As technology becomes more advanced, it has allowed those who have never had a voice to speak their truth. It’s a great thing, but it can also be misleading. Social media lets us show people what we want them to see. If we only want to see the best parts of our lives and keep the struggles and hardships hidden, we can.

When we lived next door to one another, and everybody knew everybody and everybody’s business, hiding the unpleasant parts of our lives was harder. It was embarrassing, but it also allowed our friends and neighbors to see when we were struggling and allowed them to help us.

We are social creatures by nature. Isolation is one of the most dreaded punishments in prison. Leave someone in there for too long, and they lose all sense of reality. Admittedly, some of us, myself included, don’t need as much “people-time” as others, but we still need some.

When it comes to metaphysics, connecting to someone or a group is essential. It’s been commonly called a tribe—a group of like-minded people who are striving for the same goals. On your spiritual journey, you will meet many people. From the ones you meet, you will eventually come upon those your spirit accepts without reservation and know they are a part of your tribe.

They are the people who you may help with something they are working on, and in return, they will help you. Sometimes we need another point of view or someone to listen as we speak about whatever is on our minds. They may ask us to give our opinion on something or to hear them express something they need to process out loud.

It can be a balancing of energy. When you have something on your mind, your thoughts run in a circle, and you can’t come to a decision or a conclusion. Often speaking thoughts out loud to someone else allows you to see the pattern, the way through, or where your logic went wrong. It reveals the flaw in the plan.

Building a connection and having a community is not only good for your mental health but also for your spiritual health. When we create a link to someone, it’s not just a verbal or emotional attachment. Like all our relationships, it’s energetic as well. When we need emotional or mental bolstering, we can draw on that energy connection to help us get through whatever we’re facing without contacting the other person or persons.

The reason for that is when we connect to another person or a group, we make an energetic commitment to stand by that person, and when energy is needed, it goes to the person who most needs it. When you hear someone is having challenges and you say something nice like, “I’m sending them good energy, or I’m praying for them,” it is a way of sending them supportive energy.

On the other side, think of times when you were the one with the challenges and try to remember if there was a person or group you thought of at the time that made you feel a little better even though your circumstances hadn’t changed. That draws on the energy between you and another person or the group.

This is not an energy vampire thing. When the connection formed, all parties willingly invested that energy to strengthen the relationship. As the relationship gets stronger, more energy is invested. If the relationship starts to break down, that energy is used up and not replaced or replenished. Having a tribe ensures that balance is maintained to a certain degree, as it’s unlikely that every group member will have to draw on the collective energy simultaneously. It allows the energy to be used and replenished by different members at different times while maintaining the connection between all members. When your issue is metaphysical, having a tribe can lend you strength with moral support and energy.

We all walk our paths, and we walk them alone, always, but there are still people who can walk their paths beside us if we are willing to make the connection.