Why Our Individual Pieces Are Important in This World!

Connected = joined or linked firmly together.

I love to do puzzles, and I have been putting them together for over thirty-eight years. When I construct a puzzle, I like to separate the outside pieces from the inside pieces, and then I look for the inside pieces with similarities and group them together. I empty the box and turn the remaining inside pieces over so I have all the pieces laid out before me. I then prop up the box so I can see what the completed puzzle looks like, so the box becomes my guide. I then begin working on my puzzle and many times, I can complete one over a weekend. I am not sure what intrigues me about puzzles, but maybe it is how there are thousands of pieces that look completely different from each other and yet somehow, they all fit together so perfectly to make a beautiful picture.

Maybe you’ve never put a puzzle together, but if you have seen a puzzle or the pieces, they are shaped differently and not one piece looks like another piece. I can remember when I first started constructing puzzles, I would put the border together first and then work on the inside, but this seemed harder. I never quite knew where the outside pieces fit until I had the inside completed, so although the outside was completed, the inside was completely empty. This is how we have been taught to connect with ourselves and others in this world because we received connection in this form. I am not saying that everyone is like this, but many of us were taught to connect from the outside in. When we are taught to connect with our higher source from the outside, just like with the puzzle we have a limited view, because we are only seeing from the outside perspective and not the inside. We might think we know what it looks like or feels like from the inside, but we don’t have a clue.

When we connect to ourselves, others and our higher source from the outside in, we are letting someone’s thoughts, opinions and ideas define who we are. When we do this, I think it sends us on a downward spiral looking for validation outside of ourselves to give us pleasure, love, happiness and so many other things. When we look from the outside in, this is how we will relate with others because this is how we were related to. When we look at others from the outside in, we tend to have this limited view of how we think they should look, act and think instead of accepting them for who they are. We do this because we have had a limited view of ourselves, so we automatically reflect this when trying to connect with others. When we allow others to define us it causes us to lose sight of who we truly are, and the sad truth is it was our parents, guardians and care givers who began defining us. When we are taught something, it is our natural inclination to teach it to the next generation, and so forth and so on. We teach it to our children because we think it is the right way, but anytime we look outside of ourselves for confirmation, happiness, love or validation we constantly feel like we are lost or that something is missing.

When we have this sense of loss or we feel like something is missing from our lives, this is when I think we begin our inward journey to finding who we are from the inside out versus the outside in. When we are defined from birth and told who we should be and who we should not be, we lose our sense of self. We lose our sense of self, because someone has told us who we are instead of us knowing who we are. The inward journey allows you to find who you were before anyone told you who you were. The inward journey allows you to travel back in time when you were a child and loved to do certain activities or enjoyed dressing a certain way.

Maybe you were a child who enjoyed writing, singing, dancing, playing an instrument, drawing or whatever activity you enjoyed doing as a child. Maybe you dreamed of being a singer and a parent, guardian or caregiver advised you not to pursue that dream. This is not to blame anyone, because our parents, guardians and caregivers only taught us what they knew. If the generations before them only knew how to connect to others and their children from the outside in, then we just repeat what we learn or have been taught, but when we know better we do better. When we begin our inward journey, we begin to find who we were before anyone began defining us. When we begin our inward journey, we begin to remember the things that made our heart beat as children. When we begin our inward journey, we find where true love, joy, happiness, peace and compassion are hidden. These treasures are hidden inside each one of us and will never be found in anything or anyone that is on the outside.

We are all one part of a whole and when we begin to connect to our own self from the inside out, this is when we can connect to others from the inside out. We no longer see people from a limited view, we see them from an infinite view. This is when we can love others unconditionally and not conditionally. When we love others based on conditions we are connecting to them from the outside in, and we start to define them. When we love others unconditionally, we are connecting to them from the inside out, and we love them for who they are. When we are connecting to others from the inside out we are allowing them to be themselves and live freely.

If we viewed humanity the same way we would view a puzzle, we are all individual pieces in one big puzzle. We are all individuals who are essentially the same, but we have our differences and our differences are what make us unique. We all come in different shapes, sizes and colors. We all have our own opinions, thoughts and ideas. We all have our own individual beautiful gifts and talents we bring to this beautiful planet. We all play an important part in making this puzzle complete, and not one of us is better than another. When we allow race, religion, politics, the media to separate us and define us, we forget we are all part of the puzzle. We are all connected and once we start connecting with others from the inside out, our individual pieces will begin to fit into this big puzzle. Once the puzzle has been completed and all individual pieces have been added, we will make one beautiful picture.