If You Haven't Found Your People Yet, Keep Looking

I’ve seen some people experience post-traumatic growth in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. They’ve grown as a result of pandemic hardships and developed a new sense of connection with Self and community that they may never have attained if so much wasn’t taken away from them. As a whole, though, I find that people are even more disconnected now than they were before.

Long before Covid-19 came around, people developed ways of connecting virtually. Social media, video chat platforms, and even telehealth were all well-established before we had reason to be reliant on them. The pandemic greatly increased communication across states, countries, and oceans. I notice this most with my professional and peer support organizations. I can meet online with peers across the globe, where before these meetings were largely limited to the few who could afford to travel or happened to be near some great resource.

I absolutely appreciate the doors that technology has opened for me and others, but there’s been great loss as well. There’s something about being in the same room with another person that technology can’t replace. As virtual options expand, I notice fewer and fewer options to connect in-person. Many people prefer the convenience of virtual meet-ups. But how can I share an experience with you when we’re not having the same experience?

Don’t get me wrong, some of the most important people in my life live far, far away from me. Our connection is real, but it’s also quite contained. We can’t just sit and look at the sky together. They literally can’t even see what I’m seeing. When I look at somebody through a screen or listen through the phone, I’m not experiencing the scents in the air around them, the temperature, all of those subtle influences that make up a whole life. People continue to rely more and more on technology for relationship, even to the extent that one study shows the number one use of artificial intelligence is for therapy. AI for therapy??? Yes, I teach my clients lots of skills that could easily be gotten from a book or the internet. But these skills compliment what I tend to think of as the real work, and the real work happens in relationship. It may be nice to have AI offer encouraging phrases and insightful reflections, but how can I deepen my connection with my Self if I’m using a machine without capacity for emotion as a primary support? It just boggles my mind, and it concerns me quite a bit.

Because I’ve moved so much over the course of my adult life, I didn’t already have a solid foundation of local personal and professional relationships when the pandemic hit. Once things started opening back up, I went back to work building my local community. This would prove to be harder than it ever had been before. One might think that having larger online communities would increase opportunities to find like-minded people, but in some ways I think it does the opposite. People have different comfort zones, and some people are much more comfortable online than others. It’s also both too easy to walk away from discomfort when there’s a disconnect, and simultaneously too hard to reach out when something feels off and could use some further investigation. If I’m involved in an online group and something about it bothers me, I can just stop logging in and block people from contacting me. And if I sense that something’s off with someone in an online group, I can’t use my intuition and observation to quietly approach that person and check in. This in addition to the fact that the sheer number of people in these groups can make it really hard for the average person to come to know others and to be known themselves. So while I’m grateful for the opportunities virtual spaces offer, I find them taking away from the opportunities for in-person connection that used to be so much more common. I think too many people are choosing convenience over long-term gain, and they haven’t begun to understand what they’re sacrificing.

In terms of post-traumatic growth, I think what the pandemic had to offer was an opportunity to re-assess our priorities, detach from unfulfilling relationships, and shift toward more meaningful relationships with Self and others. My advice to you is: If You Haven’t Found Your People Yet, Keep Looking. Your people won’t be just like you in every way. In fact, as you deepen your relationship capacity, you’ll likely notice that it’s helpful for you to build relationships with people that are quite different from you in lots of ways. There’s strength in diversity. You have something to offer them, they have something to offer you, and you learn and grow from and with each other.

I think you know you’re with your people when your nervous system consistently tells you so. You can’t know this in a single moment. A moment can be right and the relationship still wrong. A relationship can also be right for a season, and no longer right as you grow and change. A person can be right as a part of your life, yet not right for every moment of your life. In fact, too much feeling of needing a person may be a sign that they’re not right for you at all. Again, the nervous system knows. It makes sense that you feel anxious, sad, or lonely if you haven’t yet found your people. Be present with those important feelings, and don’t let them run the show. Even if you haven’t found them yet, your people are out there. Keep building your relationship with yourself, and keeping looking for your people.