Hello and welcome to Grounded Mind.
This is David and today's meditation is on loneliness.
And if you're here doing this meditation,
Then on some level you might be feeling some loneliness.
But now there's two of us,
So it's a party.
Let's start off lightly today.
Take a nice deep breath in.
You can slowly close your eyes.
Often when we encounter a difficult energy like loneliness,
We lose ourselves in fantasy,
In thoughts,
In possibilities,
In the past,
In the possible futures.
And we do everything but one thing,
Which is accept how we feel.
Often we want to run to feeling better,
Finding a solution,
Fixing it,
Finding another person to love us.
And yes,
It's great to have another person to love you.
But right now you can be in that place of starting to accept where you are and how you feel.
Let the muscles in your body start to relax.
Anywhere where you notice there's some tension.
You're not the only person or the first person in the world to feel loneliness.
It is one of the most common experiences that we have as human beings.
And it doesn't matter if we're around five people or five million people in a crowded city.
We can still feel extremely lonely.
And for now,
You don't have to solve your loneliness.
Just start to accept it.
Breathe into it.
Even the more we try to avoid loneliness,
The more we actually feed it.
It feeds on us not wanting to be alone.
But what happens if we walk deep into our own hearts and meet that loneliness?
So let's find out.
Let's say hello to that loneliness.
Often we feel loneliness in our chests,
In our heart centers,
And in the belly where we often have a lot of emotion,
Where our nerve endings come together.
You might feel a sense of loneliness in one of those two places.
And just start to bring your attention to that place,
To that space.
Let's say hello to that loneliness.
Almost like if you were to walk into the chamber of your heart and you were to look at that loneliness.
Shake hands with it.
Smile at it.
Okay,
Maybe not smile at it.
So there are some limits.
I asked my loneliness out on a date and it rejected me.
It feeds on rejection.
Walk into your heart.
Get a sense of that loneliness.
You don't have to dig up the ultimate cause or find the person that's responsible for it.
But you might notice what the quality of it is,
The sensation,
And even maybe what you do to override it sometimes,
To ignore it.
How do you ignore your loneliness or try to overcome it?
Maybe it's by over socializing or spending a lot of time on social media or just being unconscious to it.
Sleeping more than you need to.
Eating more than you should.
Here we go.
Allow yourself to be imperfect.
Just really say hello to that loneliness.
What if you just said hello to it?
Now there's not one of you,
Is there?
There's two of you.
There's you and there's loneliness.
And there's me taking a Polaroid of you and your loneliness,
Eating an ice cream cone.
It's great to have amusement with some of the pain that we go through sometimes.
It helps it start to drain off.
So allow some of that energy to start to drain off.
Out of your heart,
Out of your belly,
Wherever it is that you notice it.
And who knows,
Maybe not all of that loneliness belongs to you.
Maybe you have someone or had someone else in your life that was lonely and in some way or form you took it on for them.
And you don't have to analyze how that's possible.
But I remember once I felt really lonely and terrible and just out of sorts.
I didn't feel like myself and I wasn't content.
I felt unhappiness,
Underlying unhappiness that was almost like always there in the background.
And I couldn't seem to bust through it or break out of it.
And I sat down to meditate and I noticed all the loneliness and I actually noticed it was coming from another person in my life.
They were going through something really difficult and I began to go through it with them.
And sometimes we're so compassionate,
We do that for people.
But really,
If we all start to go through the pain together,
Then nobody heals.
The more you can heal and be healthy in your own space and in your own way,
The more you'll be able to help someone else.
But if you're both in quicksand,
You'll both sink quickly.
So rather than feeling bad,
Just let that energy start to drain off.
Almost like an icicle that starts to melt.
It drips,
Maybe just one drip every few minutes at first.
It's like watching grass grow,
It's slow.
And then all of a sudden it starts to drip more quickly until it's almost just a small waterfall.
It's melting.
That loneliness can just start to melt off.
Is it really true that you're alone?
Is it amazing in this vast universe of infinite stars and infinite beings?
On a planet of seven billion people,
Billions of animals and billions of trees.
The fact that we're all connected and intertwined and still we feel alone.
What's more true?
That you are alone or that you are connected to everything around you?
And is that loneliness just a part of the human condition that we all have to work through?
Maybe it's not something negative,
Maybe it's a doorway into a deeper level of truth about who we are.
Freedom doesn't come from ignoring what hurts,
It comes from understanding it and transcending it.
And sometimes we feel like there's something wrong with us when we're feeling lonely.
But the need for connection and love is very natural.
And it is a part of the human condition.
To feel like there's something wrong with you for wanting connection is like feeling like there's something wrong with you because you're hungry and you would like to eat.
Food for the body is what love is for the soul.
And when the soul is not receiving love,
In a sense it is starving.
And that's why loneliness can be one of the most painful experiences for people.
But it doesn't have to be this never ending,
Enduring suffering.
It can be a wake up call.
And meditation is about waking up.
Waking up to the truth.
Accepting where we are and taking a step.
And when we close our eyes to meditate,
We're not closing them to go to sleep,
We're closing our eyes to wake up from the inside out.
So allow that loneliness to really start to melt off,
Off the heart.
Out of the belly.
Life wants you to succeed,
To learn and to grow.
The world is not against you.
It is here to love you.
Notice that you are connected.
You're connected to the chair,
To the bed,
The desk,
The walls,
The plants.
You're connected to the space in the room.
You're connected to the earth,
The stars,
To every other human being in the world.
You are not alone.
And the more you can allow that energy that doesn't belong to you to drain off and melt away,
The more space you're going to create in your heart for someone else to come along.
In whatever capacity you're looking for,
Whether it's friendship or intimacy,
Family,
Even companionship with an animal.
There are so many ways that we connect.
So rather than trying to control the situation or forcing an outcome,
Just let it be.
Let it be open.
Allow yourself to start feeling better.
Take nice deep breath into your chest,
Down into your stomach.
Let your nerves rest.
And know that you're taking a really great step here today out of loneliness.
And be aware that you are not alone because you are with yourself and you can really start to love yourself.
And the more you can love yourself and allow that energy to vibrate through you and out of you into the world,
The more you'll start to attract people who are interested in that love and who would like to share in it,
Be a part of it.
So the more you shine from the inside out,
The more someone will be able to see you from the outside in.
So on the other side of that loneliness in your heart is an incredible capacity to love.
You feel lonely because you have an amazing ability to love and you're looking for someone or something to share that with.
And there is nothing bad or negative about that.
Honor that in yourself and let it come out of you.
And create the invitation for life to bring you what it is that you're looking for.
Take one more deep breath.
Thank yourself for sitting for this meditation.
You can continue to sit and meditate or if you're ready,
You can slowly open your eyes and stretch your body.
Thank you so much for being here and I'll see you soon.
