Connect Podcast

Thank you to another reader that shared the link to the podcast for the Connect sermon: http://www.thegroveaz.org/sermons/connect/
After arriving at the web page click on the triangle on the right hand side of the light colored box with the title Connect.  This is a beautiful sermon that I think each person that takes the time to listen will be enriched.  I believe that since we each come with our own set of experiences that we will key in on different parts of what he shared.  The entire sermon takes about 40 minutes to listen to it.  I think I am going to revisit this sermon again.  I know from reading Awesome Reader's summary of the sermon she brought away different points than what seemed to resonate with me.  I encourage anyone that has the time to listen to the entire sermon, perhaps 10 minutes at a time, if your schedule doesn't permit listening all at once.  


I was particularly struck by his description of what happens when you disconnect.  Part of my diagnosis is severe dissociation or sometimes called Dissociative Identity Disorder.  If you Google these words, you will find psychological definitions that can boggle your mind.  I think how the minister described disconnect and its consequences is very similar to how I felt.  I one time explained that I felt like I was locked outside a candy store and everybody else is inside enjoying treats but I can not get in.  So I watch outside the store feeling disconnected to the society of others.  I know what it means to be alone in a crowded room.  Wikipeda describes it this way: "Dissociative disorders^[1] are defined as conditions that involve disruptions or breakdowns of memory, awareness, identity and/or perception." I started out in the severe range.  I had black outs in memory so large I could drop weeks or years into these black voids.  A sibling teased me, "The lights are on but nobody's home."  I would be totally unreachable.  My lack of awareness of the world created a barrier far more impenetrable then any prison wall.  My perceptions were distorted and identities, we were five.  I lived this way since I was 5 years old until I was 50.  I didn't know another way to live.  So the sermon talking about disconnectedness, he brought to simpler terms what I felt.  I will agree disconnectedness is bad for any person.  Learning to connect was one of my greatest struggles.  KavinCoach spent many hours teaching me the value, the challenges, and how I could connect.  I had disconnected so long ago that I had no skills of my own.  Change came when I learned new ways of living and put them into practice.  I am looking forward to listening to the sermon again as my feelings of connecting to others increase.  I also agree that when connectedness is broken at an early age there is a life time of struggles but not impossible.  Depression, dissociation, and disconnected three deadly D's that kept me from feeling alive.  I wasn't dead but I didn't live either.