Don't Surrender Your Loneliness So Quickly
On Solitude
It’s the holiday season. For many, this means joy, celebration, and a time of coming together with family and loved ones. For others, it means solitude, grief, and loss. For most of us, it’s a combination of all these things.
After almost two decades of depression, anxiety, and struggling with mental health, I finally feel I have a baseline of joy, levity, and contentment, but this past week I have felt off. I didn’t know what to do about it. I wanted to diagnose it, to analyze it, to fix it. I took it to nature instead. I did a two-hour beach walk sans phone to connect with myself and discover how I felt. What was going on? What was I feeling? What was underneath my daze?
As I stared at the small waves lapping the shore, a word came to my mind: Solitude. I realized that I was feeling a deep sense of aloneness. I realized that I had been in a committed relationship with someone for the past two holiday seasons. I hadn’t had to face this feeling of solitude. I had been able to share this time with my significant other. I had successfully dodged the loneliness for two years, but now I was back to walking alone.
This realization brought me relief. If I know what’s happening, I can do something about it. I immediately downloaded the dating apps. I had a week to find a boyfriend for Christmas.
I am kidding. This isn’t a Hallmark movie! This is a highly intellectual and profoundly spiritual newsletter (ha). But if it were a movie, the “boyfriend” would totally be a hired male stripper/escort played by someone like Jason Momoa, and the female lead would hire him to go to her hometown with her for Christmas. Someone would catch onto them (a gay cousin who had gotten a lap dance from him in Vegas). Their bond would start platonically; she would be very reserved, but then they would bang/fall in love, etc. Anyways.
I actually didn’t disassociate into creativity at the time of this realization. Instead, I sat on the beach, cried, and thought about the Hafiz quote, “Don't surrender your loneliness so quickly. Let it cut you more deep. Let it ferment and season you as few human and even divine ingredients can. Something missing in my heart tonight has made my eyes so soft, my voice so tender, my need for God absolutely clear.”
So, what do I do with my solitude? Honestly, at first, I try to transcend it. I think, “Oh, I can detach from anything. I can evolve out of it.” A friend recently called me out very lovingly, saying, “I think you need to allow yourself to be human.” My first thought was, “No thanks.” But then I laughed because she was right. I sometimes get caught up trying to transcend things like longing, sadness, and attachment. These times push me to the edges of my human experience and remind me that I need to surrender to it.
So, instead of turning from my aloneness, I turn towards it. I befriend it. I sit with it. I write with it. I sleep with it. I read with it. I walk the beach with it. I find meaning in it. I ask myself what needs to be felt.
Our darkness, pain, and grief can not shatter us; instead, we can become whole by allowing them. We can find healing and meaning by being with them instead of hiding from them. And, like the last line of the Hafiz quote, they can make our “need for God so absolutely clear.”
God only exists in the present moment. I can only connect by being right here, right now, in whatever I am feeling. This week, I realized that my true yearning isn’t for a relationship with a partner or to avoid my solitude but for a greater connection to Source, to God/dess, the universe, and myself.
My prayer has become to merge with God/dess—to feel the deep, unconditional, infinite love that is God. I love this dance of yearning for that, catching glimpses of it while watching the sunlight shimmer on the sea, but then losing sight of it again. I love coming back to it through meditation. I feel this presence of God in my heart. This feeling of love ensures that I am never alone, always belong, and can rely on something to get me through the holidays other than American Spirits and Coke Zeros.
In writing and sharing about this feeling of solitude, I realized that even when I did have a partner, I still yearned for something more during the holidays. I was just more distracted from it because I wasn’t alone. Aloneness has been a gift that has allowed me to connect more deeply to this part of me that yearns for more from life, from love, from myself.
I also know that I am not alone in the aloneness. I know there are so many others who may be struggling as well. Maybe, like me, you’ve experienced a breakup since last year, or you’ve experienced a natural disaster that has changed your life, or you have experienced the loss of a loved one or are grieving those who are no longer here.
Maybe you are with your family, and they are intense and chaotic. Or perhaps they are like robot zombies who can’t feel their emotions, and they think you are bat-shit crazy for feeling everything. Maybe you are in a relationship that is no longer working, and you realize that. Maybe you can’t be with your loved ones, or you’re struggling financially, or you have to work through the holidays.
There is some comfort in knowing that we are not alone in this but walking alone together. We can find joy in coming together during this season. We can create magic and beauty through connection. I can feel love, compassion, and belonging when I am with my family, trying to sleep while the news blasts throughout the night in the next room, turning my grandmother’s house into a Fox News amphitheater and making for very interesting dreams. When I can get my hands on the remote, we can watch Christmas Vacation. Despite our differences, we can share stories, laughter, and meals. I can tap into the love.
I am reminded that everywhere I go, I belong. I know that I belong here on this island. I know that I belong in my community of wild-hearted, badass sisters. I belong in my home with my sister-friend Leila and her two amazing boys. I belong in my wild, ridiculous family, and I know that I belong to this earth, to the dirt, to the trees, to the long stretch of sandy beach a few blocks from my home. I know that I am never truly alone. If I have a connection to source, I am always guided by something greater than myself.
In the Northern Hemisphere, we have just experienced the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. During this time, we are called to explore our own darkness, to illuminate it with light. When we allow that, when we allow our loneliness to cut us more deeply, season us, and ferment us, we can experience illumination and liberation. I believe that to become enlightened, we must shine the light on all aspects of ourselves and love it all.
This is a season to be with it all and love it all. We must allow ourselves to feel our shadows, darkness, and pain, knowing that as the days get longer, more light will pour in, and more will be illuminated. ‘Tis the season to be jolly, but also to heal, to grieve, and to be whatever it is we are feeling, to allow it all, to love it all.
I love y’all.
THIS WEEK’S SUNDAY SESSION- LOVE:
I started a new offering called Sunday Sessions, and I have included a video and audio recording of yesterday’s class that includes a meditation to connect to this love.
CURRENTLY:
DOING: I am creating new offerings and courses, which I am excited about. I have also been doing more tarot readings online and at events, which have been powerful! I have also been taking many beach walks, reading, listening to Ram Dass, attending holiday gatherings, and having fun with friends.
WRITING: I am doing a lot of journaling, automatic writing, and dabbling in some poetry.
READING: I am reading When Breath Becomes Air, All About Love by bell hooks, and I just started listening to Want by Gillian Anderson.
LISTENING: I am currently listening to this playlist.
REMINDER:
Our friends affected by the devastation in WNC still need support! Please read my past newsletter for ways to help.
OFFERINGS:
New Offering: Sunday Sessions. An hour-long Zoom that includes a talk, meditation, and discussion by yours truly. This is a donation-based offering, and all are welcome (even men! ha!) Recordings are available, and I plan to upload them to YouTube for replays. Each week will be a different topic!
Next week, I will be discussing romantic love and attachment. You can sign up at this link!
I have launched my first course, Free Woman, an eight-week course for women seeking liberation by becoming the most authentic versions of themselves. We have two more classes left! Please register here. OUR LAST MEETUP IS ON JANUARY 6TH!
Intuitive Guidance and 1:1 Coaching sessions.
Tarot Card readings via Zoom and in-person. I am available for parties and events, too.
Please email me for more details or to schedule: carleyjuelstanley@gmail.com
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