are easy for me to do. The list is lengthy, I think without an end as to what I wonder about. Here I am it’s beautiful, cold and rainy, yet people are miserable around me because of that, we’re so lucky to be able to experience it, yet some would choose to live life with out it! Well I accept nuisances, if you can even call them that, because it is the life that is all around us and it is beautiful.
First I would like to say, “happy Earth day” to everyone reading this blog. What a great article filled with wonderful visuals stimulating many emotions and thoughts. I think we all can relate to the fact that without knowing or ‘being in touch’ with one-self, it’s hard, if not impossible, to connect to others. That’s certainly apart of the maturation process and we all continue to discover and rediscover ourselves as we travel through this game called life. So, I guess communication between human beings is constantly changing as the each person evolves. Simply time on this planet relates to experience and experience changes us all. Of course we all change physically, but what I mean relating to this article is that we change mentally, emotionally, and psychologically. It has changed me over the years and certainly has changed my interaction with my family, friends, co-workers and mother earth. Influences open our eyes, our mind and our thoughts to how important communication is between our loved ones and of course in the working world as well. Communication is the key to any relationship. That communication develops change within oneself and thus the cycle of change and rediscovery again begins. To me, ‘being in touch’ is a process or a journey. It’s something I try to define today but know, very well, it will change tomorrow.
Hi Matt,
You are absolutely correct. Yoga teaches us that we are all connected. Yoga also teaches us to live in the present by becoming more grounded and in touch with the earth. Karma teaches us that we are all here on Earth for a lesson and after we have learned that lesson we are supposed to spread our knowledge to help everyone living on this Earth. These two ideas are about recycling our thoughts and actions back to the Earth to help the people and energy on this planet. I believe that we are all one and that we are all connected. We live on such a beatiful planet!! This Earth day we should all meditate and thank the Earth for allowing us all to be here and we should all plan on how to give back to our Earth.
Too often we find ourselves traveling through life without rhyme or reason. It’s something we do, because it’s there. Funny when you think about it. If anyone told you they were driving down a road because it was there, you would think they were crazy (or a stern follower of Forrest Gumpology).
Yet we do it, every day. Follow a schedule… do things without recognizing the consequences. That’s probably why we find ourselves in such a global predicament these days. But I digress, as a rant about the state of Mother Nature’s Health is not the point of my blog entry.
Matt I thank you for taking the time to urge us to do the same. After reading your article I actually took five minutes, sat in silence with my eyes closed and listened. Amazing what your body tells you and how easy it becomes to address it. I wonder how long my body has been telling me these things, and more importantly, how long have I been deaf to them? It’s quite enlightening, both physically and spiritually.
The biggest thing I realized though is, “If I have such a hard time listening to what my body is telling me, how many other cries for attention am I ignoring around me?”
Thanks so much for your thought-provoking post and to everyone for their insightful comments! My job involves sitting at a desk in front of a computer for most of the day, which seems to just suck the self-awareness right outta me. So, I’m esp grateful for any and every reminder to “be in touch” that comes through this machine to wake me up…thank you!!!
And I def agree with you, Matt, that such connectedness with oneself is essential to good communication/connection with others. I think of it really as foundational to all relationships, those with friends, lovers, family, neighbors, animals, Mother Earth, the Universe…etc. It all just seems to radiate from that core of “being in touch” with one’s own being; a connection that instills an awareness that I think makes the questions about caring for each other and our planet so much clearer and easier to answer.
In touch with myself? What is the self? Is it my personality? My upbringing? My patterns? Is it my physical, emotional, psychological characteristics? Is it the way I act? Is it what others perceive as ‘me’? Am I an imagined potential not yet fully manifested?
At times I feel like “I wasn’t myself”. What does this mean… is there someone else inside I don’t know, or perhaps Pride won’t let me admit identification of self with something felt to be negative. How much is there that I am not willing to admit to? My whole life I spend trying to make this “self” better, perfect, defining it with clear boundaries and selective memory. “Self-mastery” I fantasize about, total control, absoluteness. But this fantasy is shortlived, for the not-self (beyond the boundary defined as the self) is always there to remind me of my limitations, of my hopelessness… to remind me of death. The not-self is always there to humiliate the self, that is, if the self doesn’t turn a blind eye (as it naturally likes to).
Where does the self end and the not-self begin? Are my parents really separate from me? Is my upbringing really separate from me? Is earth day really not a part of me? Is the earth really separate from me? Is my great great great grandmother separate from me? How about the chair she sat on every day after coming home from a hard day’s work? How about her thoughts as she sat in that chair?
What am I? Am I my mind, my body, my feelings, am i the air the body breathes, the food, the sunlight, sounds, the sea…? Waves in the ocean, all give the appearance of being individual, separate from the next wave… but is it not all water (all the same, without separation)? Could it be that people (selves) are like this? Could it be that all ‘things’ are like this? Why does this matter? Does it?
A better late than never entry.
Being “in touch” may be the moment you realize how “out of touch” you have become (complaining, bitterness, negativity). The realization and shifting of your focus to gratitude (healthy body, strong relationships, Sundays, ice wine). And when you are grateful you once again are “in touch” with the universe! When you are “in touch” with that feeling place you are clear and your life is “in touch” with joy.
That’s is what it is for me, “in touch” = JOY!
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