Feeling connected
Feeling connected means sensing that you’re part of something: a friendship, a family, a community, or the natural world around you.
What does feeling connected feel like?
Laughing at the same moment as everyone at the table. A long phone call with a sister that warms the rest of your week. Standing in a forest and feeling, for a second, that you belong there rather than visiting. Connection often lives in small shared moments, and it can come from strangers too, like a nod between two people on an early morning run.
Connected or tender?
Tender reaches toward someone in particular, with a soft wish to protect them. Connected runs between you and others, a sense of being joined, and nobody has to be fragile or small. You can feel connected to a whole stadium cheering the same goal. Tenderness is usually for one person, or one small creature, at a time.
In a sentence
- “Cooking together made us feel connected again.”
- “I feel most connected to my grandmother when I bake her bread.”
- “After the move, it took months to feel connected to the town.”
Where it sits on the wheel
Connected is one of the core feelings, in the center of the wheel. Further out: loved, grateful and tender.
A gentle prompt
Who or what do you feel connected to right now?
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Something to go with it
Make a small birthday keepsake for someone you care about.
Feelings near connected
Loved (further out)
Loved is knowing someone cares about you. Connected is a wider sense of belonging, with people or the world.
Grateful (further out)
Grateful notices the good in your life and who’s behind it; connected is feeling part of something.
Tender (further out)
The other core feelings: peaceful, joyful, reflective, tired, afraid, angry and sad.
About the feelings wheel
Connected is one of the 104 words on the Slow Days feelings wheel, and the list of feelings has them all. The wheel isn’t a test or a diagnosis.