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From Loneliness To Solitude
Think of your loneliness as a small inner child. This child within you is crying and in need of holding. You are not connected enough to your adult Self to hold your inner child with regard. The loneliness becomes overwhelming and intolerable. Our extroverted culture encourages you to get rid of this feeling of loneliness without trying to understand it, to ease it with unhealthy activities like drinking, drug use, and shopping. You might long for someone to come into your life and rescue you from the isolation that often comes with loneliness. Many people get into unhealthy relationships as a desperate way not to feel alone. When lonely, you experience yourself as empty and void of vitality. You suffer, and you might not be willing or able to transform your suffering. However, this loneliness can become the doorway to a profound experience of solitude. Everyone has the need for a reliable connection to someone, and when that connection is missing you can feel alone. When you find yourself caught in a painful experience of loneliness it's important not to judge your experience and nor compare yourself to others who seem happier. Having shame for being alone can only make it feel worse.Having compassion and empathy for life's challenging, lonely experiences is an important step toward understanding them and eventually transforming loneliness to solitude. This transformation requires asking yourself, "What does it mean to me to be alone?" How you define your experience of being by yourself can lead you to either positive or negative emotions. For example, if being alone means you are not a loveable person, then loneliness can feel like a humiliating experience. Embrace being alone as a part of life, and work on redefining it. Writing about your loneliness in a journal, while you are experiencing it in the moment, can bring consciousness to it. When you are consciously working with your painful emotions in the moment, you are better able to tolerate them. The light of consciousness eventually transforms your painful emotions. In order to transform your loneliness to solitude, you need patience, and you need support from a friend or guide who is mature and experienced in mining the gold found in solitude. There is nothing wrong with reaching out to others and asking for support when you feel alone. Hiding it from others who are willing to be supportive is not helpful. Sometimes loneliness can feel like being lost, and having a guide to help you start a journey toward solitude is important. This journey requires psychological inner work such as dream work, active imagination, and holding your lonely inner child. Dream work can help you to have a deeper relationship with yourself and open yourself up to messages from the unconscious. Through writing your dream in a dream journal and analyzing it you can have a profound experience honoring your unconscious. One of the Sufi poets who has inspired me to pay attention to my dreams is Rumi. In one of his poems on dreams, Rumi states, "Many wonders are manifest in sleep:in sleep the heart becomes a window.One that is awake and dreams beautiful dreams,he is the knower of God. Receive the dust of his eyes." Working with the power of active imagination can be a transformative experience. This technique can help you to use the power of imagination to consciously explore your inner world. Hence, you can have dialogue with the different parts of yourself including your feeling of loneliness. You can even use active imagination when you are awake to re-enter your dream and dialogue with your dream figures. Your inner child can be helped to make a secure attachment to your adult Self. Your adult self can sooth your lonely inner child. The key is consistency. On a consistent basis you need to make time and reach out to your inner child. You can meditate on the image of holding and loving the child you once were. This loving image can have a profound healing effect on your experience of loneliness. This psychological inner work can help you to grow bigger than the painful experience of loneliness. Loneliness can feel like the "dark night of the soul," and your inner work is the torch you need to journey toward home. Psychological inner work can help you enter a vast space of solitude where it is possible to meet your inner Beloved. In solitude you are alone with the Beloved. You are connected to something beyond yourself. In solitude you are part of the community of people who are consciously alone for the purpose of spiritual enlightenment. Whatever longings or painful feelings you might have, you are able to tolerate them and not act them out. In solitude you feel your suffering and work on transforming it to grace. Your adult Self feels comfortable alone, and this Self can hold the loneliness in the heart like a small baby and provide empathy for it. You have the capacity to be alone and yet feel yourself in the presence of your Beloved. In solitude you are aware of your breathing, and each breath connects you more deeply to your Self. You have the potential to be a spiritual purifier by the quality of your breath. With every breath you practice remembrance of the Beloved. Sufis refer to this practice as Zikr. From this zone, your loving thoughts, feelings, imagination, and actions can impact the universe. Just like an alchemist, you can turn something like loneliness to something more like solitude. Psychological work is the fire needed to transform the lead of painful loneliness to golden solitude. What deep and lasting contentment you can find in your life, as you enter nourishing solitude. © This article is copyrighted by Dr. Payam Ghassemlou, a psychotherapist in private practice in Los Angeles, California. www.DrPayam.Com Send comments to DrPayam1@aol.com. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com |
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