The Anatomy of Loneliness - Teal Swan

We are conceived in connection.

We are bathed in the warmth
and security of connection,

from the moment that our mothers
hold us against their breasts.

We don’t even thing about who we are,

because we are not differentiated.

It s in that moment that we are closer
To who and what we really are.

But like I said we don’t think about
who and what we really are.

Because the idea is not one that
Comes up in our psychology.

But from this place of connection
We experience a fall from grace.

The fall from grace is that
deep sense of connection.

We begin to be differentiated.

We begin to see the world through
the lenses of me and everything else.

And it is at this moment that
we lose our sense of connection.

Loneliness is something that
all people on this planet

experience to some
degree or another.

But there are two
types of loneliness.

The first is a kind of loneliness
that can be resolved

by being with other people.

It’s when we feel isolated.
and being around other people

just makes us
feel a little better.

There’s another type
of loneliness.

This type of loneliness is not solved
by being around other people.

In fact, it’s the type of
loneliness that persists

regardless of whether or not
we are in a crowded room.

And it’s this second
type of loneliness,

That creates the most intense
type of suffering in the human race.

It’s where we perceive ourselves
to be completely isolated

from the world around us.

Because this form of
loneliness is so pervasive,

we could call it an epidemic
on the planet today.

I have written a book.
A book to solve this problem.

I’ve called this book
The Anatomy of Loneliness.

In this book I reveal quite literally
the anatomy of loneliness.

What specifically
creates loneliness.

And how to resolve
those things, so as

to create lasting connection
with other people.

This book is available
through my website

www.tealswan.com

and every other online
book retailer such as

Barns & Noble, Booktopia
and Amazon.

If you want to learn about loneliness
in depth and great detail,

As well as how to find your
way back to connection,

I highly suggest that you
pickup a copy of this book

The anatomy of loneliness is composed
of three distinct parts or pillars.

The first is separation,

the second is shame,
and the third is fear.

The story of separation happened
far before your birth.

It happened in fact
before physical form.

It I the idea of self versus others.

Obviously self concept,
“ I “ is the ego.

Separation is a state of fragmentation,

Where one perceives
themselves to be

separate from everything
else around them.

this fragmentation does not
just take place externally

relative to yourself and
other things in the world.

It also takes
place internally.

The fragmentation that takes place within
each person and creates internal disunity.

Causes us to separate from
certain parts of ourselves.

It causes those parts to feel ostracized,
rejected, disowned and isolated.

But here’s the thing, we
can’t actually eradicate

parts of our being from us.

Its not actually possible to
separate from pars of ourselves.

We can try to disown,
reject and deny them,

but they’re still
connected to us.

That means we feel
what they feel.

That means as we go through this
process of internal fragmentation,

we cut ourselves off from parts
internal to us and external to us.

We make those parts feel alone.

We feel that aloneness.

For more information about
this watch my video titled:

“Fragmentation the World Wide Disease”

The second part of
loneliness is shame.

Most people think
that shame is just

the emotional reaction

to experiences that are
debasing in nature.

They make us feel
bad about ourselves,

on a mental level,
on a physical level,

on an emotional level.

But this is not a thorough
understanding of shame.

Shame is much more complex

and much more fundamental
to our nature.

Shame is the mechanism
of fragmentation.

To understand shame I want
you to think about a sea anemone.

If you imagined poking a sea anemone
with your finger or a stick,

what you would notice is that it would
immediately pinch itself closed.

This is a reaction,
it’s a primal reaction.

The sea anemone doesn’t have
to think hard to do this.

What most people don’t
understand about shame,

is that it’s an organic biological
affective reaction.

Shame is actually a primitive reaction
encoded in your organism

just like your fight or
flight mechanism

and interestingly enough,
so is love.

When we experience shame,

we push ourselves
away from ourselves.

In response to something that has
happened in our external environment.

Or in response to a thought

that we have adopted from
our external environment.

But we can’t actually do this.

Obviously how do you
push yourself away?

The only way to accomplish this
is to split your own consciousness.

We become internally
isolated from ourselves.

Because consciousness can split.

We then feel, as a result of this,
The secondary layer of shame.

That’s the emotion of shame.

What that emotion
causes us to do,

is it causes us to withdraw
from people.

We do to them the same thing
we are doing on an internal level.

We separate ourselves.

We either do this through
direct avoidance,

meaning, we become
kind of a wallflower.

Or else we do the opposite,
we become completely inauthentic.

We allow them to only
be in a relationship

with the facade
we put forward.

Either way we are isolated.

The third part of
loneliness is fear.

To fear something, is the exact
opposite of to love something.

To love something is to take
something as part of yourself.

To fear something is to
push something away.

To make it not
part of yourself.

You can’t push
something away,

without simultaneously becoming
separated from it.

So, the more fear we have

the more separate we feel
from everything around us.

Fear is the number one most
isolating experience on the planet.

Fear about relationships
or about other people

simply serve to separate
us from people

and make us lonely when it
comes to human contact.

We have four primary fears when
it comes to relationships.

They are abandonment,
rejection or disapproval,

being trapped in pain
in the relationship

and loss of self, also
called enmeshment.

What most people don’t know is that
it’s impossible to fear the unknown.

We fear what we have experienced before
and have been traumatized by.

Something that causes us to feel distress
that we could not resolve.

So, what does this
say about fear?

If its impossible to fear
something unknown,

and we experience fear that
separates us in relationships,

it means that getting beyond fear
and into a state of connection,

is a lot about resolving
past experiences.

Things we have experienced
that we have no resolve with.

Fears about something that we
are projecting into the unknown.

It is critical to know that you
cannot push through fear

so as to get to connection.

If you try to push something or
bulldoze it, or act in spite of it,

You aren’t taking it
as part of yourself.

So, you are actually separated
from it in that moment.

So, the ironic thing is,

the way that most of
us deal with fear,

actually, enhances loneliness
because it creates an increase

separation between ourselves
and our own fear.

Now let’s talk about
connection for a minute.

Connection can be thought of
as a link with something else

where you perceive a link or association
between yourself, and that other thing.

But in a state of oneness
you can’t be connected

any more than you
can be disconnected.

Because you are everything else
and everything else is you.

In other words, in
a state of oneness,

there is no need
for connection.

But obviously most of us
are not living in a state of oneness.

Most of us can’t
perceive ourselves

to be the same as the coffee table
Were drinking our coffee from

So basically, we are living in the land
where we must develop connection

as a very critical step,
to re actualizing

our state of oneness.

When it comes to making a genuine
connection with someone else

that link must be chosen
consciously and deliberately

by both people involved
in that connection.

Our connection can exist at
any level of our being.

We can be mentally linked,
emotionally linked,

energetically linked
or physically linked.

When we disconnect
we break that link

at one or all different
levels of our being.

Because genuine connection
is a link to someone

That has been consciously
chosen not forced upon us.

We have to focus on choosing
to create it as well as on keeping it.

Our happiness in our individual lives
depends on our capacity to be connected.

Our survival as a human race depends
on our capacity to be connected.

Right now, loneliness is an epidemic.

Its an epidemic with
devastating implications.

The pain of the human condition
is that we walk this planet

With several billion other
people, and yet each of us

experiences a sense of
isolation and feels alone.

That’s a serious problem.

I couldn’t think of anything worse.

Its like starving to death
in a grocery store.

Now its bad enough if this issue which
is reaching epidemic proportions

only affects us.
But it doesn’t.

It affects far more than that.

The pain of disconnection
bleeds across the planet.

The danger in disconnections is when
we disconnect from something

we no longer perceive
it to be connected to,

linked to a part of ourselves.

Therefore, when
we cause it pain,

we don’t perceive directly our self
being caused pain as a result.

Think about the
implications of this.

If I perceive myself to be other than
or disconnected from something,

I can cause it pain. without feeling
like that causes me pain at all.

When we perceive ourselves
to be disconnected,

we no longer feel the ripple of
oneness that is our fundamental truth.

We no longer feel the impact
that everything has on us

and we have on
everything else.

And as a result we can cause something
or someone else pain without perceiving

that pain in us.

The concept that there is
something innately painful

or even dangerous
about disconnection,

is something that fails to reach
us until we realize our history

and what disconnection has
shown us in the past.

In other words, the concept of
disconnection being dangerous

seems theoretical and abstract
until you realize this is the reason

why for years many countries
were completely segregated.

People with dark skin were taken
from their families and

kept as slaves, burnt,
beaten and hung.

This is why in the 1940s Osh Wits
and other death camps were created

to contain and
exterminate Jews.

And other demographics
opposed to the Nazi regime.

Disconnection is what caused the
U.S. to drop a nuclear bomb

on Hiroshima in 1945.

Its why as of 1979 Pol Pot’s regime
had eliminated 21 percent

of Cambodia’s entire population.

And today disconnection
is the reason

a man can train for years
with the single task

of strapping a bomb to his own body
and exploding himself along with it

in an attack aimed to create
terror and destruction

to whomever he has
decided is an enemy.

Every crime that has
ever been committed

has come about because the
person committing that crime

has believed themselves to be separate
from, disconnected from

and isolated in some way from the person
that they committed those crimes against.

The only way to save your
species, on the planet,

the only way to save the planet
itself at this point in time,

and the only way to
end human suffering,

is to create a sense of connection.

To end a sense of isolation and
loneliness within the world.

And it begins with you
ending it inside yourself.

Have a good week.