An Honest Discussion about Loneliness: Shamans Cave 

Sandra: Coming out of your 2nd shamanic journeying course on Shift ~5 yrs ago, one woman (Lian) asked on the group's FB page if anyone would like to continue to meet on FB to practice shamanic journeying. About 10 women said YES. That's distilled down to 7 members (1 in Australia & the rest in the U.S.) & we've been meeting on Zoom twice a month ever since! I'll likely never meet these people in person & yet I feel SO close to them! Much more so than I ever would've expected for a virtual experience. And yet Zoom is just energy/energetic & it totally feeds us all. So just know you've sown seeds of community out there. ❤

Thank You for all your heartfelt comments and constant support.

Renée just brought up a point I had not thought of… I have been feeling loneliness as well and she made me wonder if the loneliness may be from not just me but the outside world as well… something to ponder for sure

So resonate with this talk. Covid was a massive shift in perception. I felt a calling to return to my ancestral home, leaving behind my community, work, partner (though we are still together but distant) and a place I loved living, by the sea. I am now sitting here on my own wondering what its all about ! what it has done, is taken me deep into my practice and although I do feel lonely at times , it has given me the space to work on myself again, to write and be open to what ever it is, about to come in.

Thank you Ladies!!

The most difficult aspect of loneliness is the will or maybe the commitment to break through barriers to do the spiritual work that very well could shift the loneliness.

Love you guys so much. I’ve been listening to the show for years, but I haven’t left a comment lately… I do cherish the show. Thank you for doing it.

It's 6:00pm, I'm sitting in my beautiful garden listening to this very poignant show, and the neighbor has just turned up the volume on the song "What'll I do." We ARE all connected! 🥰 We are at the end of a spiritual season and wrapping up our learning experiences for this one. It's an individual journey, and that can be uncomfortable if it's unfamiliar. I have been blessed to be a loner all my life and the Wayshower's Path has been one of incredible learning opportunities and to focus on just my own journey. I found long ago loneliness is my heart/soul/spirit seeking connection with Source and if I turn my focus there, give this moment to God, the overwhelming Love that IS Source gently flows into me and I feel peace. Love & Light to you both, and to all who may read this. 💖

As I was living on a small island in the Caribbean, where people are more into alcohol than into spirituality, I suffered from loneliness for the first time. But as soon as I became a shamanist , I never had that feeling again. Spirits are all around and everywhere. Also they led me to leave that place to be where I could be surrounded with people who, like me, are on the Light Pass , even traveling or staying in a new place for sometime . Very grateful.

I watched Sandra’s top ten books interview earlier today and she said that she wished she could ask one of her favorite writers about grief and grieving. I think that ties in nicely with this podcast as grief and loneliness are connected for me at least. I’ve always remembered on of Sandra’s quotes: grieving expands the heart. The only other spiritual practices I’ve read that talk about grief head on is the Tibetan Buddhist’s. They have a practice where they actually invite other peoples pain into themselves while offering the others their joy. I did this practice for a while and am not sure what to make of it. I did have a vision that hinted that the Buddhists do use other people’s grief to transform their hearts. In my own experience when I empathetically fill up with another’s pain if I don’t fight it off and allow it to touch my heart I end up grieving for the pain which as Sandra says expands the heart. I was once homeless and work everyday with homeless people and one thought o received while meditating is that: being around lonely people heals the heart. I do know that the grieving process has made my heart softer, kinder, even affectionate. On the other side of this my guides and visions are trying to get me to have more fun and do other things besides service and to pursue my dreams and adventures

I love your posts!

Thank youuuuu 😍

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences around loneliness. I have also been finding my thoughts being led to past experiences of loneliness lately with a different perspective. I see that those times have deepened my relationship with my self. There was never anything wrong with me. It's helped me learn how to listen to my inner being. I forced myself to integrate into the society around me while I raised my children. I've been so grateful for the step back over the last few years. It was timely for me, as I was exhausted from being in a place of thinking I needed to be there for everyone's struggles. It's been such a relief to have the time of healing and learning that we all, everyone has the answers with in. My soul has been slowly guiding me to help the people I know, and the new people I meet learn how to breathe and settle into their own love and power. Slowly, because I tend to isolate and get comfortable in my own company and haven't shared this part of me, that started guiding me in the background at a very young age. I am so grateful and in love with this time in my life. Listening to talks like this, spending time touching and feeling the earth and being with my animals helps me feel grounded and centered and not so lonely. Now to learn how to build and feel comfortable with a human community. 🤔

I loved getting your notification to start my day. I’m suffer a lot with loneliness as a perpetually single middle aged gay man - a segment of society very vulnerable to loneliness.

How resonant! I recently had an experience where I basically laid my soul out to a counsellor. The experience left me feeling vulnerable because I realised then that no one truly got me. Lots of people love me, but no one truly got me. For the first time in a long time I cried a deep cry and for the first time in a long time, I called out to ‘them’ to show me my strength because I felt the pain of being alone. I’m not sure where my soul went that night, but the next day I woke up with a sense of hope that I hadn’t felt in a while and the knowing that the path I was creating was one that I had to show others how to do. Thank you Sandra and Renee for sharing your love and support through the community ❤

This is such an important topic! Thanks ladies, I’ve dealt with loneliness a lot in my life, and this resonates. Blessings!

Thankyou for sharing this 🐋 When I feel lonely I try to connect with Nature, Animal spirits, call a friend or just send them a message 🦉

Thank you! I have been feeling the loneliness, I have been struggling since Covid. I have tried online workshops it it not the same. Many of the retreats we use to participate in no longer offer in person. They just are not the same. 😞

“…Why you’re even wooed by the other persons words.” What a beautiful and poetic way of describing why quotes move us! We ARE wooed … it happens for me when words light up my heart and spirit!!

I love the rawness and vulnerability of this episode in particular. Sending ❤️

Sandra and Renee, -thank you for the video and I love your shows! I understand about feeling lonely. On one hand, I feel that I am tapping into current collective grief happing strongly post-pandemic. On the other hand, I feel like loneliness is a human experience because of the illusion of separation that we are all experiencing. Last year I moved into the country and it's my dream to be here -I love it so much, but so many days are hard because loneliness is something I face often. So, I just wanted to add my comment to support you two lovely healers. infinite love to you.

Thank you.

Older women talking honestly is social balm for me. Thank you!

I'm 70 now myself. Retired from being a mental health case manager. I am now my husband's care taker because he has some significant health issues and there's some mental decline going on with him too. This episode spoke to me a lot. And I can feel myself changing and transforming in many ways. Thank you for this! (New subscriber here )

Loved this show! Loneliness doesn't necessarily shows up in situations like lockdown time during the pandemics. It didn't to me. It was already a state I'd experience due to health challenges people didn't and don't understand (resonating with you, Sandra, in this). At the same time though, that deepening in the spiritual practice you talk about broadens the sense of presence in me. Meaning: me being present to myself, partnering with myself, and all divinities accompanying me if not "sponsoring" me too. When I can be good company to myself, the way out of the paralyzing loneliness is more clear. Sometimes it is possible to sense how much care and love the Divine cherishes for us. When I feel lonely and don't want to feel it for long, I call dear ones, I send empowering messages to the world, I walk in Nature and care for plants and animals... because the Divine is there, talking back to me through them. And sometimes, loneliness is just there and I need time to go through the most scaring part.

I have been struggling with feelings of loneline ss as my family is on the other side and living in Arizona it's isolating as a retired person. I am a Cancer with Gemini rising Moon in Sag and have always had friends to do things with my best friend died of brain cancer. At 67 it is hard to meet new people. I am an empath and it's always difficult to be in large groups or unknown folks. Thank you for sharing your feelings. New subscriber. ❣️

Sending love. 💜

💕💕💕

Thanks for talking about loneliness

I dream a world where we look for the best in each other.

I find my loneliness kicks in even in the presence of feeling more connected at an esoteric level, oddly

Struggle bus takes to spiritual growth 😊 Being and living alone. Not lonely and empowered.

Thank you so much for all your share and I loved this topic. In one of my "prior" lives in this lifetime I was the "busy bee". Yikes, I hit the wall and I was placed in the well of lonliness. What a gift it was to sit in the lonlliness and learn about myself and to use the tools of this incredible shamanic path. I can't say that I have that "balance" in check all the times, but I so much more honor the need to be inward or to to be busy and be outward. Sandra, I just giggled at the reflection of feeling schizophrenic......I am a Gemini .... Thank both of you for your honesty and authenticity! Blessings!

I love you both so much. I went on a Vision Quest last week. Being with oneself, one’s soul without distraction was so illuminating!

I retired this year and my grandson who lives with me, went off to University. I didn’t realise how isolated I would feel. Thank heavens I can journey and have the company and support of the spirit world. Also thank heavens for you guys. You always lighten my mood.

Thank you Renee and Sandra. You put so much wisdom, fierce clear wisdom, into the world. I just love you both so much and anyone who loves you both! I’m to the point in my personal evolution that when I’m deeply down in the dumps I have this trust that I can listen to your podcast here with the knowledge that I don’t want to stay sad, I do want to get back to who I really am. You both are unknowingly part of my support system to help me let go of the energy I need to let go of. I am so blessed by your beautiful sharing of your experiences, who you are. Thank you so much! ❤❤❤

My loneliness is limited but real. I retired at 61 in Dec and go go go all day long. I even have to go to bed an hour or two earlier than when I worked full time, due to exhaustion. Some of it is working on the 5 acre property and garden or volunteer work at our Legion Post and fun stuff too. But deep down I wish my wife would also retire from her nursing job so we could spend some more time together doing fun things. She is currently the bread-winner in the family so resistant to give up her pay. However, she got me a cat this past week so that should help. Thanks for sharing your show! john

Wonderful podcast Sandra and Renee! One of my favorites, as I can certainly relate to feeling lonely. (As many others can, too.) It's not just 'cause of Covid or the chaotic state of the world right now, although both sources add to the feelings. But, as Sandra said, it's more of an "existential loneliness" that's rained down on many of us. I listen to CD's by John O'Donahue, play beautiful music, tend my garden, cuddle up with my sweet kitty, go for walks in nature to sooth and comfort my OWN feelings of loneliness. Yet, I wish I had a loving partner to hold & console me, talk and walk with me, BE THERE for and with me and allow me to be there for and with him, too. When you wish upon a star. . .

Thank you! ❤

Many have been talking about loneliness lately. I myself have been feeling the intensity of it. I'm also a medium and an empath. As I was sitting here listening to you both talk I'm sensing its the collective unconscious that is feeling all this and how it's coming up for healing, for transformation. It's about coming back to community and being there for each other. And coming back to one's self. Thank you 💕

Thank you for even posing the question. I think 30 years ago the issue was just a vague feeling for me.

Hello Renée and Sandra! Thank you for your honest conversation about loneliness, and in particular to Sandra for sharing about her illness. I don't have a rare illness but I have a condition that is also not very well understood, so I too feel quite lonely especially because I have to take so much time off routinely to deal with it and I have to say no to many things. I am also an environmental activist and this is hard at times, especially when it comes to find community, like-minded people, who have interest in doing the same things. I think Covid provided more isolation. I live in Portugal and one of the summer consequences I see around me is that families bought their own swimming pools at the time, so now they don't go out socialising for swims because they got used to just staying at home at their own swimming pools. Teenagers suffered a lot from Covid. I feel that Covid was indeed a shamanic initiation, I fell it in me, in a portion of people around me, but not yet everyone. The machine of greed is still at a peak and people are still investing in buying themselves out of this deep loneliness. I deal with my loneliness by journeying, by finding solace in taking care of myself, in enjoying my own company. While I feel lonely at times, specially in winter, for me the hardest part is maintaining a level of motivation to keep my routines going. As long as I am 'in the practice' I feel fine, in good company. It's just when I don't find the strength to look after myself, that as a consequence I become desoriented, out of routine, and therefore loneliness can become an issue, usually disguised as feeling a lack of support. Thank you for your show, which I 'religiously' follow! much much love xxx

Great chat. So important. I love the idea of recognising the feeling, accepting it but then moving on, not wallowing.

Wonderful podcast! I loved what you said about the importance of loneliness, but still having to wrestling with it. What Sandra said about the loneliness that arises from going through one's own journey, particularly when doing some transformational work, rang very true for myself. I am undergoing huge shifts at the moment and it is difficult to communicate that to my acquaintances or even to my friends. So, my loneliness arises from that--not being able to communicate those rich and spiritual inner transformations, except in a few commonplace phrases. Thank you so much for talking about this topic.

thankyou for this video, I am 66 and I related so much for all of what you shared. Makes me feel less lonely, thanks The way I deal with my loneliness is to remember how much I lost myself and to love myself back and do drawings, go walk with the intention of being strong and up and feel heaven right with me.

❤

Loneliness creates the cohesion so we work together

Thanks!

I really appreciate this talk, because I have been feeling quite lonely lately. Season change and feeling this change in the air. I watched a video on RU-vid and there are 4 things we as humans do in our lives. 1) We have something to do. Shoot I forgot the other 3. I'll add tomorrow. It helped me realize that all humans have 4 basic things, we all do. We are part of the human community.

Thank you, admitting loneliness is like the last taboo today!

Thank you so much for the work you do.. I completely resonate with this being a Capricorn myself 🤦‍♀️ loneliness , isolation. I feel I'm coming out of this stage of my life soon..love both your work 🙏❤

I think as an empath I also take on people's pain and I need to stop it in order to heal and connect to spirit. I hope I can accept this invitation to heal and get off the struggle bus, as Sandra says.

*Wow* thank you for this episode!! ❤❤❤

Just gotta say I feel so special to hear that I share a Sagittarius moon and Gemini rising with Sandra! 😁💕

I can relate. I have a deep feeling of lonliness. I want community so much, but I'm still working out how to cultivate such. Listening to your show is a great comfort and motivator. I am new on the spiritual path, so it's frustrating at times, to not know what to do, how to do it, how to connect with my spirit guide...but I hear how much you've struggled and what successes you've had and I know that if I keep working and persevering I will continue forward on my path.

co-hearts forevah! xoxo

thank you for this. I relate to illness and the loneliness that comes with it.

Amazing show as always! I agree that most people feel that no one understands what they're going through at one time or another, or for some all the time. To all of us I ask, how could anyone know the all of being someone else? And yet, we are all one and so, the human problems are everyone's problems. Existential feelings indeed ;) Sometimes when I feel lonely doing art or music brings me back to the collective in a way that doesn't feel like extra work - as ceremony can sometimes feel like work when I'm blue. Thank you again ladies! 💕

I definately can relate to the lonliness, super busy life too and also hard to relate to others at times, being a Shaman, l find it hard to relate to others sometimes, like lm living in another world. And l keep getting messages from my Guides and loved ones who have passed, from Spirit, to just be, just be. Thx for this video. I feel l need to reach out and be involved with my community, it's just making myself do it and where to start! ❤❤❤

I appreciate the idea of meeting the energy of what is happening rather than fighting it. I have been struggling with loneliness and aimlessness (not knowing what to do) for a long time. Going out into nature now to see if I can find a strengthening element.

Thank you so much

Sandra and Renee, I love your channel! Always good topics... This one is fitting , I had to put down my sweet boy cat Mango last week and it's been extremely hard. Pet grief is serious. Taking each day..knowing death is not the end and that's he is protecting or at least visiting me in spirit realms. Thank you two for all you do 🙏🏼💜

yeah ive been feeling that lately as well.

I'm so glad I'm not alone Sandra! I have a Sagittarius sun, Gemini moon and Capricorn rising and what you just described resonates so much! What excites the Saggi and Gemini can unground my quiet Capricorn and what grounds my Capricorn can make the Saggi and Gemini energy restless and missing talking and momentum and cosmic things hahaha what a combo!! Have felt this type of loneliness lately and found this video very reassuring, as always, both of you :) Glad you share what you share :)

What a relief! Thank you.

Hello ladies Just new toyour channel Thank you so much for these videos, I'm loving them I gave up on myself and life 30 years ago, Just starting to think i still may have some fulfilling life to live I've been binge watching I so admire and appreciate appreciate your show I feel I've been immature and lack of self love and self worth held me back I'm so grateful, still looking forward to being someone useful and finding my place Love you both I'm 66 and hope it's not too late Sharon

I like being lonely. I can go inside and grow

ur both awesome

Thank you for sharing these messages and being true to your gifts

Thank you for your wisdom. Venus has also just gone retrograde so this could also be a time for assessing our own relationships maybe? Love you guys! #realdeal 💚 #shaman #isolation #loneliness #communitybuilding #postpandemic #connection #Initiation

Thank you for this important discussion.

Thank you very much for your show. It's extremely inspiring and speaks directly to the heart. I do feel lonely in terms of spiritual family. I'm not in social media, but I will try to be at least in those groups like yours that are inspiring and that can help me feel connected with a spiritual community. Thank you from the heart for this show. Love you both 💓

❤❤

Thank you💫💜

I love both of you!

Thank you both ♥️♥️

I crave the loneliness of the desert

You want us to comment? Say how we see/handle loneliness. Yep, this time I send feedback … It's helpful & couragious that you talk about your "lonelinesses" - It's rare that anyone talks about it „in I" - especially in public ...Since generally a shame-ridden topic, for most. In any case, it has been a support for me to hear you today. As I felt today - especially in the midst of many people - persistently and deeply lonely ... (Since I basically like to be alone very much, I don't like to admit the feeling of loneliness to myself). What did I do about it? I admitted to myself that this „community“ is not inclusive but exclusive - for me. Finally got myself together, went & sat in a cafe all by myself ... and it was good to be alone with just me. After I stopped waiting for …. I wanted to mention this kind of loneliness - as it also occurs.

Loneliness prompts change

🙂

Great Wisdom.

So that explains why, I’m Capricorn and I could never see anyone and I’m ok w that 🤷‍♀️

There is no time

Aho 🩵

The last breath is an inhalation.

The two of you are such a wealth of Healthy Spirit. I think of Teachers such as yourselves, as in a constant state of balance because "you've Lived". Thank you for showing us that it's because you're constantly adapting and applying your practices to find the benefit in the loneliness and struggle. So awesome to hang out with you, journey on beautiful mirrors.🪶