The difference between feeling lonely and being alone
There is a difference between feeling lonely and being alone, they point to two different states of mind. Feeling lonely, there is a feeling of something is lacking, and not right. The pure experience of being alone is experiencing complete intimacy with one self.
Something is missing.
I’m lonely. It’s a kind of blues. You can feel it when you say it. I feel lonely. There is a sadness to it – lonely. There is almost an indulgence in it, not in a negative way, but a kind of closed loop where the mind repeats itself.
I’m lonely. Allow yourself to feel it. I feel lonely. Feel into it, instead of going on thinking about why you are lonely and what is lacking and how it should be. Recognize the feeling state and be curious about the sensation of it. I feel so lonely – go right to the feeling it evokes. I feel it in my stomach, I feel it in my heart, there’s a pressure, and I feel shrunken in a bit, teary and cold and my mind is like a dark cloud. It’s as if the walls have moved in on me. I feel invisible. I feel I don’t exist.
Even the word lonely is loaded with negative connotations. I don’t like it. It feels wrong to feel lonely. It should be different. I remember even as a child feeling lonely, feeling left out with nobody to go to. There can also be a feeling of fear: can I survive like this? It’s a very isolating feeling, being lonely. There can be a lot of shame around it too because we’re “supposed” to not be lonely and if we feel lonely, maybe there’s something wrong with us and that fear can feed into the current situation of loneliness which makes it even more uncomfortable. However, try just to stay with the feeling itself and see if it’s possible to not go into the thoughts around it.
As you stay with the feeling the uncomfortableness begins to change or melt. Your body seems to open more, and your breathing gets slower. There is a stillness to it. There seems to just be breathing, and stillness begins to emerge. The stillness begins to dominate the experience – it feels soft and nourishing. You realize I am just me. I am alone. Just me… Almost like you discover your true presence before you had a name. Alive stillness. Perfect stillness. Thick stillness. Flowy stillness. A deep sense of peace begins to spread in my entire being and everywhere. It’s just me and everything merges and becomes one moving open-ended space. No beginning and no end.
I alone am! Nothing is lacking. What felt lacking is now full and complete and nourishing from deep within, pulsating – life. The loneliness has turned into aloneness. I’m alone, I can feel that I’m alone. Just me here. Just this! No one else. I’m this very aloneness. And then it shifts to a sense of sovereignty! There is just this! My eyes are wide open. I can see, I breathe. My body releases something and becomes lighter.
I am whole
I’m alone and it’s okay to be alone and it does not feel uncomfortable. I sink into what is, which is what’s present right now. There is mind; space, and there is body, sensations. I see what is in front of me, trees… I hear sounds, the leaves whispering in the wind, I am here right now, no longer focused on what is missing. I let go and am one with this very experience which is right here, and it feels present and awake, relaxed, almost like listening itself is listening with everything. It is listening as nature listens… there is this attentiveness and a subtle and gentle sense of being, of intimacy! It makes me smile from deep within – this is what it means to be truly intimate with myself!
Another day:
The feeling of sadness
In the morning, I wake up and I feel this rawness, this vulnerability and uneasiness. I don’t know how to be with myself, how to embrace myself. I feel if I had big arms, I could tuck myself in and hold me.
This feeling of sadness — I don’t know how to be with it.
The only thing I can do is recognize it: it’s a state of being. And I can reframe thinking why I feel like this — I kind of know: it’s not important. What feels important is simply to recognize this state of being, this feeling state. It’s a lot to do with being alone, a lot. Alone.
Being alone. Not sharing my life with close people. Living kind of outside everything and everybody. And yet I am with everybody; we just live in different constellations. Currently, I have chosen to live alone. I can simply recognize this feeling and relax, relax into it instead of moving away from it or trying to distract myself.
Distracting myself when there is this feeling of aloneness makes things much worse. It makes me spin and get out of balance. However, if I face it head on and melt into it with every cell in my body, it’s actually okay.