By Chikako Nagayama
Loneliness is a name of my suffering. Until recently, I had thought loneliness is a mistake, something that I had to recover from, or a problem to solve. Where is my friend? With whom should I have dinner after a long day of work? To whom should I speak about my heartbreak with a charming but troubled colleague? I was grieving for my lost connections with friends who had left me or whom I had left behind.
Since I was 18, I have moved between six cities internationally and domestically for my education, marriage and work. Along the way, I got married and divorced twice. I am now single. I look around and find that my friends live hundreds or thousands miles away, and many of them are with their partner and young children. I don’t want to interrupt them. Compared to their burdened but meaningful lives, I used to feel my problems were just trivial, or even worse, a sign of my privileged single life.
When I was extremely disturbed by my workplace troubles, I contacted a counselor living miles away. Thankfully, she quickly accommodated my requests for a Skype chat appointment within a couple of days. In addition, I learned to use paid services to physically stay in touch with ‘real’ people – I kept myself busy with exercise classes and music lessons. I also made constant efforts to establish a good rapport with a small café owner or a hairdresser to enjoy occasional chit-chat. When I moved to another city, I managed to quickly establish this routine in my new space. I do travel back to the cities where I used to live and meet my ‘real’ friends by paying for flights from $500 to $2500. My friendship is costly. This has further underscored my feeling of loneliness.
A colleague of mine has said to me that my using English as a second language and having a Canadian degree would provide me with abundant job opportunities. This assumption would be shared by many people. This model of ‘global career success’ presupposes that the employee’s emotional fulfillment would naturally match their financial and social status. In reality, I am paying the price – psychologically and monetarily – for maintaining meaningful connections with people.
This winter, however, my perspective shifted. This was triggered by my grandmother’s death – she had been bedridden for some years in my hometown in Japan and finally passed away last month. This caused recurring, uncontrollable sadness that I had not experienced before. Also it gave me a good excuse to say no to the extra amount of work that my colleagues tried to pass onto me. Finally I was able to take the time to pay attention to my troubled feelings. Then I started to gradually see that my loneliness is not my enemy. I realized that feeling lonely is a kind of suffering, but not a problem.
By considering it as a problem, I used to feel an urge to somehow solve it. This implication would have further created a psychological burden, such as a feeling that this is not how I should be. I tended to automatically consider that I had a void to fill and look for immediate tasks; I often indulged in romancing a future partner or reading Twitter posts about a corrupt government to instantly take away my attention from my sense of isolation. But even if I could make myself busy, the lonely feeling came back. I didn’t even recognize that I was caught in this vicious cycle.
My grandmother’s passing, however, made me experience how deep a sense of loss can be. By acknowledging my uncontainable emotions, I gradually learned to accept my present feelings, whatever they were. It was rather a subtle shift, but I certainly cultivated compassion towards myself through the crisis. Now I am aware that I don’t have to change my circumstances right away.
With this acceptance, I appreciate my friendships that I used to feel remote and partial. I can still contact them online. They may not be physically with me when I am in trouble – but it is ok if I post my updates on Facebook as if I’m directly talking to my friends. It is ok if they might or might not read them. Since I realized that my loneliness is not a problem, I became less concerned about my friends’ responses (‘likes’). Perhaps I’m less dependent on their approval now.
As my confidence gradually increased, I restarted a meditation practice. I used to attend a weekly Buddhist meditation circle in Toronto. I physically left them several years ago but I am still connected with them through their mailing list. When I practice by myself, ideally, I sit for 10 minutes every morning. However, when my schedule is really tight or I am extremely tired, I don’t feel motivated to spare the time to just sit. Instead I try to bring awareness to various aspects of my daily life: I quietly watch my breath when I walk, ride a bicycle or wash dishes.
This meditation practice allows some space to feel gratitude and more abundance than scarcity that I carry in my life. Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nat Hahn says, “when our mind is free from anger, fear, jealousy, it is more serene, calm, and concentrated. With that, we can have a breakthrough into the heart of reality, because our afflictions prevent us from seeing things clearly.” In his various writings and talks, Thich Nat Hahn also assures that you don’t have to go anywhere else than where you are now to gain a sense of belonging.
That means, I can feel ‘at home’ anywhere. I just have to give myself permission to feel at ease and free from worries. When I am caught by worries, I try to live my future. But when I am not worried, I live at present, here and now. Similarly, when I am depressed, I tend to wonder what I could have done differently to avoid the difficulties that I am facing now. Perhaps I might still need the time to mourn my lost connections and embrace their painful departures. But what’s happened has happened. I cannot change my past. I can only live my present moment, one breath at a time.
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