Spiritual Connection & Loneliness:
7 Ways to Feel Kinship
It’s the end of the day. You’ve finished everything you were meant to do. But the rest of the evening spreads out in front of you like an open and barren desert. Inside, you feel a sense of hollowness, and an oppressive weight grows within your chest.
The truth is, you feel lonely. Isolated. Disconnected.
Perhaps you lack meaningful and nourishing connections with others. Or maybe, no matter how hard you try, you never seem to feel connected or even safe around others due to trauma – and that makes connection feel seemingly impossible.
What do you do?
If you’re experiencing this, I want you first to know that you’re not alone. After all, we are living in a period of history where loneliness is so common it has been labeled an epidemic (in fact, the World Health Association has labeled it as a ‘public health problem’ and ‘global health risk’).
I’ve also had a lot of experience with feelings of loneliness due to my own history of trauma and how that has shaped my personality. As a loner (i.e., high-degree introvert) by nature, I prefer spending time alone, and people typically drain me.
But if you’re a loner or introvert like me, solitude can also have its dark side, that is, periods of loneliness and a lack of connection. The result is a feeling of sadness, emptiness, and sometimes even feelings of existential depression or anxiety.
While loneliness is indeed a social issue, I’m also going to show you why it’s also – and perhaps primarily – a spiritual problem, and I plan to present primarily spiritual solutions.
What is Spiritual Connection?
Spiritual connection is the sense of deep kinship and affinity we feel with our deeper selves, others, nature, and life as a whole. When we feel spiritually connected, our hearts are open, full, and in communion with the beauty, wonder, and magic of life.
Spiritual connection goes deeper than just physical, mental, or even emotional connection in that we feel a sense of wholeness and sometimes even oneness that transcends language. In other words, we find our place in the scheme of things.
Spiritual Disconnection and Loneliness – How Are They Connected?
Put simply, spiritual disconnection is a default in our society.
Anything that has the tendency of dulling, overwhelming, or utterly numbing our inner selves has the potential to create spiritual disconnection … and that’s, uh … pretty much everything.
Okay, maybe not everything. But just look at these ‘norms’ in society:
- Workaholism
- Overspending and overconsuming
- Overeating junk foods and low-quality produce derived from our depleted soils
- Feeding our minds junk information (think social media)
- Stuffing large amounts of stimulants or depressants into our systems so that we can get through the day
- Watching, playing, or listening to violent or addictive movies, games, TV shows, etc.
You get the picture.
And I don’t list any of the above stuff to shame anyone. Most of us engage in at least one or two of these behaviors, myself included.
The result of flooding our minds and nervous systems with overstimulation from the material world is that we become exhausted, inundated, and lack the space to feel internally connected.
What then happens is a feeling of Soul Loss, like something essential within us is missing or gone. Soul Loss isn’t literally losing your Soul; instead, it means losing touch with your Soul, your vital innermost essence.
Chronic loneliness/feeling alone is one of the biggest symptoms of Soul Loss, as well as feelings of malaise, depression, anxiety, existential crisis, and chronic fatigue.
Spiritual Connection & Loneliness: 7 Ways to Feel Kinship For Lonely People
Loneliness can impact anyone, regardless of whether they’re in a relationship or are single, and it occurs through all ages, genders, nationalities, and belief systems.
So don’t buy into the idea that only eccentric recluses are lonely. In fact, these people are often the happiest because they’re going against the grain and walking their own paths, lone wolf style!
Even if you relish your solitude, it’s still possible to feel lonely and crave for more spiritual connection – this is not just a whimsical want but a deep need from the soul.
If you’re looking for everyday solutions to finding more connections, like joining a running club or finding a volunteer group, you’d be better off finding another article. The suggestions below are for those who want spiritual connection, and they’re based on my own direct experience of what actually works:
1. Go to the wildest place you can find and spend time there, lots of time
Even if the wildest place you can find is your backyard or patio full of pot plants, spend as much time as you can close to nature.
If you’re a passive person like me, just sit, relax, watch, and enjoy. Observe the clouds coming and going in the sky, listen to the birds, watch the ants on the ground, and feel the breeze on your skin. All of this will help you to feel more spiritual connection.
If you’re an active person who feels the need to ‘do’ something, try walking, hiking, climbing trees, or gardening. Get your body moving and your hands dirty. These simple acts will flush your system of loneliness and self-preoccupation and remind you that you’re part of the greater
ecosystem.
Make a habit of spending lots and lots of time in the wildest places you can find – it’s healing to the soul and soothing to the nervous system.
2. Find or create your spirit family and realize that you’re never truly alone
If you’re interested in approaching this from a purely rational or psychological place, your spirit family are the various aspects of your psyche that form who you are.
For instance, you may want to create a spirit family that consists of your Inner Wise One, your Protector, your Inner Child, your Artist, your Counselor, and so on. Essentially, what I’m describing here are archetypes or psychological parts (see IFS). And all these parts can be called upon to support and guide you as part of your spirit family or whatever you prefer calling them.
If you’re open to the possibility that there are non-physical beings out there or have had direct experience with them, a spirit family could consist of:
- Ancestors (beloved dead from your ancestral line)
- Gods or goddesses (like Artemis, Dionysus, Ganesha, Thoth, etc.)
- Spiritual masters (like the Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Tara, etc.)
- Light beings (also known as guardian angels)
- Spirit animals and plant guides (primal and protective forces of nature)
One of the most beautiful and empowering things about finding or creating your spirit family is that even when you’re alone, you’re never quite alone. You realize that you can always call on these guides for support and guidance at any time, day or night.
Synchronicities or meaningful coincidences (like seeing repetitive numbers or words) are one of the most delightful forms of spirit family and soul guidance.
3. Treat yourself with compassion and awaken the power of your Soul
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: your heart is the doorway to your Soul. The quickest way to activate the energy of your Soul, your innermost wise and luminous essence, is through love and compassion.
How do you practice love and compassion? There are a few ways, such as through simple acts of kindness, metta meditation, learning to forgive and let go and working on healing the heart chakra.
But the best place to start, in my opinion, is with the practice of self-compassion and self-love. When you’re able to cultivate those qualities towards yourself, it often becomes easier to spread them to others.
To treat yourself with compassion and awaken the power of your Soul, which will help you to feel a deep spiritual connection, I encourage you to make a habit of keeping a Self-Love Journal.
Journaling, especially guided journaling, is one of the simplest and most profoundly effective ways of learning how to understand and befriend yourself, even the uglier parts of you.
Mantras and affirmations that you repeat throughout the day in a ritualistic and devotional way are also powerful doorways to cultivating more self-love and compassion and, therefore, spiritual connection.
4. Connect with your ancestral heritage and rediscover your roots
To put it bluntly, many of us feel like farts in the wind in this day and age because we’re totally disconnected from our ancestral heritage, our primal roots.
Wouldn’t you like to discover a little more of your ancestral wisdom? It’s possible that through some simple exploration, you could discover lessons, spiritual practices, and even traditions that you could adopt into your life. And this, in turn, can help you to feel more spiritual connection.
This spiritual connection comes in knowing that you’re part of something greater: a people, a culture, a lineage even, that takes you beyond your tiny egoic self and helps you to see a greater picture.
Of course, not everyone has the privilege to uncover their ancestral heritage due to displacement, war, and other forms of violence or trauma that have severed connection to that knowledge.
But if you do have some knowledge of your ancestry, be an explorer and go looking! I’ve discovered some fascinating Celtic wisdom from my own lineage thanks to this practice.
5. Practice deep listening and receiving to awaken spiritual connectedness
Deep listening is what I categorize as any meditative or contemplative practice.
Deep receiving is what I categorize as any practice of gratitude, which may come through offering prayers of thanks or simply creating a gratitude ritual each day.
Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh calls the practice of deep listening and receiving “looking deeply” – and it is what helps to awaken a sense of profound spiritual connectedness. As he writes,
If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.
In our fast-paced world, we need to make the intentional space to slow down, pause, and practice deep listening and receiving. Doing so is vital not only for our mental health, but for our spiritual well-being and sense of connectedness.
Are your feelings of loneliness and isolation due to the fact that you’re moving too quickly?
Maybe you’ve stuffed so much stimulation into your life that there’s no room to breathe, to see beneath the surface truly.
Creating space and open periods of intentional emptiness can help you to find spiritual connection again. After all, we need both yin and yang – we need fullness and emptiness in life. This is called balance.
Make time to meditate. To contemplate. To go within. To receive the blessings of life with joy. To be grateful. To move slowly. To embrace space. To recognize that less is more.
6. Cherish reading books as they can be friends, allies, and spiritual guides
I’ve recently fallen in love again with the power of reading as an antidote to cleansing my brain from the half-thought-out regurgitations on social media.
A single book contains hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of thought, consideration, heart, and soul. A single sentence within a book can not only spark illuminating epiphanies, but it can stay with you for an entire lifetime.
When was the last time you found a book friend? I don’t care what types of books speak to your soul – maybe you love fantasy fiction, poetry, or self-help classics. The only important thing is that you feel spiritually nourished by the book.
Some soul-nourishing book recommendations I have are Beauty: The Invisible Embrace by John O’Donohue, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, and The Tao Te Ching by Jonathan Star.
If you feel like an old soul, you may feel spiritually affirmed by my book Old Souls: The Sages and Mystics of Our World, and if you are interested in the topic of spiritual awakening, you may like our book on The Spiritual Awakening Process.
7. Recognize that spiritual connection doesn’t have to depend on others because they can’t fill that void
When you do a lot of soul searching, you realize that people come and go in life. Relationships change and evolve. Belief systems also fluctuate and shift. But the one connection you always have is with yourself and your own Soul.
How you treat yourself, how connected you feel to your heart and, therefore, to life as a whole, is of utmost importance.
If you lack a connection to your luminous heart, you’ll try to fill it with things, people, and experiences, thinking that they will fill the void. But they won’t, and they can’t. It’s also not fair to place that burden on them, either.
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So please recognize that spiritual connection comes from within. Yes, seeking out a supportive community or friendships can be a wonderful mirror and helpful for your emotional well-being. But the most essential quality is the spiritual relationship you have with yourself first and foremost.
✵ If you’d like ongoing support in finding a sense of deeper spiritual connection with yourself by working through the shadows that obscure your Inner Light, I recommend joining our Shadow & Light Membership. This can be a wonderful way to commit to growing a spiritual connection with your Self. <3
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I hope the guidance in this article has helped to remind you that you’re not alone in feeling lonely and there are many opportunities to cultivate more spiritual connectedness.
Tell me, what does spiritual connection mean to you? How do you plan on cultivating it more in your life? If you have anything else to share, I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
About Aletheia
