Solitude, Solace and Community

Addressing loneliness, alone or in groups #yogaproblempage

Another “problem page” question today – and, as usual, there’s no easy answer!

Q: What can I do about loneliness? I don’t mean boredom, but a lack of family and support. I’ve tried community groups and have great friends, but the sense of belonging is missing.

With the general perception that yoga means “union”, it’s easy to assume it results in connection. In some ways, though, it leads to separation. That’s certainly the goal of the best-known text about yoga philosophy, the Yoga Sūtra, which refers to liberation in terms of kaivalya – a state of detachment that means “isolation”.

This is pretty much the opposite of modern objectives. However, its aloneness also hints at integration – being established in one’s true nature. And as someone on one of my courses noted recently, the German word allein means “alone”, while its parts (all- and ein) say “all one”. So being by oneself might not always feel lonely.

From an illustrated manuscript in the British Library

Word games aside, isolation can hurt. As well as exacerbating physical pain, social disengagement has emotional impacts – as many discovered when confined to their homes in 2020. So it’s not always helpful to quote yogic texts that say a practitioner “beholding the self” is “content in the self” (Bhagavad Gītā 6.20).

However blissful this inner self-sufficiency (the next line of the Gītā calls it “infinite happiness”), we’re interrelated, so perceiving a lack of connection can be disturbing. Relationships aren’t in themselves a magic answer, since they raise the intensity. If I feel myself felt by another, it’s reassuring. However, the opposite is deeply unsettling.

All of which suggests that the important thing is how we relate – to ourselves as much as anyone else. Earlier this year, I took a course on self-compassion, which helped me cope with chronic pain. One of its practices starts by acknowledging difficult feelings, then accepting them as facts of life, and doing something kind to provide relief.