From loneliness to connectedness
Loneliness can feel awful when we're in the middle of it. Even if our head might say: "It's just a feeling, tomorrow everything will be different". Loneliness sometimes just stays with us like an uninvited guest and makes the heart heavy or the thoughts a little darker. Often it appears for no reason and then disappears again.
Loneliness is also a feeling with which, paradoxically, we are not alone. Almost everyone knows the feeling every now and then and just knowing that we share it as human beings can be comforting.
In addition, meditation is one of the best ways not only to end feelings of loneliness, but even to grow with them.
Meditation first brings us into deep contact with ourselves. This is the best prerequisite for feeling close to others again. Meditation in itself is a technique for connection - with yourself, with others, with the universe. Therefore, it is not even important which technique you choose when you feel lonely, but much more that you look and feel inward in some way. Nevertheless, there are a few ways that are particularly good for feelings of loneliness. In many traditions as well as in yoga, for example, the heart center is described as both the gateway to connection with oneself and with others. What I also find particularly important is to really recognize the feelings of loneliness at the beginning of meditation. Too often we just want to have them gone quickly. In doing so, consciously accepted feelings of loneliness can help to achieve real, inner strength. If after a few hours or days the loneliness moves on again and everything becomes lighter and brighter again, then this strength and the knowledge that you can draw it from yourself remain as a gift.
How to meditate with loneliness:
Find a particularly nice place for meditation. Maybe you can look at the sky from the window for a while before you start.
Then close your eyes.
Become aware of the loneliness you are feeling right now.
Can you feel it Where in the body do you particularly feel it?
Make yourself aware that you are sharing this feeling with other people in the world at this very moment.
Put a hand on your heart
Take a deep breath and invite your loneliness to come into your heart. You can imagine that this feeling is like a being that is now finding comfort in your heart.
After a while, imagine that you are making contact from your heart with everything that exists in this world and beyond: plants, animals, the sky, the stars, the earth, other people ...
It is enough that you just make yourself aware that all of this is around you.
Stay with it for a while, then consciously breathe in and out a few times and come back to your own heart, your heart center.
When you slowly open your eyes again, look for a while at something that you have just made internal contact with. Maybe the sky again or a plant. Then break away from it and come back to your day.
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