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Dear Soul Arcanum:
My whole life I have felt deeply lonely. This was true even when I was married and regardless of what was going on in my life. I’ve always felt like a part of me was missing. I have a few theories but would love to hear yours.
Mary
Dear Mary:
Before I delve into the subject of existential loneliness, I think it’s important to cover some of the simpler dynamics that can cause people to constantly feel the way you describe.
First, we are all subconsciously missing people we’ve loved profoundly in other lives. Though we may never have known them in this life and have no conscious memories of them, our souls still remember, so it’s normal to feel a vague sense that there is great love <q>out there</q> that we can’t seem to find. We can even miss our spirit guides with whom we have ongoing but subconscious bonds that surpass all the physical relationships we may form. On some level, we remain aware that there is greater love and union possible than we’ve ever consciously known in this lifetime. Fortunately, our love and longing for reunion with those souls is like a gravitational force that will lead us back to them eventually, if not in this life, then on the other side.
Also, we are all missing parts of our own selves in various ways, and this can leave us feeling incomplete. This may include our higher self – that part of us that is eternal and remains in the spirit world when we incarnate here – to which we may be more or less consciously connected depending on our level of spiritual development. We can also miss parts of ourselves that we may have ‘lost’ due to traumatic experiences and the desire to avoid pain. Since my space here is limited, for more information on this idea, research the term ‘soul retrieval.’
Finally, we all naturally long for the bliss and ease of the spirit world and the greater sense of union we experience when we’re not so compartmentalized in physical bodies. For example, it is easier to commune in the astral, for there we can communicate telepathically and consciously meld energies with other beings.
Of course, we are ultimately all one, and just like the Universe supposedly exploded in a big bang, thus creating a force that will eventually draw everything back together again, there is a force that acts like a gravitational pull on our souls and is forever tugging us back to Source.
So what you’re describing is something that we all experience to some degree, though artistic types and deep thinkers perhaps suffer from it on a more profound level; it’s what fuels their endless introspection and extraordinary creativity. This is not loneliness due to a lack of healthy, fulfilling relationships. It’s more existential in nature, so no matter how good our relationships with other people may be, they can’t remedy this loneliness because what we are longing for is a deep and personal relationship with ‘Spirit’ – with ‘God,’ the Universe, the Divine.
While being alone in life puts us in the quiet space in which deep ideas and feelings grow best, in fact, it is often after we achieve highly fulfilling relationships with other people that this loneliness begins to surface. I suppose this is because we expect relationships with other people or some other worldly goal to make us feel happy and complete. When we finally ‘have it all,’ we are dismayed to note that we still feel a sense of inner longing, angst or loneliness, and this is when we begin the deeper work of exploring our true natures and consciously pursuing direct experience of Source.
Most people are constantly running away from this loneliness by staying forever busy with external affairs and investing more importance in temporal matters than those matters warrant. This running is one of the driving forces behind addictions like alcoholism. When someone is terrified of what lies beyond everyday experience, they will do anything to avoid facing it. Similarly, when someone finds the will and courage to face their fears, they gain the power to heal themselves.
Of course, on some level, we are all constantly aware of the impermanence of life and how some day we will lose every worldly thing we treasure. We will be separated from our bodies, from the bodies of the people we love and from all we build and cherish on Earth: our homes, our careers, our accomplishments. Some of us avoid thinking about such things as much as possible, but nevertheless, this awareness remains on some level, where it fuels a desire to find something meaningful and eternal. For some people, this desire only surfaces occasionally; for others, it becomes all-consuming and sends them on a spiritual quest for that which is both lasting and truly fulfilling.
It is this fear of death and longing for Divine comfort that drives the religious/spiritual impulse in humankind, and thus the spiritual quest is the answer to the suffering of existential loneliness. Such a quest won’t erase this deep feeling, however, for that sense of longing for something more is essential to the human experience. If embrace this feeling and work with it, however, it can fuel our spiritual journey and inspire us to reach beyond mundane life to explore that which lies beneath the surface, and motivate us to develop higher qualities like love, compassion, wisdom and integrity.
The key is to stop fighting this feeling as a sign that something is wrong, and instead, embrace it as a precious homing device that is ever trying to guide us ‘home.’ It’s like we’re explorers on another planet, and though we may get absorbed in our adventures, in our pockets, we have a device that is ever ready to lead us home when we’re ready.
This deep loneliness inspires introspection and spiritual exploration, so without this feeling of incompleteness, we can become entirely absorbed in superficial, temporal concerns. Existential loneliness thus moves us to lose interest in the mundane business of daily life and transcend everyday concerns to search for something more meaningful. Many spiritual practices that have survived the test of time are designed to help us in this transcendence. Two that come immediately to mind are yoga and meditation.
By working with our existential loneliness, we begin to dance with the Universe. We ask for signs and receive them, wonder over the meaning of our experiences, open up to new ways of perceiving life, and explore new spiritual practices. We are then blessed with moving dreams; spiritual powers; otherworldly adventures; and moments of healing, grace, peace and ecstasy.
So though our first impulse is to run away from spiritual suffering, it is what ultimately leads us to new growth and awareness. When we stop fearing this deep longing and instead embrace it, everything flips around. Then instead of fleeing our existential fear, we move through it and discover that this seeming void is actually the heart of bliss we have been longing for all along.
I encourage you to redefine your loneliness as longing for Divine union. If you meditate to get past ‘yourself,’ you will find that part of you that is eternal and always connected to Source. Cultivate this relationship; move into the center of it and begin to live your life from there. Then, like sad but beautiful poetry, your longing will bless you with a sense of deep feeling and purpose. It will keep you questioning, exploring, and ever reaching toward that vast spiritual horizon beyond which a whole new level of experience awaits us all.
Soul Arcanum