269. Loneliness doesn’t have to be our life if we question our thoughts

In one day recently I heard about two people, both seniors, who are single and extremely lonely. One is a woman who told me about an emotionally abusive relationship she’s in but who clearly doesn’t want to leave it because she says she can only imagine loneliness. The other is a story I heard about a man who’s wife died four years ago and he’s been deeply lonely ever since.

It may be hard to see this but any feeling of stress and suffering, including loneliness, comes only from our thinking. This isn’t something I’m suggesting you believe. Instead I’m suggesting, if you’re interested, that you check it out for yourself. Many times during any day we all find ourselves busy thinking of something that completely abolishes our suffering, if only for a moment. In those moments loneliness is gone. In other words, you have to think about being lonely to be lonely.

The woman I talked with seems to be afraid to drop her unfulfilling relationship because, as she said, “I have no prospects” for another relationship. Instead of dealing with the present she’s trying to deal with a future that she’s imagining.

I know nothing about the widower except that he’s lonely. But my experience would say he’s probably thinking thoughts like, “I can’t be happy without her.” “I need her in my life to be happy,” etc. But is that true? If you asked him if he’s had times of joy and happiness in the last four years I’ll bet he’d admit he has. Maybe times with his family, his grandchildren, friends, even sitting alone in a peaceful setting such as beside a gurgling creek, or even watching a ball game on TV when his side is winning. So he’s had happiness without her.

The point is this: All emotional suffering comes from our thoughts. We believe the thought that says, “I need her.” But isn’t he functioning in life just fine? Is it really true that he needs her? Can he even know that her life would have been better if she’d lived? Can he know his life would have been better if she’d lived? No, we can’t really know any of that. Reality is always the teacher because it doesn’t lie. It doesn’t deceive. It isn’t phony. It’s just what is. You can count on it.

Questioning the stories we tell ourselves – if we’re willing to answer honestly – always leads us back to the peace that’s under all the mind’s shenanigans. The mind is a wonderful slave but it’s a terrible master when its thoughts pop up about life and we get involved with those thoughts. We feed those thoughts and give them a comfy place to stay. So when will they leave? We muck around in the sticky mud of suffering and call that life.

Before any thought can arrive, however, there has to be some aware being that the thought can show up in or on. That beingness is who we are, and it’s like a movie screen. It isn’t affected by the thoughts and movies that show up on it. It’s always at peace and without problems. Since that Aware Being must be there for us to even have a thought, and since it exists before thought, it must be who we really are.

Life changes moment by moment. It changes so fast, in fact, that before we can even speak of a moment it’s already gone. Our suffering comes from not wanting some of the changes and holding on to the idea that life should be our way rather than the way it is. Without that thought we move freely in the world, relishing new relationships and enjoying the sparkle of life in the moment, even in such a simple thing as doing the dishes. If we’re lonely we can live in our wretched thinking or we can live in the awareness that watches a thought come and lets it go, like a cloud in the sky.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer