Is it being alone? Do you experience it only when you are by yourself? Is it possible to experience loneliness even when with other people? Is it possible to be at a party, at a gathering and still feel lonely?
Loneliness is an emotion that is unique to each individual and plays out in different ways.
I remember when I was as far away from home as I had ever been, away from familiar faces, smells, people and a culture so removed from my own, there was a period where I would often binge watch TV or shopped till I dropped because otherwise I felt terribly alone and it was quite gut wrenching. Yet, very strangely, when I was amongst friends, chatting and laughing, this feeling would still lurk in the background sometimes.
I didn’t really know what to do when this feeling would appear, and so I would pretend to be busy, I would run from one activity to another, one person to another, one place to another.
Only much later did I figure out that it was all happening in my own mind!
The mysterious mind …
Our mind is like the processing unit. It takes in all information, mixes it up with what is already there from our past and creates a story. Now, as long as we are not aware of what is happening in the processing unit, we will only be acting out what the mind wants of us.
You have probably heard the quote – ‘If you don’t mind your mind, the mind will mind you’!
The story of our experience is being woven in our mind all the time, whether we know it or not. The mind is the writer, director and we invariably end up getting the lead role. “ I ” was the story my mind was creating and I realised that I have the ability to be the director of my own mind.