I am sitting alone, not running from my thoughts and not pushing anything away. For most of my life, being alone was the thing I feared most. Now it is where I find quiet.
I kept running into the next relationship
For most of my life I ran from one relationship straight into the next. I was scared of being alone. The moment one ended, I was already looking for someone else to fill the gap. I did not stop to ask why. I only knew that an empty evening felt like something I could not survive.
It took me a long time to see it. I was looking for my mum. I never felt a mother’s love, and without knowing it, I went searching for it in every partner. I do not blame my mother. I do not blame my father. I do not blame myself either. That is just how it was. Getting to that place, where I can say it without anger, took me many years.
When there was no partner, I filled the gap
When I had no one, I covered the loneliness another way. Drugs, alcohol, overeating. Anything to stop feeling the quiet.
And the funny thing is, I was never short of people. Every beer brought more acquaintances. Every line of amphetamine or cocaine brought more “friends”. The room was always full. But a full room is not the same as not being lonely, and somewhere inside I knew that.
The same faces, coming back
Looking back now, I see those people differently. I think they were the same few energies coming back to me with different faces, again and again, so I could learn my lesson. A new name, a new place, the same story. Until I learned it, it kept repeating.
There is a line in the Dhammapada I keep close to me now:
“Better it is to live alone; there is no fellowship with a fool. Live alone and do no evil; be carefree like an elephant in the elephant forest.”
Dhammapada 330
The fear kept winning
For a long time the fear of being alone kept winning. And every time it won, it ended badly. Debts. Car accidents. And one accident that ended with knee surgery, and metal in my knee that I still carry today. I wrote more about that in What My Knee Knows.
None of those things came from being alone. They came from running away from it.
Sitting alone, and staying
In the end I found the quiet I was running from, and it was not my enemy. I found it by sitting alone. Not running from my thoughts. Not pushing my emotions away. Just meditating, and letting whatever comes up come up.
That is where the line on our new designs comes from: “Loneliness teaches you things that crowds never will.” I believe it because I lived it. A crowd kept me busy. Loneliness taught me who I am. It is the same lesson I wrote about in Love Fully, Hold Loosely: you can love people fully without needing them to save you from yourself.
Wear the reminder
I put those words on things you can use every day. A Loneliness Teaches You mug (11oz) or the bigger 15oz mug for your morning sit. A unisex tee (dark) or light, the women’s relaxed tee, or the relaxed hoodie for colder evenings. You can see the whole Loneliness collection here.
You do not have to stay in that company
If you are tired of company that is only there for the drink and the drugs, stay with FunGuyMe. You do not need a crowd to stop being lonely.
Soon there will also be the Mindful Bee, a Zen café that is still coming. When it opens, I hope it will be a place to sit, share a story, or hear how someone else got through the thing you think you can’t get through. I already know it’s possible.
Until then, sit with yourself for a few minutes tonight. The quiet might have something to teach you too.
With warmth,
Rafik