Curious Neuron

Have you been feeling disconnected lately? Here are 3 tips to reconnect.

• Cindy Hovington, Ph.D. • Season 6 • Episode 24

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I just came back from a trip to Italy and there was a moment at a park where I realized something....we need to connect more with ourselves and those we love.

I polled our Instagram audience and 50% of parents feel disconnected and of these, 43% feel disconnected from their partners.

If you can relate to this, have a listen to this short solo episode.

You can also read the blog post I wrote about this and add a comment:
https://www.curiousneuron.com/blog/2024/6/8/are-we-too-busy-findings-ways-to-disconnect-from-our-kids-rather-than-moments-of-connection

If you want to join the waitlist for our upcoming community called the Reflective Parent Community this Fall, click the link below:
https://curiousneuronacademy.mykajabi.com/reflective-parenting-community-8751f762-a8f3-4562-b0e8-e37de4ab7187?preview_theme_id=2157310111

Purchase the Reflective Parent Journal below (get $10 off if you email me the review you leave for the podcast):
https://curiousneuronacademy.mykajabi.com/offers/FE2tgqG2/checkout

Thanks for listening! 

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Speaker 1:

Hello, my dear friend, welcome back to another episode of the Curious Neuron podcast. My name is Cindy Huffington and I am your host. If you have been feeling disconnected lately from yourself, from your partner, from your kids, your friends, your family or even your creativity then stay tuned to this episode. It's a solo episode. I'm not interviewing anyone, but I'm going to talk about something that I realized about three weeks ago, and I polled the audience on Instagram and asked them if they were feeling disconnected, and over 50% of parents said they were feeling disconnected. And then, when I asked them what they felt disconnected from, they said they were feeling disconnected from their partners and from themselves and, like I said before, creativity and friends and family. So I really feel that we need to talk about this. In addition, I've also written a blog post, so if you want to read about this and see some of the tips in a written format, you can click the link in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

But before I begin, as always, I want to thank the Tannenbaum Open Science Institute, as well as the McConnell Foundation, for supporting the Curious Neuron podcast. Without them, this podcast would not be possible. And thank you the listener. I've been getting lots of emails from people who are listening and I appreciate it so much. And if you do have a moment, click out of this podcast episode and leave a rating and a review. Send me an email at info at kirstenroncom. Let me know that you did and I will send you a $10 coupon for the reflective parent journal that we have. It's $30 on our website and I'll give you $10 off as a thank you. It's 100 pages and the way that I've designed the journal is so that if you are stuck in something, it's not one of those like think about your childhood or what do you enjoy, what don't you enjoy, sort of thing it's really about. If I'm struggling with my partner, how can I reevaluate the conflict that we have and reflect on it? Or if I'm struggling with my relationship with my child, how can I reflect on that Same thing with a relationship with you? How can you connect with yourself and use these reflection prompts to rebuild your values and take time to create moments that are important to you? That's what this journal is all about, and the link is in the show notes. So I know that during May, there were episodes being posted every single Monday, but I have a confession I well as you know, there are people that support me and help me, especially with the podcast. I have not been part of scheduling and posting the podcast and advertising it and talking about it on social media. I had somebody doing that, two people doing all that, and I've also been really disconnected from social media. I've had some help the past couple of months and part of this whole conversation we're going to have today I'm going to share my own personal disconnects, and part of that is with you guys and I have to apologize for that.

Speaker 1:

So in May I was in Italy. My family and I so my three kids, my husband and I went to Italy to spend some time together and this was the first time in a very long time that I completely disconnected from work. So over the winter I or actually a couple months ago now, I think time passes by really quickly I left Wonder Grade, so I'm no longer the co-founder of Wonder Grade and I've been taking a lot of time to reflect and a lot of time to think about what my days should look like and what I want my life to look like, and I had a lot of help with Curious Neuron. And while I was in Italy, something happened and I realized that many of us are feeling disconnected and or are disconnected from a lot in our lives. So one of the places that we visited in Italy are called the Dolomites.

Speaker 1:

This is in northern Italy and it's part of the Alps and it's very close to the Austrian border. We were outside of the city called Bolzano, italy, and about 45 minutes outside of that big city. So we're really really in the middle of nowhere and I went to the park with my kids. There was a park near our hotel and this was a beautiful park park. Lots of these like man-made structures, wood and ropes, things to climb, things to jump off of, things to balance yourself and take risks really different than what I was used to seeing here in Montreal.

Speaker 1:

So my kids were playing in the sand, they were building this little house with sticks for a worm that they found and they built a little house for it, and I was sitting watching them, right beside them, enjoying them. I wasn't on my phone, I was just, you know, sitting on the side and I was looking around at the park and something marked me. I looked at a mom. She had this her daughter sitting on her lap and she was swinging with her on a swing. And then there was another mom on the seesaw and she had two very young kids on one side of the seesaw and she was on the other side and she would sit and put all her weight and her kids would go boom, flying up in the air and they were giggling and laughing that daughter who was sitting on top of her mom in the swing. They were both giggling and laughing. And then I looked at a father who was climbing the sort of structure and kind of making it turn around and the child that he was with was laughing and they were both laughing and giggling. And then to the distant, at a distance, was a little building, a home, and in that backyard I saw a grandfather who was walking around and behind him was a child who was following very closely to him and they were both smiling and laughing and interacting and tending to the man's garden.

Speaker 1:

I was taken back by the beauty of this. I just looked at everyone playing in the park with their kids and then something hit me. This was very different than what I was used to seeing back home in Montreal. Not that I've never seen a parent playing with their child. I've played with my kids and I see lots of parents play with their kids, but on average what I was used to seeing was, you know, a parent or parents stepping back. Even as neighbors when we go to the park, we step back and we take this moment to kind of disconnect from our parenting responsibilities and we chat, we have conversations, we connect together, but we disconnect from our kids. And this whole situation wasn't just about, you know, reflecting on how we play with our kids. It just made me think of the word connection and often I'll hear parents say I scroll on social media so I can disconnect.

Speaker 1:

And I realized in that moment that perhaps we are taking too many moments to disconnect from everything that's happening around us. Maybe that break or that positive or good feeling that we're looking for doesn't happen in those moments that we disconnect. And if I think back to myself whenever I do disconnect whether it's through social media or just taking a moment to step out if I don't connect with either myself or a friend or my partner, in those moments when I come back to my kids, I'm not feeling like I've filled my cup Right. So those moments of disconnect although sometimes we need it and it does help us it started. This moment at the park got me thinking. Every single time I was with my kids or my partner, what am I doing to connect with them? This moment at the park made me become more intentional with connection in my life, and so the past couple of weeks on vacation and coming back from vacation, I've tried to create intentional moments of connection, not just with my kids, but with my partner, with my friends, sending a text message to the people in my life that really matter, calling somebody just to say hi, to see how they are. It's as simple as a post-it on your partner's night table or on their laptop so that they can start work and feel connected to you, and so could you. And so, my dear friend.

Speaker 1:

Today's reflection for this week is truly about being more aware or mindful of how often you are disconnecting from what's going on around you, if these moments of disconnect are truly filling you, filling your cup right and making you feel recharged so that you can parent, and if you can create more intentional moments of connection during your day. And I say moments of connection because connection doesn't take time right. So I spoke about leaving a post-it for your loved one or sending a text message to a friend. It takes seconds, but it's being intentional and mindful of these moments. And when you do that, I don't want to say I promise you, but I do sort of promise that it will feel good at some point. Maybe not the first time or second, or maybe even third, but if you start creating moments of connection, that person will notice and it might start feeling good to connect with that person and they might connect back with you. I know, I've seen it with my kids playing cards with them and something that I've always done before, obviously, but now I'm more aware of it and more mindful and it just feels so good to connect.

Speaker 1:

If we look at the literature and the science, which obviously you know me, that's what I did and I put some of the art. I put an article that I looked up in the blog post and I'll put it up, I'll put it in the show notes. But there were these researchers um, one was from Harvard University and they she specializes in in lifestyle medicine, so her name is Elizabeth Pegg Fratz and what they had in, or what they wrote in their paper called the connection prescription, is they were talking about just how important connection is for your well-being and mental health to the point that they want more therapists to kind of recommend connection as a form or part of your therapy. Connection with people around you is healing. Connections with people around you support and have been shown to have an impact on or lower the severity or risk not risk severity of depression. So taking the time to connect with people is extremely important for our mental health and our well-being. The opposite of that.

Speaker 1:

So feeling lonely and isolated. There's a study that came out of not a study, but a survey that came out of Ohio State University that found that 66% of parents are feeling lonely, and I think that we're feeling lonely because we're not taking the time to connect, we're not seeing just how important it is to connect with people around us, and so I added on the blog post a scale called the UCLA three item loneliness scale. You can do it right now, actually, if you want. So there are three questions. The first one is how often do you feel like you lack companionship? Number two is how often do you feel left out? And number three is how often do you feel isolated from others? Rate yourself on these three questions One being hardly ever, two being some of the time, and three being often. If you score six to nine, then it shows, according to research, that you do have, or you are feeling, a high level of isolation and loneliness. Level of isolation and loneliness and this is an eye-opener. This means that something has to be done or changed to get out of that. It's something that we can change. We are in control of that, if you can find an online community.

Speaker 1:

There was a study. Where did they read this? I think it's in the book called Leaders Eat Last, and they spoke about loneliness at the workplace and they asked people how many coworkers does it take, or close relationship with coworkers does it take, for a person not to feel lonely and isolated at work? And you know, people said maybe three, four, five, you five, thinking that you need to have a small group of coworkers that you feel close to in order to not feel lonely at work. But the research shows that it only takes one, and the same applies to our life. Do we have one person that we can call text, connect with, talk to? So here are three steps.

Speaker 1:

If you do feel like you're feeling disconnected and maybe you don't know what you're disconnected from, but you feel it Start with assessing yourself. Is it loneliness? If not, then is it that you haven't taken the time to connect with yourself? So step one is just asking yourself do I, you know, feel lonely or disconnected, and from what? Number two is taking the time to reconnect with yourself. No matter who else you want to connect with, start with yourself. Think about your values. Do you know them? Do you need to revisit them? Think about or make a list of things that matter to you. Are they part of your life? Are they things that you need to bring back into your life? What brings you joy? What fills your cup? All of these questions I know that they sound cliche what do you enjoy? What do you like? I get that, but I don't think we ask ourselves that question enough and we don't take time to do that. And then days pass and weeks pass and months pass, and then we feel disconnected. Relationships take time and nurturing, and we have a relationship with ourself, which means we need time and nurturing.

Speaker 1:

Then the third step is to become more intentional about moments of connection. So if it's really from yourself that you feel disconnected, then how can you create moments of connection during your day? Is it by journaling at some point and journaling doesn't take time. It doesn't have to. It could be five minutes, where you ask the question what's on my mind, and you get it out, you put it out there. Or it could what's on my mind and you get it out, you put it out there. Or it could be what's bothering me. Or it could just be what am I grateful for Five minutes. Put a timer. You don't need to do it longer than that.

Speaker 1:

But I know that I've been talking a lot about feeling disconnected from yourself, but according to the 484 people that voted on Instagram, 43% feel disconnected from their partner, which reminds us that we need to nurture that relationship as well. Now, I'm not a relationship expert and I don't want to pretend to be, and I don't know your situation either, but are there opportunities for moments of connection, rekindling or reconnecting together? Sometimes and I've been through it as well you know it gets hard as a parent because it's very easy to disconnect. There are lots of external factors, but if you are feeling disconnected from your partner, can you talk to them about it? Can you let them know, can you say that you want to try to actively together, find moments of connection, and that they don't have to take time. If one partner is very busy, can you take the initiative of connecting with them, can you write a little post-it, a little note, and place it somewhere they'll see it in their bag, so they see it at work, or on their night table, or on the third part of the sink in the bathroom where they're a mirror, so that they can see it in a moment that just reminds them that you love them. And lastly, of course, can you create these moments with your child. Can you take a small walk, a short walk, with them? Can you read an extra book, can you talk to them about their day without asking too many questions? Can you share a story from your childhood with them? Find a moment to disconnect from everything else but connect with those who matter All right. Connect with those who matter, all right.

Speaker 1:

So I know that at the beginning I said I had to apologize to you and I do because, like I said before, I've been getting help with Curious Neuron. Somebody is writing and sending out the newsletter, somebody is helping me create the posts and posting them, showing up in my stories. That's me on Instagram, but the other posts, when it's not my face, it's not me and I had a meeting with my social media manager when I came back from Italy and had this sort of revelation about connection and said, okay, you need to do other things because I need to take the moment or the time to reconnect with my audience. When I started Curastroncom about seven years ago, I jumped onto social media. Maybe a year and a half, two years after that and when social media really grew for me and this podcast was when I was really really connecting with the audience, I was there, I was with you, I was on in my stories and I was posting and I was writing the newsletter according to the conversations we were having in my comments on social media. But now it's not me showing up and I was stepping back trying to guide and orchestrate the bigger picture of Curastaron but I've lost connection with you and orchestrate the bigger picture of Curious Neuron. But I've lost connection with you and now I will be coming back and being here more present so you can reach out to me.

Speaker 1:

Let me know that you're listening, let me know what you enjoy about Curious Neuron, what you'd like to see more of. Send me an email info at curiousneuroncom. I want to hear from you. I will be recording more solo episodes this summer, but I still have a lot of interviews as well. I'm interviewing a scientist that studies lying and how to teach honesty as well, so I'm excited to share that episode. In a few weeks. There's a lot coming up and I'm excited to reconnect with all of you and hopefully we can see each other and speak to each other.

Speaker 1:

By the way, I do mean speak to each other. I need to interview 100 parents. I really do, and if you want to have a conversation with me and talk to me about parenting and some of your challenges, then send me an email at info at curastroncom and I will more than gladly jump on a zoom with you and have this conversation. In addition, I'm working really hard to launch a community coming this fall and if this is something that interests you, it has everything to do with connection and everything that we spoke about.

Speaker 1:

As I started talking to some parents, I realized that many parents did feel lonely and didn't have a community. Now I know there are lots of communities out there. I know they exist, I've seen them. I feel that we need a community where it's not about learning there are enough education tools out there but just the space where we can talk to others and realize that we're not alone, share, you know, struggles that we're having, get some guidance on how to reflect on these troubles, and that's what I'm really good at. So I want to make sure that there's a space that exists for parents. So, if you're interested, we're just collecting names now so you can click the link in the show notes and join the wait list so that you can receive that email once the community opens.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's about all my voice can take. As you can hear in my voice, it's just been getting a little bit worse as I'm talking and my throat keeps getting dry. I was sick this week and I've been coughing a lot, and now I have reached my limit of how long I can talk to you. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I'm curious to know if you agree with me or not. You can add a comment in the blog post if you want. That's where we can have the conversation around this and I'm going to try to write more blog posts. That's another reason why I wrote a blog post.

Speaker 1:

I need to come back to the roots of Kirsten Ron, which was nurturing the parent.

Speaker 1:

Well, actually, no, that's a lie. The root of Kirsten Ron was making sure your child is okay, and as I continued with Kirsten Ron and spoke to many parents, I realized that parents needed help and that if they were not okay, then their child was not okay, and so I switched my focus onto parents a little while back, but it's always been about you and trying to support you, because there's not a lot out there and I want to make sure that there's a space for you. So, my dear friend, I really do hope that you have a beautiful and wonderful week. I know that sometimes weeks are difficult. I know there are some teachers listening to this podcast and you are at the end of the school year and I know that that can be challenging. I know that, as parents, the beginning of the summer can be challenging knowing how to balance work and kids being home, being bored and so I hope that this week is a good one for you. And, if not, send me an email info at curiousnirongcom. Let's talk. Bye everyone.