Feeling alone

Feeling alone. This track is for the times when you feel alone. Nobody may be around, or people may be around and it still feels that way. It does not try to fix the feeling. It sits with it, then offers one small step. One thing first. If this gets too much, open your eyes, look around the room, and come back to the day.

Sit or lie down. Eyes closed or open.

One slow breath out.

Without going into the story of why, find where the feeling sits in the body. The chest, the stomach, behind the eyes. Let the attention rest there.

Hollow, or heavy, or quiet. You do not need the right word.

Breathe around it, giving it a little room.

Again, at your own pace.

Now put a hand on the chest, or the belly, or the cheek, if that feels all right. The weight and warmth of your own hand.

Say something kind, silently. Something like: this is hard.

Feeling alone is very common, and people rarely talk about it. Many others in the same city feel it tonight. That does not take it away, but you are not strange for feeling it.

It may shift while you sit here, or it may not. Either is fine.

Now one small step, offered, not required. Think of one person. Not the perfect person, only someone you could send one line to. How are you. Thought of you. You do not have to send it now, or at all. Only notice that the message is possible.

If nobody comes to mind, go smaller. A shop, a walk past people, a helpline just to talk. Being near others counts, even without words.

Stay a little longer. Hand, breath, feeling.

Now widen out. The whole body, and its weight on the chair or the bed.

Open your eyes if they were closed. Look around the room.

The feeling may still be here. If you wrote that line in your head, it is there when you want it.

If you are in danger or feel you cannot keep yourself safe, call your Weave clinician, or Tele-MANAS on one four four one six, any time.