Standing Where No One Else Can Stand For You

Being all alone arises as a very stressful thought for people at various times in life.

Here comes the thought “I am alone”.

I know this can be a fabulous feeling….alone at last! The whole house to myself! Quiet, meditation, sweetness.

But today I’m looking at the painful reaction to this thought.

(I love how Byron Katie says that The Work is for the stressful beliefs, not the happy ones….although once you begin self-inquiry….even those happy ones may start to fall away).

So when it’s sad, uncomfortable, frustrating, or full of anguish to be thinking “I am alone”, what’s the worst case scenario?

What’s wrong with being alone?

This is serious question!

I picture being on the tropical island in the Pacific, like in the movie Castaway, forever. No rescue or departure back to civilization at the end.

Or what about the Life of Pi story with no return to land.

Dying alone. No other humans around.

Or floating in outer space with nothing in sight. Nothing, for miles.

In the past several years, I have worked with many people who are absolutely sure they don’t like being alone.

They have no partner, no family, no job, or not enough friends.

I have also worked with people who are in relationships, but feel alone and critical of their partners.

Alone in a crowd, alone in the world.

People feel unloved, unsupported, abandoned, discarded.

There is something here called ME and it feels disconnected with the environment, separated.

There is too much contact, or too little contact. Whatever is happening is NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

Alarming. Depressing. Off.

There is a lot of fantasizing about the troubling things that could happen, from this state of too much aloneness or not enough aloneness.  Or fantasizing about wonderful things that could happen with more aloneness or less aloneness.

So bring on The Work.

In that dark, empty, alone moment that looks bleak, separate, frightening…or in that frustration of wanting to shut out others so you can finally be by yourself…

…who would you be without the belief that you are alone?

Who would you be without the thought that you need to be MORE alone, or LESS alone, or you’ll go mad as a hatter?

In a huge crowd, walking down the street, talking with one friend, dancing, at a gathering of people, sitting in an audience, meditating all by yourself, eating food, driving your car, thinking, sleeping…who would you be without the belief that the state of being alone is hard, tough, or imperfect?

What if instead, you lived your life as the turnaround to the painful stance towards being alone….Joy? 

What if you felt the immensity of being alone without fear? Without the need to do anything about it, today?

What if you could live the belief “I am alone” and experience it as curious, wonderful, wild, exciting, adventurous, free?

“It is Love that leads us beyond all fear and into the solitude of our being. There we find our utter aloneness because we stand free of all the false comforts of illusion and find the capacity to stand where no one else can stand for us. We are alone not because we have isolated ourselves behind an emotional defense or false transcendence, but because we are no longer held captive by either the mind or fear.” ~ Adyashanti

Love, Grace