Can Being Lonely Be OK?

(water flowing) (soft music) One of the most amazing things about being here is the sense of quiet, is the sense of being away from everything and everyone. (Andy laughs) I wanna be away from everyone but that is something in all of us at times that actually we kind of long for that to be out in the middle of nowhere. (soft music) Feels really healthy if we can get to a point where we're okay on our own. (soft music) Loneliness, that's a different thing I think. Can often feel kind of very challenging, it can feel quite destructive, I think it can feel very isolating but in trying to get away from that feeling of loneliness I think we miss the opportunity to understand what it is, we miss the opportunity to get comfortable with it. but there is a journey I think where we can can choose to go on where it becomes more comfortable over time and where we find the greatest sense of courage. (soft music) It's okay to feel that indescribable the sadness. (soft music) That is our life in that moment is whether we can be okay with that. We can get lost in it, we can get overwhelmed by it and we will do sometimes or we can be open to that and allow that into our life. And if we do then we start to uncover and discover things about ourselves that might surprise us that we never even kind of knew they were there. And it can open I think, it can actually be a gateway to not just greater understanding of ourselves and our own lives but also to the lives of others and the connection and the place that we have in this world. (soft music) So I feel like it's almost part of letting go of a sense of self. I can only be lonely as an individual, we can only be lonely as an individual if we think about ourselves being separate from others, separate from the world around us. As soon as that thought has gone, as soon as that idea has gone then loneliness can't even exist as a concept. So then all of a sudden that idea of stepping out of the mind, stepping out of thinking, dropping that story and that becomes really powerful. (soft music) So in some ways you could say the antidote to loneliness is to be more present, not caught up in the story of loneliness but rather resting in the present moment. It's natural to experience that feeling of loneliness but we need to get underneath that, we need to understand what's the emotion, what's the story behind it? And in seeing it clearly we're able to let go of it. (soft music)...