I sit here alone to begin a conscious journey to find and face my inner dragon, a journey into the heart of my loneliness.
It is quiet but the sound of the silence grows as I open myself to it and let go of distractions. I can feel the apprehension inside my body, the reluctance to journey into this dark cavernous dwelling place of the dragon. I feel myself wanting to hide behind a rock near the entrance close to the familiar. But in I must go. I gently encourage myself to move deeper into the unknown. I feel the panic in my chest, I remember countless times where I so avoided this journey through a multitude of different distractions. But I am determined to drop into this fear and explore the depths of this loneliness, to know its nature fully, to expose its dark cracks. In I go.
At some point I feel the urge to speak out:
“Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me. Please don’t.” The tears drop and I move deeply into the pain. This is rich territory.
Different images come from different times in my life for example myself at 7 or 8yrs old, sad and lonely, walking in a late October afternoon back from School to granny’s with a heavy school bag carrying the full weight of loss.
What was this sense of loss? Loss of the one I loved most?? It is not clear. It seems to be wider than a relationship with another person.
As I continue to drop I notice anger starts to arise within me and then comes the fury, the total unrestrained fury at God. ‘How could you let this happen? Deep convulsive crying accompanies this place of pain.
If I take a step back I notice my loneliness is really about my sense of separation from everything, from the Divine. I am touching into the utter devastation of feeling truly alone, abandoned not by any one person but by God or the ultimate creative intelligence. I feel utterly shut out. And this is so painful because somewhere inside me is the vague memory of connection to everything/the kingdom of God with its immeasurable beauty.
Whatever I have chosen to do in my life, watch TV, build a home, build a business, having a child, go on holidays etc, even making a cup of tea. Each of these activities has helped me mask my feeling of utter desolation. Each of them has helped me avoid seeing and worse feeling that awful reality. When it gets too close I might have started a new work project with others and seek to impress them in order to feel special. Oh feeling special was and still is a favourite. But to feel special I was offering something I could not really deliver on. As a result I was ending up letting many people down and compounding my own sense of worthlessness and emptiness.
Looking back I have avoided this loneliness for over 25 years. I believed that each of the wonderful women that I have been in relationship with would somehow release me from that awful feeling and initially, within the euphoria of fresh love, it felt as though they could. But of course this was an illusion they could never give this to me, as I now understand, it is mine alone to experience and heal. In those times of being single the sense of loneliness was more acute and the need to find someone to help fill that black hole was sometimes quite desperate.
In relationship I have often been hyper sensitive to the words, insinuations, tones, looks or any indication that I am not totally loved, totally welcome, totally RIGHT. Any indication that any of these are to the contrary brings out a swift defensive reaction from inside of me. Why? Because under no circumstances do I want to acknowledge that they cannot give me what I am demanding.
As I work with awareness to heal these splits within myself I notice that relationships are sometimes more challenging not less. As I really get more of a sense of the dragon my determination to avoid it can cause extreme reactions. Recently I have been shocked (and so have the neighbours in my quiet little Swiss village) at the wildness of my reactions. I have projected heavily onto my unfortunate partner.
I am usually unaware that I am demanding that my partner give me what I desperately believe I need. I have often used ruthless tactics with both reward and punishment. The punishment is swift, attack or withdrawal. Withdrawal is a favourite as it can be more easily denied or excused.
But if my unconscious mind were to be revealed it would be saying : ‘I’ll do anything, just don’t leave me…..I’ll do anything….what do you want…..i’ll do it, I’ll sacrifice myself’. For nothing can be worse than falling helplessly back into that feeling of desolate loneliness.
But what I’m actually speaking out in these desperate moments is: ‘I don’t need you’, don’t you dare, get out…..’ etc
Inside me I am juggling ‘I hate you, I want you, I hate myself for wanting you’ etc. And I’m screaming inside ‘Please just tell me I’m OK, tell me that I’m loveable, be sweet with me, please’.
But these unspoken desperate begs for softness and reassurance bring out a vicious self attack. The inner critic attacks ‘God, you’re so needy, so weak, no one else has these problems, just you, you’ve always been weak…..etc’
My quest is to befriend the Dragon. To know its nature, to know how to be present with it. Without running or reacting in fear. Acceptance is key. If I can just accept my shame around this loneliness then I can dis-empower these critical voices.
I have been alone now for two days and I notice how I seek out distractions. Food, cups of tea or a strong urge to sleep. The loneliness comes in waves. Just now I hear the sound of my neighbours arriving back at the end of the day and the sound of their young son calling for his mother. This really took me into it. They are settling in for a family evening and I am sitting here alone separated from my loved ones. I feel such a failure, such a fool. Am I running away from a more…..productive life, creative, giving life? Am I a waster? The self judgements flood in. I feel ashamed of feeling lonely. My critical voice says ‘Loneliness is for losers and for those that can’t make anything of their lives. Loneliness is what people get into when they’ve given up on life. Oh William, you are a loser.’
To break this vicious cycle I need to take a first step. This is to see what is going on. To see these patterns. I need to accept that I appear to be very needful. To accept this situation I must first dive into the deep feelings of shame but my avoidance here is strong.
This quest will continue for quite some time to come but if at some point, as I deeply wish, I finally succeed in making peace with this part of myself I will to a significant extent release myself from being the victim of my projected needs on to others.
