Stop Walking Alone!

No Wonder You Feel Lost…

 By: LeeAnn Heinbaugh, MA

 

Ughhhh! I’m overwhelmed. There’s not enough time in the day. I need help, but I don’t have time to explain it to someone else! Besides, it’s easier to just to do it myself!

 

Do any of these sound familiar to you? As women in the workforce, home, and world in general, we tend more and more to “walk alone,” to “do it ourselves.” This is what these statements are really saying.

 

There is not enough space here to deeply explore the many social, cultural, familial, emotional and psychological reasons for this autonomy and the accompanying isolation we have adopted. However, in its most basic terms, we are busy. There is a lot to do. And doing has become our primary reality.

 

The result is that life is often driving us, rather than us steering it or being aware of where we are really going. We are running down pathways and to destinations based on the demands of work, home, family, community, and a myriad of other daily things. Add to this the intense pace and never-ending stimuli of our outer world of technology, finance and activity, and it is a lot.

 

I like to describe this as a literal consciousness of do, do, do followed by done, done, done. Then we quickly find our selves at next, next, next. And along the way, we encounter varied forms of dang it, dang it, dang it and more ughhhh’s. The point is, we are busy to the point of consumption in outer things, and thus largely unaware of or awake to the deeper nature of who we are inside. This leaves us devoid of solid, unconditional relationships with ourselves and with others.

 

As a result, we become isolated. We feel orphaned, alone, frustrated and somehow lost to our own physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. The resources we dedicate to ourselves are too often lost, low or not even on the priority list of our lives.

 

It is curious to see how often we feel lost and alone amidst all this activity. This is because action and activity do not equate to relationships. Doing and being are not the same. Intimacy and deep emotion are hard to find in the events of outer action. Since spirit is most naturally and fully lived from the inside, it has little or no way of existing in this solitary outer world of things.

 

As women we really do need and desire community. It is incredibly important to share, to communicate and to be connected. Some of us yearn for or have more of a need for this than others. This is our uniqueness. Nonetheless, I hear women consistently talk about, cry about, wonder about and struggle with a deep feeling of being alone. We feel a deep and persistent sense that there is something more, that we are somehow lost in terms of not finding what we are seeking.

 

At our core (spiritually, physically, psychologically and emotionally) we are drawn to gather, to share and to be part of something more than ourselves. What a beautiful thing. Yet, in the world today many of us have become so conditioned to being separate in all the doing, that we are not aware of how alone we truly are. I believe this is a learned condition, not natural to our nature. It is born of the intensity of things. We are overwhelmed, tired, stressed and angry. This becomes a difficult dichotomy. We feel these emotions because we are flying “solo;” yet, we keep doing it because we are fueled by these very same emotions. It is like a gerbil running on a wheel.

 

How we grow beyond this, get off the wheel, and begin to more fully connect is as varied as we are as individuals. Some identify with a desire to find what I call our clan or our tribe – a sacred group to which we feel a kinship and belonging. Yet others of us feel most drawn to a certain individual, to a specific discipline or to particular practices. For still others, it may be all of the above and even more.

 

There is no wrong answer here. Seek and find what you desire, need, miss, want or are curious about. As women, as human beings, it serves us to connect and belong with others. The pattern of continually striving, stumbling along and struggling alone is really a form of self-denial and, ultimately, of abuse. Each of us deserves and has the opportunity for a, deeper, richer, and more spiritual experience of living.

 

So, I offer to you an opportunity to consider what this may hold for you. Honor yourself and others. There are so many amazing, beautiful, inspiring, enlightening and fun people and practices in the world for us to explore. Why be here on this physical plane of human experience if not to share it with others? And why on earth (pun intended) would we continue to walk it alone? To do this is a hurried habit, not a healthy, whole practice.

 

 

LeeAnn works internationally as a consultant, teacher and guide with individuals and groups. For more information visit www.journeysinliving.com