Humanity’s Rhythm and Flow
Rhythm and Balance
More and more, I’m becoming aware that everyone has a rhythm. Every social group, family, and community is comprised of a broad range of rhythms which combined, serve to give the social unit balance. People within those groups are drawn together by those rhythms; some because they’re similar and go through life at a compatible pace, and others as opposites, or at least vastly different because as individuals we need to find our own balance at an interpersonal level.
In my own social circle, I’m seeing people who are extremely high energy; always on. They’re like hummingbirds flitting from flower to flower never settling long. Only those in similar rhythm actually stay with them for the whole ride. For the rest, their pace can be exhausting. Others plod along unhurried, enjoying the sights along the way. Often, their company serves as a resting place from the people who are always “on”; a place to catch your breath before diving into the next adventure.
The rhythms interact together, separately, and in concert with other rhythms within the group to form an ebb and flow that’s the heartbeat of the community. The energy is in constant flux as people move from one level to another according to their needs and circumstances.
Finding My Own Level Moment by Moment
Some rhythms (like mine for instance) wink in and out as the need for stimulation 
vs. separation ebbs and flows. Others seem to be the spark that keeps everything lit, like the pilot light on your stove or water heater. Many, in fact, engage and disengage in a dance known only to the dancer, and even then, often at a subconscious level.
Still, there’s an element of frenzy attached to the ones who are always on. I watched one recently who was running on minimal sleep, yet believing she had to keep moving or burn out. For some reason, the idea of burning out, or not shining brightly was unacceptable to her, whereas I find those moments of quiet a welcome respite. In fact, I took a few minutes to sit alone in my beach chair with music and voices swirling around me to disappear into my own personal space. I’ve learned it’s actually a gift to be able to do that.
Disconnection is Part of the Flow
Recently, a discussion ensued about feeling alone in a crowd; disconnected from the energy flow. There was a time I’d have felt uncomfortable when that feeling of disconnection came on. One night, I decided to ride it out instead of fighting it, or looking for the source of my disconnection (me, someone else, something else). I discovered experiencing moments of disconnection weren’t really a bad thing. Instead, they give me a different, and often clearer perspective.
Sometimes, I need to step back into myself to simply feel the music, the energy, and the rhythm. Other times, I need to step out of the scene so I can see something or someone more clearly. No matter why the feeling suddenly comes on, I’ve learned to honor it because it’s there for a reason. There’s something I’m supposed to notice.
Maybe it’s discord in my own thinking, or a need to retreat and steer clear of impending drama. Perhaps someone needs me to be aware they’re not OK even if there’s nothing I can say or do for the moment. Sometimes things are simply shifting, and I need to stand back and let the shift happen.
The Dynamics of Community
In every community and social circle, the dynamics are constantly in motion. They 
drive some closer together while others move further apart, or into other circles as their own rhythm shifts and changes. I picture a kaleidoscope where all of the participants are pieces of colored glass. With each turn, the pieces shift and reassemble into different patterns, never returning to the same one twice.
I realize my view may be overly complicated. People don’t shift as quickly as the pieces in a kaleidoscope, though sometimes, watching a room from the sidelines, I feel as if it does. In truth, I’m seeing certain pieces moving faster than others, and some simply standing in place allowing the others to drift around them in groups and individually. (often, the stationary piece is me)
The view changes dramatically when I’m in the middle of things instead of on the sidelines. Sometimes, I’ll even get a kind of bird’s-eye view of myself drifting from circle to circle. In the process, I leave bits of energy behind with each group and individual I touch.
Sharing or Not. Which Do You Choose?
It occurs to me that the ones vibrating the fastest leave the smallest pieces of themselves behind; perhaps only the tiniest spark. Is it by accident, or design? In a way, I accomplished the same thing when I kept myself tightly encased in a kind of energy damping cotton wool. My touch was feather-light and few if any even felt me pass. Though the swift movers can definitely be felt, they’re gone before a piece of themselves escape their own version of protection.
I guess in a way each person fears losing a part of themselves. They perform their own complicated maneuvers to prevent it from happening, though, like me, they’re often unaware they’re doing it. Coming to terms with my own unfounded fears made me realize something important.
Learning the Rules of Connection
Connecting deeply with other people doesn’t mean giving up a part of myself. 
Instead, it allows me to open up and build on what I have with input from others. It creates a synergy where the whole is more dynamic; more evolved than it could possibly have been left to its own devices.
Opening up to the infinite number of rhythmic levels in my communities is teaching me how limitless I can be, but only if I let others in. The lessons I’m learning aren’t always easy or comfortable as they’re completely at odds with what I was taught to believe, and saw fit to hold onto for far too long. Which serves to remind me, growth, discovery, and learning always occur outside the comfort zone. Thank goodness I learned to chuck mine aside, realizing it was about as useful as an empty banana peel.
Finding Gratitude in the Little Things
My gratitudes today are:
- I’m grateful for friends old and new who are teaching me what it truly means to live a full and fulfilling life.
- I’m grateful for opportunities to experience different rhythms.
- I’m grateful for the communities which allow me to learn, grow, and experience a life I never before knew existed.
- I’m grateful for the quiet times which allow me to reflect on the new things I’ve been learning.
- I’m grateful for abundance; love, growth, experiences, life, energy, rhythm, friendship, shifts, change, peace, health, harmony, joy, philanthropy, and prosperity.
Love and Light
About the Author
Sheri Conaway is a writer, blogger, ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental 
health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income. If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author or in her new group, Putting Your Whole Heart Forward
There have been quite a few conversations about how we judge people by the way they look. It might be a style of dress, hairstyle, tattoos, piercings, or skin color. In the end, it comes down to attributing certain negative characteristics to anyone who looks like someone you’ve decided is mean, scary, or dangerous.
they go about it often makes things worse instead of better. Someone along the way decided cultural diversity training meant teaching white people to treat everyone else with more sensitivity and respect, instead of making it applicable to all. Rather than bringing everyone closer together, it’s widened the gap into a chasm, and made the disparity even more noticeable and impossible to breach.
In order to truly embrace the diversity of our cultures, we need more conversations. We need more coming together, not because it’s dictated by a government or other entity, but because we truly want to understand each others’ beliefs and pain points. But more, because we want to bridge the gaps those beliefs and pain points have generated through the passing of prejudices from generation to generation.
ease when I’m in conflict with others. I experience discomfort when I’m out of sorts with someone in my own social circle, much less a large chunk of society. Yet I haven’t figured out how to get back in balance. There are too many conflicting factions, all demanding I take their side, and speak out in the same manner they do.
Do I make mistakes? Of course I do. And I try to own up to them insofar as the other party or parties is willing to accept my apology and move on. Again, it’s not always the case. Some people hold onto a negative experience and will judge me as lacking forever more. I’ve done the same myself until I find a way to forgive myself and the other party. We’re all human, which means, we aren’t perfect. All we can do is try.
My point here is we tend to make assumptions, most of them false when we’re not acknowledged or answered. It happens often enough between friends, so take the number of instances and multiply it by 50 billion or so. That will give you a conservative idea of how many misunderstandings and misconceptions happen every day in our nation, much less, our world.
in the Laws , of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income. If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her 
Even though I have several decades under my belt, some things don’t seem to change. Men buzz around one beautiful flower, and completely miss the fact that there’s an entire garden to choose from. Maybe what attracts them has morphed a little, but they all still seem to want the same thing.
who know how to feign extroversion) seem to be the ones attracting all the bees. The quieter ones who open up only once they’ve developed a level of trust are left alone. I suppose we’re not worth the effort it takes to get to know us. Getting past the hard outer shell many of us have developed after years of disappointing relationships takes a willingness to be patient and keep things casual for awhile.
I hear similar laments from other women, so don’t think it’s just me. At this point, there are several factors which could be contributors, not only for me but for some of my friends:
to have a relationship simply act more interested in the process. Once eye contact is made, they have a way of making each person they talk to, male or female feel special in their own way. Though I’ve been the recipient, I’ve never mastered that particular social skill.
I talk to one of my “Belle” friends a lot. She says I need to be more open to meeting people in off-the-wall places like elevators and jury duty; places others seem to meet. But I don’t feel I’m at my best in a crowd of people, or when I’m sweaty and wearing baggy clothes at the gym. I find it difficult to connect when I go somewhere for a purpose, or have to be somewhere I consider unpleasant. Instead, I’ll put headphones in my ear and hide out behind a book or a laptop. It’s my way of making the uncomfortable bearable.
manage it, but clearly they do or there would be a lot more people drifting around alone. My only guess is they grew more tired of being alone than I have, and took a giant step outside their comfort zone, socially. They learned to approach men they didn’t know while being friendly and open. Maybe they used the dating sites or something to help get themselves over the hump. The discovered something I’ve been unable to figure out. Which means there’s still hope for me and the rest of the women who feel like wallpaper.
of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income. If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her 
Although my kids moved out years ago (has it really been that long?) I’m starting to notice things I no longer keep in the house. I don’t mean the obvious like piles of laundry, messy rooms, and a sink full of dishes I didn’t use. No, I mean the more subtle things. The products I no longer use and the foods I no longer eat, the occupation of my space.
the kids flew the coop? Here are a few things, years later I’m still discovering and loving:
parents out there definitely has its highs and lows. We learn to adjust to the lows and fill our lives with enough activity to keep us from wallowing. We learn how much alone is enough, and where it becomes too much to bear. Of course, pets are a huge benefit. Without them, I know I’d have crashed and burned a few times when life threw too many tough things at me, or gave me too much time alone.
many days would go by before someone even thought to check and see why I was so quiet? How many days would I be off social media before someone thought to ask why I hadn’t made a single peep?” If the times I’ve been sick for a few days, or simply boycotting social media are any indication, it could be a while.
The last month has been trying on pretty much every level; mentally, emotionally, spiritually, financially. You name it, and I’ve taken a hit directly or indirectly. I’ve shed buckets of tears, though primarily in the privacy of my own home with the cats my only comfort.
the successes and failures are your own. You get to keep the lessons for the failures without having someone else’s castigation added to the mix. When you fall on your face, it’s only you who has to get up, dust yourself off, look at what didn’t work, and try again with the new insight you’ve gained.
I’ve used the excuse: “I’m a writer and an introvert. I’m better off working alone” far too many times. I recognize it’s an excuse to be a hermit. Even more, I’m learning I don’t want to be a hermit all the time. I want to be around people and be part of a community. I want to let people see that I succeed sometimes and fail others, just like them. Besides, being a perpetual hermit is extremely unhealthy. Far too many psychopaths live in that world. I’d rather not be looked at through the same glass as someone whose moral compass hasn’t pointed to true North in a very long time, if ever.
after trying to convince myself I shouldn’t share my sad state with others, and reached a saturation point with Hallmark movies. The last one, alone has pushed me a little ways out of my funk to get a few things done I’d been avoiding for ages. I’d convinced myself once again that I wasn’t worthy, lacked the necessary experience, and didn’t want to do those things anyway.
There’s a time and a place to call “bullshit” on ourselves. I found mine when a friend knocked on my door on a cold, rainy night with a container of split pea soup. Her simple act reminded me how much my own simple acts mean to others. I realized it isn’t so much the what as it is the doing in the first place. Showing up is often the greatest gift of all, both for the giver and the receiver.
it, but my vibration is in the toilet. With each baby step I take; each proffered hand I accept, I leave the darkness a little further behind. The darkness is no longer the friend it once deceived me into believing. Instead, I reach towards the sunshine, the light of friendship, love, caring, and sharing.
I’m no stranger to grief. I’ve had enough opportunities in my life where it was not only appropriate but necessary. But I’m no stranger to suppressing or denying my grief either. When each of my parents died, I made thousands of excuses to keep going on, business as usual while I broke into a million little pieces inside. I convinced myself the grief wasn’t necessary and got in the way of doing the things I was supposed to. In a lot of ways, both my family and Society had trained me well—too well.
a place to dance. As stories are shared of celebrations, of countless marriages which came about because of meetings at that particular place, of families sharing, of connections that last for years, even when people move away; I realize not only for me, but for thousands of others, it became a home. We came together, some as friends, others as strangers, and became a family connected at the heart.
Even as so many communicate only by text message or social media, it’s been a place where cell phones are put down, if only for a few minutes, and connections are made on the dance floor, doing something that brings joy not only to the dancers, but to those on the sidelines watching.
We didn’t just lose people on November 7th. Even those we didn’t know well were familiar, comforting faces we saw every week. Some helped maintain order and kept the place friendly and the dance floor safe. Others were a smiling face that greeted us or served us food and drinks, raising our spirits no matter how the day had gone. No matter what role they played, they were familiar faces; people we’d 
come to know by sight, and who, in their own way, brought joy into the place by their very presence. But more, they were part of a family which shared in each others’ successes, commiserated when jobs or family were lost, celebrated birthdays, weddings, births, anniversaries…
Admittedly, it isn’t easy to reach out to people who are continually angry or depressed. They’re harder to be around, more difficult to love, and sometimes impossible to understand. Some isolate themselves, then blame their isolation on society, and rightfully so. Even in a family, you often have to fit in first before you can start showing your broken parts. Some people are so broken, they believe the only way they can hide those uncomfortable parts is by staying within their own four walls.
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