7 books on finding greater connection to people and life
As a mother of two children under two years old, devoting 17–20 hours a day to childcare, I often felt isolated and shut off from the rest of the world.
Throughout the day, I would lose my temper, releasing pent-up frustration. Trapped in a daily routine dictated by toddler and baby schedules, I felt suffocated. At best, I often breathed sighs of relief that there was a routine to the madness.
In these moments, I realised I was craving connection. As a mother, it’s easy to feel disconnected to the outside world and to anything meaningful. We are plugged into every moment of our children’s lives, meeting their needs unconditionally and that can be fulfilling but when that is all you are doing, the loss of connection to the adult world can dwarf that sweet fulfillment.
How do we momentarily connect with the outside world? Pause for a few minutes to be re-energised and refreshed so that we can be our best selves around our children? For me, the following books had a profound impact on finding connection and meaning in my life again. Either listening to the audio book or reading the kindle version whenever I had a temporary opportunity made the world of difference.
I felt connected to characters and people worlds away, whether fictional or non-fictional. I stepped away from my consuming existence for a short while.
Our need to feel connected to something greater than our everyday existence is an important one and a need that is often overlooked. Everyone has a story of a moment in their life when they felt disconnected — be that the early stages of motherhood, the relationship break-up, a health setback, the promising job that turned out to be a dead-end or the loss of a loved one.
The next time you feel disconnected from the world, pick up one of these books. They’ll re-affirm your faith in life, in others and most importantly, in yourself.
The Overstory (Fiction) by Richard Powers
Richard Powers’ 12th novel, The Overstory tells the tale of two very different worlds — one of humans and that of non-humans (trees) caught up in the timber wars of the Pacific Northwest. A beautiful novel of humans reconnecting with nature with a select few having access to an…
