Lonely Depression #14

Do you experience a deep sense of aloneness intertwined with feeling depressed? This meditation is a practice in self-warmth, designed to support with healing our selves when the root may be a sense of lifelong loneliness.

Transcript

Guided Meditation 12.

2.

Gently holding depression,

Connected with lifelong loneliness.

Bring your attention to your physical body in the world.

As you breathe in,

Notice where you can feel your breath moving.

Movement of your muscles,

Movement of the air.

Invite yourself to bring warm regard to your attention,

Gently supporting it to stay with or to return to your breath sensations.

What is the texture of your breath?

If your breath had a color,

What would it be?

Would there be different colors for in-breaths and out-breaths?

Let yourself sit for a few moments,

Feeling into the inner life of your breath.

Now let yourself imagine if you are willing,

That as you breathe in,

You are bringing in an emotion that supports you,

And that as you breathe out,

You are breathing out an emotion that represents your pain,

Your anger,

Depression,

Fear,

Or grief.

As you work with this,

Notice if you are profoundly alone in your experience.

Notice whether shame has some flavor of this experience.

What if you don't have to be quite as alone as you are?

What if you really do belong here on planet Earth?

Let your breathing be an acknowledgement of your emotional self in the larger world.

As you breathe in,

Let the world nourish you with resonance.

Bring your resonating self-witness in to support you.

Let this compassionate inner voice ask you,

Are you exhausted and do you long for a safe place to rest?

Are you angrier than you can bear and have you given up?

Do you need hope,

Balance,

And self-responsibility?

Are you so lonely that your bones creak?

Do you wish to experience even a few seconds of both a feeling of being deeply embedded in a warm,

Loving community,

And simultaneously a feeling of soaring freedom and individuality?

Would you like to be sure that your self-expression would bring you closer to others rather than pushing them away?

Would you like to know that it is possible to both be yourself and be connected to others?

Let your out-breaths carry the way you feel into the world,

Breathing your emotion out.

With your in-breaths,

Let the world,

A kind and warm world,

Respond to you.

Let it share and console your grief with you.

Quietly savor any stirrings that might arise.

Let's move farther into the physical being.

Find the loneliness that lives at the level of the very small beings that comprise you,

Your cells.

If there were longings or dreams or truths that were traveling into your cells,

Or a call to the universe traveling out from your cells,

What would that exchange be like?

Are your cells aching to relax into being truly known?

Or are those words so foreign that they are almost incomprehensible?

Would it be nice if they made sense?

Let your resonating self-witness speak with the lonely cells.

If you don't have a sense of your self-witness,

Bring in someone else as a resonating witness,

Someone you trust.

If there are no people you trust,

Are there any animals?

Is there a tree or a place in nature?

How do your cells respond to this being or this essence?

Do your cells need acknowledgement that they have been alone and bewildered for as long as they can remember?

And do you,

As a whole person,

Need there to be someone bigger than yourself,

Someone warm and dependable that you could lean on when you want and wander away from when you want,

And who would still be there in the same place for you to come back to?

Is there a longing to know what support and intimacy might feel like?

And how about being loved no matter what?

Would it be sweet to have experiences of love that truly have nothing to do with what you've done or haven't done?

Would you enjoy being able to know what unconditional love means?

Would you like to know that you belong utterly,

That you are beloved,

And that you are understood?

As we work with these concepts and talk about them,

Is there a mourning that needs to be acknowledged,

A grief that needs to be made room for?

Have you been alone more than any little social mammal should ever have been alone?

Each and every cell in your body has a tiny bit of the original mother in it from many generations ago,

In the mitochondrial DNA.

If we think about cells in this way,

Each cell in your body is being supported and loved by the long line of mothers that stand behind us.

Now come back to your breathing and see what emotions might be being breathed in and out.

What is your sense of your body as a whole?

Say goodbye for now to this work of acknowledgement and let yourself return to your regular life.

Reviews

Sweetly captured deep longings and grief I usually don’t let myself feel. The empathy guesses that don’t fit are no problem. I wait for the ones that hit home. And when they do, something opens inside. Thank you Sarah!

I felt understood. Thank you so much. Finally was able to release my tears.

That was really tender and helpful. It’s my great wish that I’ll make friends with my depression this winter.

Thank you.

Thanks 🙏!

oh my god, just the fact that this meditation exists is a balm for my soul. considering myself as a bunch of sweet little cells that have been lonely for far too long burst my heart right open. thank you so, so much for making this. a dark eternally-lonely corner of my heart feels so seen 💙💙💙🙏🏼

A bit painful but helped me to think about my long line of maternal ancestors. Namaste 💕

Thank you. Not only did you give me what I needed, but also new visuals and ways to think about depression and loneliness when it hits.

I found it helpful to pause between each statement to let myself take in Sarah’s words (aka resonance guesses).

After reading other reviews, I knew to pause frequently to allow her words sink in and resonate. Great meditation, especially if you're approaching inner child work. I'll use this again w my journal handy.

So beautiful.

That was really great! Thank you for making me aware of my cells lonliness and how far back it goes.

A great short meditation, with so much emotion and meaning packed in, one to return to many times. I highly recommend Sarah's book to all.

Short but very profound meditation. Thank you 🙏🏻

This meditation brought so much to the surface for me. I am still blown away. I sincerely hope this can be turned into a course.

I have PTSD, Bipolar, and Major Depressive Disorder. I’ve had two suicide attempts, one on December 28, 2018, and the other on January 13 of this year. The second one was very bad; I almost succeeded and ended up hospitalized for 10 days.

Since April, meditation has been an integral part of my healing (I’m currently at 116 consecutive days). This one is fantastic; it didn’t take long for me to burst into tears. This person truly knows what to say in regards to healing a lonely, broken soul. My only complaint is that it’s just a tad too fast.

Stretch this meditation out across, say, 20 or 25 minutes, and you’ll have one of the best depression meditations on Insight Timer, bar none.

Thank you for your kindness and your healing words. 🙏🏻

From tears to self-love. Thank you.

She really nailed the feelings and loneliness that I've been feeling lately. It felt nice to feel understood like someone else gets how lonely life can feel

This is fantastic. Please dig deeper and expand, especially with ideas and solutions.

Thank you for this meditation. The soothing voice was really appreciated. It has calming effect and left me with a good feeling.