Many of us go through tough times in life, and it is quite easy to begin feeling lonely and sad and get caught up in feeling overwhelmed. Feeling lonely and sad, and perhaps imprisoned or isolated, often may keep you filled with anxiety and depression.
So let’s try to remember that while you are getting caught up in these kinds of thoughts and feelings that you are in charge of embracing your life.
After all, A Course in Miracles asks us to consider that, “On your learning depends the welfare of the world.”
One thing for certain about my old friend William understanding when a friend is feeling lonely and sad, he was always quick to reply to a letter from me while I was in prison, and for good reason. He knows firsthand what being locked up in prison is like.
William understands the longing and the anxiety over receiving mail.
And I truly enjoyed his style of using a generic blank postcard to write back when only a few descriptive words and abbreviated sentences are necessary. If only there were more individuals in the world with a true free will, like William.
He is unique, and certainly whole.
A Course in Miracles further states, “And it is only arrogance that would deny the power of your will.”
Feeling alone and depressed
Of course he was aware of my vulnerable condition to feeling alone and depressed, and his reply indicated that he had spoken to his sister over the telephone just a few days prior to the worldwide mindfulness meditation session for world peace.
In previous articles of this series of events, I told you about Nakita, the woman from Croatia, who mysteriously began writing me in an Ohio prison, giving me a break we may say, from feeling lonely and sad, and I’ve linked the articles together if you’re perhaps interested in this amazing story.
Anyway, the story goes, I mailed an invitation to William, he wasn’t interested, but he mailed it to his sister out west, thinking it most likely was her type of thing.
She told him that her card-playing Bridge Club group had a game scheduled for the same night, and that the entire club of women were “spiritual seekers” or at least “curiosity seekers,” and that on December 22, 2010, the Bridge Club would stop their card playing for a few moments and spend time together by participating in the ten-minute session.
She was also aware that William had obtained the flyer from his friend in prison—me. This made it more interesting when informing the other women in the bridge club of this poor prisoner feeling lonely and sad.
Now I was lit up
William’s sister said she had made a photocopy of the flyer for herself as a memento, and for possible future use, and then mailed the original carbon copy to her friend in another state.
She felt giving her friend the actual carbon copy I’d made from prison, would add “an effect,” being that it was put together in prison by an inmate and a friend of her own brother.
She thought her friend living in another state would appreciate its value.
It appeared her out-of-state friend also had a group get-together, a holiday party of some sort, on that same evening. She supposedly introduced the flyer to the group for their participation at the exact time specified.
William said his sister was thrilled to have a sense of belonging to something good-hearted.
He hadn’t heard more from her on the subject. William is a quiet individual who will simply let his sister inform him when the time is right.
As I placed William’s postcard into my footlocker, still feeling lonely and sad, but rising up, I couldn’t help, but to experience a joyful thrill with a slight chuckle, some happy tears, and continued to smile over this news for the entire night.
The incredible feeling of knowing you’re not alone
At least now I was aware that I was not alone that evening during those ten minutes of the worldwide mindfulness meditation for world peace—a “mind gathering.”
This was enough for me to settle down on the matter and move forward from feeling lonely and sad. But, now, another recurrent thought obsessed me, and was: “I gotta get out of this place.”
Soon another thought seemed to blanket that thought by saying: “You’re okay. You’ll make it. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
To knowing you’re never alone,
James Nussbaumer
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