We all feel lonely from time to time in our lives and each of us experience this feeling differently. Different sources have defined loneliness as the feeling one gets when their need for rewarding social contact and relationship is not fulfilled. Some stressed on the fact that one can be surrounded by family of other social relation and still feel lonely because they don’t feel understood or cared by the people around them.
I came across the writer who I admire the most, he explained loneliness as following;
Loneliness is an emotion people feel when the do not feel receive an acknowledgement from others and when they are alone. They feel lonely when they cannot control their minds and when their minds feel empty.
I have been the victim of loneliness through out my living life. I remember being a person who had big dreams of traveling to different countries and adored to embrace and explore the multi-culture of the world. I loved meeting new people and visiting new places. I envied the western, how they lived their lives not bounded to any restriction or cultural limitation compare to where I came from. I was lucky enough to achieve my big dream(traveling) and it felt as a huge accomplishment in my life but never lasted long.
Funny thing is, I begun to miss my home country, being around many people and I felt alone. I thought people from West were very lonely and had no big families and friends. I found them very sad. And so I decided to return home again.
I am a person who runs away from things I don’t want to face e.g. loneliness, fear, control, anger, authority etc. When I encountered them, I judged ,disliked and avoided them. My deepest fear was to be alone and not happy all the time. I tried many ways to make myself occupied and do things that will “hype me up” and help me escape from the wave of loneliness and void within me.Loneliness made me sad and kept me in dark places. So I spent my time being around people who were very happy and always enjoying and not very serious with life. From the beginning I thought there was nothing to be serious about life because eventually we were all going to die and disappear, right?
I told myself that I was going to enjoy my life until my time comes. So I did so. I partied with my friends , met new people and go out often and had a real blast.
No matter how super busy my schedule was to fulfill the void within me- I still felt lonely. I had a lot of thoughts , worries, sadness, anxiety etc. - my mind was racing all the time, constantly thinking of what to do next to keep myself busy and relevant! I was like at formula 1 championship- honestly, with this kind of mind I would have won the race!
Sometimes I wondered why life was very empty. I tried to find solutions that will fill in the empty jar within me. therefore I searched for reasons and answers to why I felt that way. So I started following Nietzsche’s writings to understand the art of pessimism, sadness, loneliness, pain etc. Practicing pessimism took me to the darkest part of my life. I stop spending time with people, took everything serious, and I was very critical on life. Although I looked for inspiration through his writings but it never work for me. I was still sad and lonely.
So when I found this meditation where they spoke on how one can find true-self and have an eternal happiness, I was very intrigued. Then I decided to start meditating.
At the beginning , it was difficult to face myself, because I had accumulated a lot of minds in my life. The level of stress and anxiety was overwhelming. Then I learnt the art of “let go” using this wonderful method.
It was the break that I have been looking for, the break from my misery life. Maybe I am being dramatic by using the word “misery” but fair enough, looking back at my life- it was awful and I was running around like a headless chicken, escaping from myself.
After meditating for years, I was very confidence with the method- I could use it anytime and anywhere . When I felt lonely and not happy, I turned myself inside out and observe my emotions and what triggers them and discarded.
Because I was very eager to escape from myself, it took time to reach there. So one day I realize that I needed to accept myself first and then let go of my minds which are false and fake. The minds of loneliness, sadness, emptiness are the product of my past experiences. I don’t need to dislike them or eagerly get rid of them fast but all I needed was to embrace/accept and then let go of them.
The way I got this body from my parents and ancestors, I also inherited their minds. So through meditation method one can get rid of all the minds completely and find the true-self that is an eternal happiness.
It is quite fun to live without feeling lonely all the time and just be a person who takes life as a gift in every moment. I no longer need to do activities to “fuse up” my excitements or avoid my loneliness.
The more I meditated sincerely the more I open the shell that has been covering and blocking my true-self.
I am not scared anymore of the emotions and pain that bounce up and down whenever I am isolated from others, stressed or overwhelmed because they are just false and fake and can be easily discarded. I don’t care anymore about them. I am doing fine and I love spending time alone.
When alone I can do things and concentrate well on different tasks such as writing on Quora, learning new skills and language in the internet and also meditate. These are things that I would never have done, or thought of before meditation.
The road to finding my true-self can be bumpy sometimes but I am loving it!
I now feel like the poles in my skin are breathing again and I am free.
Please enjoy the video and thank you :)