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How to Be Alone
"There is nothing left and people come and go. Relationships end and new ones begin. We have expectations about how we want things to go. We get resentments when our expectations are not met. It's basic behavioral psychology 101. The only way to navigate through the morass of emotional barbed wire is to not hold on to people, places or things. There is nothing left except the self in the present moment."
There are two kinds of aloneness. The first type is the aloneness you want or desire or need. After you have been with people all day or demanding personalities or in a large crowd you want to be alone and enjoy some peace and quiet. The second type is the aloneness you do not want. The forced aloneness you feel in solitary confinement in prison or being alone after a divorce or after the death of a loved one.
There is a distinction between "loneliness" and "being alone". Loneliness is a demonic spirit that attacks and isolates people. Loneliness is a spiritual warfare issue. If we have the omnipotent Christ in us flowing through us then we are never truly lonely or cut off or left entirely alone. God is with us.
What we are dealing with here is the second type of aloneness - the one that you do not want. Because we are human beings we are wired to want connection with another person. Many times this is a connection with someone or something that covers our own deficiency in some area. We become emotionally attached and connected to another life to avoid our own. We become codependent and lost. Or, more innocently, we simply love someone else and like being around them. We have a basic need for companionship and connection.
We feel alone when that person or set of circumstances that provided security or made us feel good is gone. We are on our own. How to be alone is to learn the skill of getting to know yourself again. It is You 2.0. There is nothing left except you, your miserable existence, and God. The sooner we realize this the faster we can be happy.
You learn how to be alone by enduring long grueling hours of feeling uncomfortable, incomplete and frustrated. You practice making the decision to be happy and breathing. The way to learn to be alone is to go do things alone - walk in the wilderness, go out to eat at a restaurant alone, go see a movie alone. Do this over and over again until your brain begins to form new chemicals and electrical pathways. When we are involved with other people, however good or bad, we lose sight of our own identities and internal life. The chaos and drama within another person overtakes the still small voice within you.
There is nothing left and people come and go. Relationships end and new ones begin. We have expectations about how we want things to go. We get resentments when our expectations are not met. It's basic behavioral psychology 101. The only way to navigate through the morass of emotional barbed wire is to not hold on to people, places or things. There is nothing left except the self in the present moment.
During the dark winter nights you want to share an intimate moment with another person and there is no one else. There is nobody around anywhere. There is no one to talk to, no one to be with, no one to hold or look at. It is absolute silence. You are left with the voices inside your head.
God is there somewhere inside quietly providing warmth and a presence. Sometimes we feel the warm fuzzies and sometimes we don't. It is cold, dark silence. We are alone in this life. We connect briefly in the present moment with another person and then we move on - alone.
It is God and Faith. The path to life is through the narrow gate and the narrow gate is you before God - stripped and alone. When the self gets dialed down to the zero-point and erased that is when you are not alone. There is no self left to be aware of being alone.
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