Light Stories - Overcoming Your Lonely Self

Feeling lonely is a common cause of suffering for everyone. This meditation takes you to a beautiful place where you can safely observe, accept, and finally overcome that suffering by realising that loneliness does not exist to destroy our sense of being but to deepen it and protect your innocence. Reconnect with your deepest self and heal from whatever blocks your stream of life, for you are loved and never truly alone.

Transcript

That variety.

Moving your rock of loneliness.

Do not go where a visible path may lead.

Go instead where there is no path at all,

And leave a fresh trail.

Go ahead and go into the world of growth,

Waldo Emerson.

This meditation deals with the overwhelming sense of deep disconnection from ourselves and the world,

Which we call loneliness.

I will give you an contradiction on what loneliness is,

What my personal experiences are,

And a practice on how to transform loneliness into clarity and value to your life.

The irony of loneliness is that we all feel it at the same time,

Together.

Even though I cannot see you,

I know you.

The fact that you are human connects us.

No matter your location,

Background,

Religion,

Skin colour,

Gender,

Beliefs,

We are connected by multiple invisible dots.

The most important and touchable one being our shared ground.

We are all living on this incredibly big planet we call Earth.

We breathe the same air,

Feel the same sun,

Look at the same moon and stars,

Possibly at another time of day,

Or another time zone.

And we are all bound to the laws of gravity.

Listening to this contempt created by me and published on an app called Inside Timing,

Broadcasted through the waves of the internet,

Through the bottom of the ocean,

Brought to you by your wifi or cable connection,

Means we are connected.

We are connected by having a body and a mind,

A soul and a spirit.

We have a brain,

Organs,

Miles of tissue and fibre,

And millions upon millions of cells combined us together.

Our bodies are soft machines,

Untouched by space or time.

We are life.

We are growth.

We are eternal value.

We have felt love and pain,

Sometimes apart but often together.

We share our common ground with the human condition,

Using our legs to move us around in a piece of rock,

Sand and dust,

Floating through space,

Circling the sun at over 60,

000 miles per hour.

Our shared habitat is vast,

Endless and massive from an earthly point of view,

Yet incredibly small,

Fluid and insignificant if we look at it through space.

We are just another grain of sand,

From a universe of billions upon billions upon billions of stars,

Planets and galaxies.

We both have minds that can't comprehend the true scale of things.

We are nothing and yet we are everything.

So what is loneliness?

Loneliness as I would describe it is the heavy,

Painful and unbearable feeling of disconnection from what we actually want or need.

With feeling lonely I don't mean the healthy experience of being or spending time alone,

Having a space to reload,

Recharge and reflect on life and our inner,

Outer processes.

With loneliness I mean the existential feeling of missing something that we believe we cannot live without.

A deep,

Pitch black,

Bottomless abyss of emotion which paralyzes our ability to feel alone.

I have known this feeling my whole life,

The feeling of not belonging,

Of being confined to the ice-cold walls of an invisible cage.

I know that right now you are feeling it too,

Maybe not today,

Maybe not during this meditation,

But you've chosen this content for a reason.

Your focus shifted to the title which resonated with your inner being and you're probably listening to this,

Hoping for a way out.

Loneliness is a deeply personal experience and I cannot reflect on loneliness without bringing in a part of my personal history,

For I only know my own roots,

Cause and form of this dark visitor.

When I was a child,

Around the age of seven,

My parents divorced and I lived with my dad for a while.

We lived in a house which was surrounded by nature,

With lots of space and no neighbours.

My dad drank,

I remember him putting me to bed and after an hour or so I heard him leave to go to a bar in town.

I spent hours laying in bed,

Completely alone.

We would return somewhere around five or six in the morning,

Drunk,

We'd fall asleep on the floor or on the couch in the living room,

Or I'd find him when I woke up.

There was absolutely no one at night,

It was dark,

Silent and completely naked.

I'd listen to the sound of the wind outside,

Rain hitting the roof.

I'd listen to the sound of my blankets shuffling around my body,

My breath echoing in the room around me.

Sometimes I'd call,

Call for my father,

Wanting water or having to go to the toilet,

But no one answered.

I wasn't scared,

It wasn't fear I felt.

I did not think of all the things that could happen with me being there by myself,

As I said in the words.

I didn't think of someone entering or breaking in,

I didn't think of a fire caused by a sewer on the floor or by a gas leak in a pipe.

I did not feel fear.

What I felt was the complete desolation of someone lost in space,

Like an astronaut unhooked from his life-court,

Floating forever in the endless,

Soundless,

Lightless depths of the galaxy,

Slowly running out of oxygen.

With feeling so alone,

So forgotten,

I came to grow familiar with this sensation.

Instead of pushing it away,

I held onto the silence,

The coldness,

And hanging onto a rock over the edge of a cliff.

Over time,

This rock grew bigger,

And as I grew older,

I realized that what once saved me now blocked my gifted feeling.

I came to realize that loneliness is a rock that you create in order to survive a certain situation.

If you haven't already done so,

Please close your eyes.

Take two deep breaths.

Enter your nose.

Out through your mouth.

The second one.

Now I want to ask you to imagine that you're walking in a forest,

A beautiful wildwood that hides top trees as far as you can see.

You can smell the ground,

The leaves,

The scents of flowers,

Of pine.

As you walk,

The sun heats up your body,

Flashing through the leaves,

Nurturing you of warmth.

There is no sense of danger here.

You are fully protected.

You are completely safe.

You are totally welcome.

The ground of the forest invites the bare soul of your feet as you softly walk its path.

In the distance,

There is a stream,

A gentle flow of water.

As you approach it,

You can feel the coolness,

You can hear the current rush.

Walk towards the stream,

Attracted by the pure sense of trust that the stream has for you.

The stream is you.

Clear blue fresh water represent your being,

Your life.

Moves like you do,

Effortlessly through the ground,

Never blocked,

Always expanding its course by a natural flow.

Carefully step into a stream.

Feel the water touching your feet,

Tickling your toes.

Your feet are embraced by the cold warmth of this water,

Which is you.

You are standing in the middle of your own life,

Grounded.

Feel the heat of the sun on your back.

Feel the water cooling.

When you look further down the stream,

You notice there is a rock.

In the middle,

About 50 yards away,

There is a massive black rock,

Shimmering its wet surface to you.

Water of your stream finds its way around it,

Not bothered but is obstacle.

Water of your life takes the shape it needs to continue its flow.

You slowly walk towards the rock.

The closer you get,

The bigger it becomes.

It is a huge,

Dark piece of stone.

As you finally stand in front of it,

You see your own image reflected in its texture,

Mirroring you in silence.

This rock represents the loneliness inside you,

The loneliness in the middle of your stream of life.

This rock embodies everything you do not wish to feel.

Your isolation,

Your fear,

Your shame,

Your guilt,

The heaviness of your soul.

This rock represents your fear,

Your broken dreams,

Your innocence lost and growing up.

It is a massive,

Unmovable block of pain.

Stand firm,

Do not look away.

This rock will not go out of itself.

You cannot move it,

You cannot tumble it over,

It cannot be replaced.

For whatever is done is done.

You are fearless and facing your deepest fear,

Your feet are grounded,

The small pebble stones carry you.

The bottom of your stream is holding you like holding a torch in a dark cave.

You stretch out your hands and you touch the rock.

Place your flat hands on its cold,

Wet surface.

Can you feel the desire this rock has to be touched?

Can you feel how much it missed the warmth of your hand,

The connection to your body,

To your blood,

To your breath?

As you observe the rock,

Call me.

You realize that this monument of loneliness has protected you all of your life,

And is now or still here to be,

Taken up in your life stream.

You place both your hands around your rock and rest your forehead against it.

This rock doesn't want to dominate you,

It wants to carry you,

It wants to be your beacon.

As your hands and your forehead are on the rock,

You slowly feel the texture change.

Feel the rock slowly heating up,

Adapting to your body temperature.

Little by little,

Your loneliness softens,

And you are able to push through this massive wall of stone.

Down surface turns into skin,

Soft,

Flexible,

Warm,

Dark,

Rock-like skin.

You lean against the rock,

Using no force,

But only openness and compassion.

You feel how you can reach to the center,

Allowing yourself to gently slide inside the want some massive piece of stone,

As you're grounded by the bottom of your life stream,

By the person that you are today.

You slowly melt inside your loneliness,

Transcending its cold to warmth,

Melting stone to gold.

Natural alchemy where the heart of your life blends into the fluid of your once so abandoned soul.

You are healing.

You are healing.

You are healing yourself with every inch.

Imagine yourself being inside your rock.

Imagine yourself being inside your loneliness.

What once blocked your path is now a home.

You look up in the belly of this rock,

And you see an open sky,

A beautiful,

Dark night sky with thousands of little white lights,

The stars that you've kept hidden for so long,

The galaxy inside you,

The beautiful stars that you've protected by keeping them inside of your walls.

Let them out.

Give them space.

Give yourself space.

Watch your own supernova bursting into freedom,

Leaving no physical trail as you disappear into orbit,

Into the silent,

Lonely,

Incredibly beautiful universe that we are all made of.

Now gently open your eyes.

Come back to the space,

The room,

The floor,

The mats you're laying on.

What you did was incredibly brave.

Facing your loneliness head-on can only be done with a soft,

Calm mind,

An open heart,

And a spirit full of hope.

I'm wishing you wherever you are.

Beautiful day and a beautiful life.

Namaste.