This Loneliness ain’t Pretty no more

The other day I saw a kindred soul who I’ve never met in person speak on her instagram story about feeling lonely. It’s not that she was crying on video or asking for company. She was speaking about a very relatable subject.

Feeling loneliness as a single woman living on her own.

I replied because I felt moved to reply and give some support.

I’m well seasoned in many months of living alone.

Last December I wanted to give new music a listen to curb my taste. I heard out some new albums.

But one in particular really stood out and I had it on repeat for 3 weeks.

I would wake up in the morning hearing the songs play in my mind. I would go to sleep hearing them too. Until one day it was just one track from the album that I only wanted to hear and sing to.

It was a song about deep loneliness, enough to make one shed tears. When I first heard it I had to cry, even hide it for a time. Then over the weeks I grew to listen to it out of pure enjoyment. I remembered the words and didn’t feel any sadness.

I asked myself why do we some times play some music on repeat? Like we’re insatiable.

Some of my inner guidance would answer

“Music evokes emotions and memories. We want to feel those again and again.”

When we experience something impactful, we try to recreate it.

Whether it’s tenderly laying in the arms of a lover who has deeply hurt you, to choosing the same flavor of ice cream at the store month after month, or sticking with the same order you’ve always liked at the P-Terry’s drive-through every time.

The way that I can describe loneliness for myself as a woman who lived by herself is that it’s like the one song on a musical album that makes you cry and the album is on repeat. It may hurt when it starts playing, and the pain just means that you need healing because there’s a schism in the mind from the past, but all you can really do is listen to it and ride it out as best as you can hopefully in a non-self destructive way.

When those moments of dense emotional loneliness come through, notice your physical state.

Have you had enough sleep?

Enough to eat? Enough of what you wanted to eat?

Have you laughed enough?

Moved enough?

What have you done specifically for yourself in the day just because it was your choice and you wanted to?

What do you know works for you when it comes to soothing yourself?

I noticed that during those dark moments it was always after a full day of working in a windowless room for at least 5 hours on massage clients. I didn’t have enough sunlight, water, food to eat at the right times, nor had I looked anyone in the eye and had a simple conversation that wasn’t one sided.

When I’m feeling tearful and reeling with emotion in the night, I’ve had to just be honest with myself and say

“I am tired. I am a tired girl and need to go to bed.”

“My mind is wired but my body is tired and therefore I will take the first step to getting to bed by midnight.”

Sleep is very healing. It won’t fix your personal problems but having night time rituals that will lead you to bed will set you up for the recovery you need from just being in a physical body on this earth. For myself, I begin by turning on my red light. It turns everything in my space red. It makes a very low light so even then my eyes can begin to rest while I go through my routine.

Next I brush my teeth, gently wash my face, apply a night cream, then slip into some comfy bedtime clothes.

I do some magic night rituals then I simply lay down. I can feel the relief in my body immediately.

And then my mind slowly drifts into a quiet heaviness and I fall asleep.

______________________________

In the last few months I recently took on a roommate because this person was not in a good place and needed help.

While I’ve benefited from this situation, I’ve realized that I am not ready to sacrifice the entirety of my inner world and need it back very much. It was only because I made this decision that I could see the value in the journey of being on my own.

Even though there was loneliness in living alone, looking back, it was still part of my very beautiful and highly valuable inner world. From now on even with the pain I will cherish it and protect it.

And when I feel loneliness come back to the surface and I’ll say

“Ok here it is again, I know what this is and it does not indicate any truth of my reality,” and I’ll ride that emotional wave and care for myself.

I also will never again feel sorry for another person for the situation that they are in enough to completely scoop them up so they don’t have to suffer.

(In the U.S. we’re not living in a country where there is no option for food, water, shelter and some form of income or personal and spiritual growth. We are thankfully not being bombed to smithereens. There is opportunity everywhere. And so a man and a woman have the option to make their lives their own and it can be done.)

Instead, I will know and believe that they are empowered to change it themselves just like I did for myself. I crawled out of my own personal hell to get where it is that I am and while I did have some help no one but me took any part of it on. And then I gave up a piece of it way too easily.

Why does another person deserve a free ride provided by me when I myself did not have one?

My sisters, my Goddesses, never sacrifice any part of your inner world for any reason.

Not for a man, not for money, not for loneliness nor for a broken heart at your doorstep or in your own chest.

So loneliness and all the thoughts that come with it is not an indication of a truth or reality.

It just means you need healing and is an invitation to Know Thyself better.

Ciao for now and I hope by my next blog post I will have my inner world and its physical structure back all to myself and my own energy again.

P.S. The Album I had on repeat this month and last was Lucha by Y La Bamba