Hey friend,
Thank you for jumping right into this series.
I'm going to start with our first meditation on working through loneliness and healing it and coming out the other side.
For this meditation we're going to focus on three steps.
The first one is going to be identifying the feeling of loneliness and how we experience it in the body,
Just so we can get intimate with our loneliness.
We know how strong it is,
How it affects us,
How it makes us feel.
And then the second part,
We're going to take a look at the loneliness and see what's causing it.
What's the underlying belief,
The real deep sense of where it's coming from and what's generating it.
So we have some understanding of what's happening.
And in the third part,
We're going to actually look at what our next step is here.
What it's teaching us.
How we're going to grow and expand through our loneliness.
Rather than seeing it as some kind of punishment or limitation,
As we heal we're going to recognize that there's an opportunity here.
It's a really beautiful opportunity if you're willing to walk down the path of loneliness and come out the other side.
Perhaps you go in lonely and you come out the other side,
Just really grounded in your own energy and ready to give and receive love.
So let's start.
You can go ahead and close your eyes.
Take a few deep breaths in.
And make sure you take a few breaths out as well.
Put a light smile on your face.
Drop your shoulders.
Just start to relax any tension you might feel just by breathing slowly and recognizing that all is well.
And you've already taken one of the biggest steps,
Which is acknowledging what you're working on and being willing to sit down and face it.
And to begin,
What I'd like you to do is just start to allow yourself to actually feel the emotion of loneliness.
Feel the energy of it in your body like you probably have many times before.
But this time I'd like you to really focus on the sensations of the feeling.
Where in your body do you feel it?
And how does it feel?
For example,
Is there a pressure on your chest or a tingling?
A heaviness?
A confusion?
A sadness?
Take a moment and let yourself be intimate with this feeling of loneliness.
Just like if I was teaching you the piano and I said,
Hey,
Here's the C note.
Remember how this sounds.
Experience how this sounds.
What is the vibration?
What's the tune of your loneliness?
Just sense it for a moment.
It might almost feel like a field of energy around you.
And all I want you to do is become familiar with it.
You don't need to judge it or manipulate it or hide it or override it.
And you might get a sense,
Oh,
This is familiar.
I know this feeling.
But have you ever really just sat with it without needing to go anywhere or without needing to change it?
If you feel uncomfortable or find some resistance,
See if you can be comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.
See if you can be open to resistance and just allow it to be there.
Just looking at it like,
Huh,
That's a fascinating experience.
So the first step here is we become aware of the feeling.
We allow the feeling to arise.
And we're really becoming aware of the energy of loneliness and how it shows up in our body.
By the end of this series,
I would like you to be a pro,
An expert in the feeling of loneliness.
What at this moment might seem like a weakness or a vulnerability in you.
Once it's understood and healed,
Will become a very deep strength.
But first you have to invite it in,
Almost like you're inviting loneliness in for tea.
Allow it to sit down with you.
And of course,
If there's any emotion that needs to come out,
Allow it.
Leave it room.
And then I'd like you to ask this loneliness where it comes from.
What generated this feeling of loneliness?
Is there an experience,
A belief?
Has it just always kind of been there?
Feel free to ask it and see if you get a response,
An image of feeling,
A sense.
Perhaps some of your loneliness has been generated from some painful experiences.
You may remember them,
You may not.
But somehow this loneliness got its energy.
It has a certain momentum to it.
And you're just looking at that,
Understanding where it arose from.
And finding a deeper sense of why you feel it.
And I can't tell you why you feel it for you.
You have to experience it for yourself.
But I can say that it's not here to punish you.
You're doing great work.
Make sure you're still breathing.
Give your loneliness a light smile.
As I like to say to my students,
No well is infinitely deep.
So no matter how much loneliness you feel,
There is a bottom,
There is a reason,
And there is a path forward to heal.
And our third step here is to see what that next step is.
So you can ask the loneliness here,
What is my next step?
Is it to heal,
Understand,
Grow,
Have more self-love,
Get out there and connect?
Take a moment and see what that next step is for you.
Make sure you're breathing.
And really open up to whatever this answer is.
It might just be a vague intuitive sense,
Or you might get a real clear image in your mind's eye.
You might hear a word or have a feeling.
But there's no need to try to figure it out or analyze it.
Really our deepest answers have a simplicity to them,
And an innocence.
You may even recognize that as you've been doing this work with me here,
Some of the loneliness is even dissipating or melting off.
Great job.
When you feel like you've come to a place of completion for this meditation,
You can let go of whatever you've been looking at and experiencing.
Take a big deep breath in.
Easy soft sigh out.
Great work.
Thank you for sitting with me for this first meditation in our loneliness series.
And whenever you're ready,
You can go right into the second one.
And I will be there with you.
See you soon.
