Engaging With Loneliness During Lock-down

It is essential to practice mindfulness to refrain from negative emotions and to resolve conflicts occurring within oneself.

It is essential to practice mindfulness to refrain from negative emotions and to resolve conflicts occurring within oneself.

World is facing a catastrophic situation wherein we need to ponder about various situations:good or bad. We have to use our foresight to face COVID-19 but our minds love to escape from situations that are adverse. It is our human nature to complain about anything and everything happening around us. Being critical seems too good as per our genesis but critique should be based out of some productive brainstorming sessions. We think, over-think or do not think, depends upon how we try to identify ourselves and others in such situations.

The process of othering leads to conflictual analysis because we are still trying to situate our relationships in relation with others. It is difficult to handle pandemics like COVID 19 without any integrity. In that way, COVID 19 is acting as a pathway to develop a new belief system wherein we are learning something new everyday. Everyday seems like a creative expression of what the world is facing. For a metaphysical person like me, death is nothing but a new beginning. Sometimes, we willingly ignore the suffering of the deceased person because we are trapped in the imaginary notion of attachment which seems real but is not the ultimate truth. There is no absolute truth. Everything is relative and it depends on our perspectives. Universe itself might not have its own truth. It’s the time which travels and it is the light which manages all the energies of this universe; that light might have emerged from the dark corners. That’s why, every life faces both because that is how our energies emerged and engaged with the universe.  By saying this, I might favour binaries but let me also add to it that, the universe has no form of its own. It is a space where energies interact and we can also interact in non-binary forms.

During this lockdown, some people complained about their loneliness. Some people kept seeking my attention by calling or messaging me regularly. I am still wondering: are they doing this out of care or are they willing to seek my care? There are many people who are desperately waiting to meet their partner and there are people who are getting abused by their partners but in the midst of these desperate attempts, we, as humans are still unaware about the healer within us. COVID 19 is acting like a face-off for the dormancy we have committed in every realm. The negative tendencies which we have drawn from our environment are handicapping us but we must not allow them to wither away the sense of humanity which regenerates the vibes of positivity. We must not even fight them but we must understand them so as to engage productively with ourselves.  We often feel lonely because we are social animals but we have been asked to socially distance ourselves from people so as to engage with the crisis. But, we can engage with our loneliness and boredom only if look within and beyond what is happening outside. To be straightforward, if we appreciate the healing process which is happening within  us, we would never feel lonely. Self-consciousness is the key to handle such distress.

We can handle loneliness by opting to learn something new and develop our skills which can help us to sustain after this pandemic effect reduces. We can manage to interact more with nature by embracing the blue, clear sky with glowing sun or moon. We can plan to engage ourselves in artistic activities including, painting, writing, cooking, dancing, etc. We often feel lonely when we compare our lives with others without even identifying our own privileges. We feel that the world has isolated us or we are getting isolated from the world. We are too materialistic to understand the healing power of being alone. We are the witness of our Karma, why should the world around us define us? It is necessary to address these self-indulging questions because the world is born to discriminate. It would always demarcate margins between the self and the other because we never questioned it. We are needy, flesh-embedded people who are asked to pursue desires, which are simply  residual images created by our minds. Therefore, we often tend to get attached to this temporal material life. The energies which form matter is reduced to wishful ignorance because we think consciousness is about the empowerment of self and it is one of the myths which we endowed as truth.

Loneliness is born out of ignorance. Ignorance is born out of conflicts which is within and beyond us but we must remember, things which are beyond us is not in our control. Therefore, it is essential to practice mindfulness to refrain from negative emotions and to resolve conflicts occurring within oneself. For practicing mindfulness, we must engage ourselves to talk with one’s own self and understand our requirements without getting fidgeted or anxious. The process of introspection can only take place if we are willing to listen to our inner self which is trying to converse with us  but we tend to ignore it due to our mystical desires which emerge from somewhere or nowhere, trapping us into bodily embedded world which undermines both life and death.We need to isolate from others to understand the self. Sometimes, it is better to be at peace with oneself rather than creating chaos with others. This is high time to realize that we do not create imbalances in the world anymore because imbalances make us suffer and everyone pays for it including, the nature.

Image Credits: Pixabay

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About the Author

Anupreeta Chatterjee

I pursued my post graduation in Women's Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad. I am a passionate poet and have published my poems in Ink Drift magazine. I am a gender specialist read more...

9 Posts | 17,008 Views

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