3. If Loneliness is a Teacher, then what?

Rev. Syd Yang welcomes Sandra Kim onto the show to speak about loneliness as a spiritual and dharma practice, rooted in their early-pandemic care-team connection and the creation of the Asian Mystics sangha. They discuss loneliness as a workable teacher that guides people back into right-relationship, belonging, and care, including the necessity of giving and receiving. Sandra shares their history of learning aloneness, becoming “the rock” for others, and a healing journey of staying with herself, releasing repression, and opening to intimate human care alongside spiritual support. In this episode, Rev Syd shares excerpts from the poem, A Teacher Looking for His Disciple by Thich Nhat Hanh. 

• Loneliness as Connection
• Care, Consent and Belonging
• Leaving Groups for Alignment
• Following Spiritual Callings
• Trusting Loneliness 

About Sandra: 

Sandra Kim (she/they) is a mystic for the (r)evolution — with Spirit working with her and through her as a movement chaplain, spiritual midwife, and shamanic healer. Sandra guides people from the intersection between personal healing and collective liberation and between the human realm and the spirit realm. She believes that social liberation and spiritual liberation are interdependent and need one another to fully exist. Drawing on 20 years of spiritual and healing practices in multiple lineages from Zen Buddhism, Korean shamanism, and energy work, Sandra supports people committed to social justice and collective liberation in healing from internalized oppression and reconnecting with Spirit and their soul's calling. She is the Founder of Re-Becoming Human. For more than 25 years, she has been supporting people impacted by trauma and oppression in finding their truth and living from it — so they can show up for themselves, their communities, and their movement work with greater wholeness, joy, and sustainability.

Book a free spiritual care discovery call here

Connect with Syd:

Email: bluejaguarlove@gmail.com

Website: www.bluejaguarhealingarts.com

Read Syd’s Substack - Being in a Body: revsydyang.substack.com

Instagram: @bodyliberationchaplain

Buy Me A Boba Tea: Venmo @bluejaguarlove

Produced by Wowow Podcasts

Music by Lee Frisari

Transcript

Rev Syd 0:00

That opening up to care is an opening up to the unknown. Of like, if I open up to it, then I have to admit that there's needs. And then I don't know where they begin or end. Right. So there's kind of like the what is possible. I don't know. Maybe it will be really uncomfortable. Welcome to the Dharma of Loneliness, a podcast where we reimagine the experience of loneliness as a sacred and welcome container that cradles the love and connection we long for. I'm your host, Rev Sidd, a Buddhist chaplain and spiritual counselor, and I invite you in as we examine this question. If your loneliness is something more than what you have been told, then what? Each month, I invite in a guest to explore a new assertion of what that something more might be. To play with the possibilities that touch at the heart of what it means to be human. We'll listen deeply and reflect courageously as we uncover the wisdom and perhaps the love that loneliness is longing to teach. Hi, Sandra. Hey. Thank you for being willing to join me in this conversation, contemplation, exploration of loneliness. So for folks who are listening, um, I'm accompanied today in our conversation about loneliness with Sandra Kim. And Sandra is a dear friend of mine, a Dharma sibling, a Sangha sibling, um, a co-collaborator, conspirator, troublemaker in the spiritual realms. And um Sandra is a movement chaplain, spiritual midwife, and a shamanic healer, among many other magical, transformative and meaningful ways of being that they show up in the world. And you can read Sandra's bio, we'll be on the show notes, and more about Sandra and how to connect with Sandra will be there. But today is really, we're just going to get into conversation. So one of the things I just want to name before we begin is that in the topic or on the topic of loneliness, um, when this contemplation for me really began around 2020 as a spiritual practice, as a dharma practice, Sandra and I were part of um, we were a care team, right? So we would like check in with each other, have conversations, have calls in early during the early pandemic. And one of the things that came up is like wanting and this longing for more Dharma community, more Sangha community, more practice community. And that wasn't just limited to a single Buddhist tradition, but really expanded out. And so we started a Sangha called Asian Mystics. We were five Asian Americans who are practicing Buddhists with a mystical and spiritual practice that goes outside and beyond a straight Buddhist practice. And we came together uh twice a month, I think, um, for a couple of years to really be in practice together. And even though we didn't directly talk about the Dharma of loneliness, the practice itself was so much related to how I was in practice at the time with loneliness, how to be in relationship, how to be in right relationship in in Sangha, um, and how the Dharma really responds to that longing and that call to be in connection and to be in deeper relationship with each other. And so I'm really excited that Sandra's here with us today for so many reasons. Also, this is gonna be fun because Sandra just is a um holder of so much wisdom and joy. So this is where we're gonna go. Um and so to begin, Sandra, how do you define loneliness?

Sandra Kim 4:23

It's interesting because when you right before you asked that question, what came to me was the joy of loneliness. Um and and you know, in Buddhism, we there's everything holds everything. If you look deeply at suffering, you see goodness. You look deeply at goodness, you also see suffering. And we understand that things flow into one another and they need to be one needs to experience both to actually appreciate the existence of the other, right? Um and they all inter-R. Nothing is binary or separate or and whatnot. And so for me, loneliness exists within the context of that we are not actually alone, but we feel alone. And so, because you can be physically alone, right, and not feel lonely. That's how I feel for most of you know my my everyday life. Um I because my relationship to the spirit realm, because my relationship to the divine, um, because my human relationships as well. And so it's not necessarily it's about being technically, physically alone, though oftentimes that's a part of it, obviously, for many people, but I feel like it's a sense of being alone, but you're still surrounded by other beings, but they're not here for you. And so you're on your own. So I think the loneliness is more about being on your own because of one, you feel like there's something wrong with you. There's something that's some, there's a reason why people aren't here for you, why you can't receive care. And then the other side is more externally oriented. How can you be in the right relationship? How can you also give care, ask for care? Right. So it's both this like, is there something wrong with me? And even if there wasn't, do I even know how to do this in a way that's skillful, in a way that's effective, given how anti-relational our society is and how hyper-individualist the US is. And of course, increasingly that was exported to the rest of the world more and more. And so for me, loneliness um exists because there underneath that, deep down, we know that we're not alone actually. We don't, we don't deserve to be alone, that we can be in the right relationship, that we can be held and care for, that we can be that presence of love and care for others, and we are not actually doing it. We're not living from that truth. But I think we feel that longing for this as loneliness, because deep down we actually do feel like it's possible that that's actually more at the core of who we are. If it wasn't at the core of who we are, it wouldn't bother us. We would just be like, Yeah, you know, I'm fine, I'm alone, whatever. Right? Instead, he like really, really drives humanity, and who then tries to seek out to fill the voids with everything from making money, from sex, from different types of vices, shopping, um, relationships, um, uh, and are trying to be loving presence in the world, but from a place of scarcity, a place of like unworthiness and fear, actually, versus from a sense of like oldness and and inter-beingness, and just like that, like there's no graspiness, right? There it's just there was just presence. Um, and so so when there's loneliness present, then I feel like, oh, there's something workable here because you still know that you can belong, you can be cared for, you can be loving. It's just those conditions are not yet present for you.

Rev Syd 8:17

Yeah, thank you. I really appreciated this. I think it's coming up in both of our um what we're saying today is this idea of right relationship. And thinking about loneliness is this remembering that that those systems of care, those networks of um belonging and love and understanding are always there, right? So that that being with, we're always, there's always a being with, right? And that to think about our relationship to loneliness is what is right relationship, right? So being in right relationship with our loneliness is that remembering of it is our teacher, which is what we're talking about today, but it teaches us how to come back into right relationship with those knowings of belonging, of the core of who we are, is what you said, which I really appreciate that. So it's a coming back, right? And I think about in um Buddhism, how much the teaching in the Buddha teaches that we all need teachers, and not teachers necessarily from a hierarchical place, but teachers who we are in practice with, who we learn from, who are guides and facilitators as we are um evolving and becoming. And so today we're gonna, you know, as we're gonna talk about is this assertion that if loneliness is a teacher, then what? And um I want to begin that conversation as we kind of explore what is a teacher, which it's a complicated um piece. I think teachers, I have histories of teachers as being um really dominant, being really constraining. Um and I think of this practice of like, how can we think of a teacher as a loving force, as an expansive force who really teaches us how to come back into right relationship. And so I'm gonna read this passage. It's an excerpt from a poem that Tiknad Han wrote in 2000. It's called A Teacher Looking for His Disciple. And I read it not as I am the teacher looking for the disciple, but that the teacher is my loneliness looking for me. Right. So I'm gonna read a couple of stanzas. There have been times when the mist has come and enveloped the remote village, but you are still wandering in faraway lands. I have called your name with each breath, confident that even though you have lost your way over there, you will finally find a way back to me. Sometimes I manifest myself right on the path you are treading, but you still look at me as if I were a stranger. You cannot see the connection between us in our former lives. You cannot remember the old vow you made. You have not recognized me because your mind is caught up in images concerning a distant future. In former lifetimes, you have often taken my hand and we have enjoyed walking together. We have sat together for a long time at the foot of old pine trees. We have stood side by side in silence for hours, listening to the sound of the wind softly calling us, and looking up at the white clouds floating by. You have picked up and given to me the first red autumn leaf, and I have taken you through the forests deep in snow. But wherever we go, we always return to our ancient mountain, to be near to the moon and stars, to invite the big bell every morning to sound and help living beings to wake up. That is why I promise I shall be there for you anytime you are in danger. Sometimes you have lain unconscious on the hot sands of frontier deserts. I have manifested myself as a cloud to bring you cool shade. Late at night, the cloud became dew, and the compassionate nectar falls drop by drop for you to drink. Sometimes you sit in a deep abyss of darkness, completely alienated from your true home. I have manifested myself as a long ladder and lightly thrown myself down so that you can climb up to the area where there is light to discover again the blue of the sky and the sounds of the brook and the birds. You and I have never really been apart. Spring has come. The pines have put out new shining green needles, and on the edge of the forest, the wild plum trees have burst into flower. And so that passage, I've been reading it over and over as if that's loneliness speaking to me. And I think about this there's so much love in that. And it's a knowing of meeting my needs, of needs that I don't yet know. And it's a relational piece, right? It's we've known each other. Sometimes you can see me, and sometimes you don't recognize me, right? Because I'm in my own space. I'm like, I'm not lonely. I'm not gonna deal with my loneliness. I don't have those feelings. I'm fine. And yet, my loneliness is that teacher that's like, I'm walking with you. Can I care for you? Like you were talking about, like, can it offer me care? Can I receive that care? Because in this sense, the teacher is someone who is a caregiver, right? And carries me through those places of ignorance or of disconnection. And I'm curious, like, yeah, like this idea of a teacher, of loneliness as a teacher, um how that is showing up for you, or even yeah, like what you think of the poem.

Sandra Kim 14:43

One, I think it's a great poem. Thank you for sharing that. Um so for me, life is the teacher and how we engage with what's coming up for us in our spirit, in our body, in our hearts. Um, and so I feel when I think about loneliness, do we I feel like that poem is pointing to we don't we may have some sensations that are lonely that may indicate loneliness, but we're actually kind of inured to it um oftentimes, not everybody. And I'll say actually I'll speak for myself. I'll speak for myself. I feel like for much of my life I was inured to the sensations of loneliness, of loneliness, of loneliness in my life, um, because there was a presumption of aloneness and me needing to be the one who took care of myself. I remember being four year, 14 years old and going to my mother and telling her that I knew I was alone in the world and that if I wanted to do anything, I'd have to work it out by myself. And she looked at me, this 14-year-old person, her child, and was like, I'm glad that you know that because it's true. And I'm sad that you know that because you're so young to know that. And I was like, oh man, you're the one who taught me. You're the one who who set out to make me tough from the jump as a child, as an infant, actually, because of her own past, her own history, traumas, and whatnot, and how she was trying to prepare me for a world that was obviously the opposite of kind to her. And so it's interesting because I feel like in that unconscious relationship to loneliness, I took the stance of when people cry, nobody goes to them. So I'm gonna be the one that goes to them. So it was there underneath the surface, right? But so deep down, so assumed, um, so accepted as normal that I was not conscious of it. But I kept showing up in relationship to other people to make sure they weren't alone in their terrible situations, right? But in that process, I made myself the rock and the person who gave and reached out to folks, and not, and but you don't give to a rock. A rock doesn't have needs and feelings and dreams and all that jazz. Right. And so my healing journey over the last 20 years in many ways has just trying to not like rebecome human, which is you know the name of my of my websites like re become human is stopping this rock for everybody else. And and I think what's hard about loneliness is how human you have to be to move through the sensations of loneliness. It's not a fun time. It's really not. Um, it's just, and I think as social beings, and and from my perspective, as an expression, a unique expression of the divine, you know, we have this need and sense of so much more is possible. And yet we are outside looking in, wondering why we are not allowed to come in and why we can't keep getting kicked out each time we try to move forward towards it. Right. Um, and then of course, everything in our society teaches us to like it's going the opposite direction of being in a loving, loving relationship with both with ourselves and with other people, much less with the invisible realm. Like we don't, that's a whole nother topic that I can go into. Um and so I I feel like in a way, my journey of working, I I wouldn't have said necessary was with loneliness, but in hindsight, I can see how that was a huge, obviously a huge driving factor of my behavior through this conversation, actually.

Rev Syd 19:03

Realizing that.

Sandra Kim 19:06

Um It was about how to be a good, how to be in caring relationship with myself was how I would have characterized my healing journey for the most part. Right. How can I show up for myself in ways when I was in pain, when I was feeling grief, feeling anger, having flashbacks, having panic attacks, right? Like, how could I be that for myself? Which I learned because at that point in my life, thankfully, I was around people who could model that for me and their care to me. Right. I didn't have that the first 20 years of my life. And starting, you know, in the second 20 years of my life, I started being around folks who that was, they had been on their own healing journey. So I was able to learn from them how to do it for myself. Whether that was in-person relationships, whether that was like through therapy and support groups, or through books, um, courses or whatever, my own practice. And I think that really changed how I then related to other people. Because if I suddenly became somebody who had feelings and needs and desires, well, then I wasn't a rock anymore. And that really shifted so many of the relationships. Because I think there's a lot of folks out here who are super givers. I feel very lonely though, despite being surrounded by people who do care about them. But there's not a practice, there's not a cultural norm of that person receiving care. And I saw how like it really was disruptive to so many people. My family, my friends, my work. When I stopped being a rock and started having needs and feelings that differed with what they wanted me to do and be in their lives because they're used to the rock. And everybody, it's it's very nice having a rock around. They're very stable people. Very convenient. Very convenient, very helpful. Um, everybody, you know, people feel better around a rock. Um, but I saw in the long run that really actually made them somebody who needed a rock. And that was actually ultimately disempowering to them. So I saw how this was actually a lose-lose for everybody. Um and and I think I think rat relatively recently, actually, I I realized that I had just presumed I wasn't going to get certain needs met through humans. And because I was getting so much of my needs met through my spiritual relationships with with with the divinity, with my ancestors, with just all I won't go into all the details of my shamanic shamanic world, but yes, there's there's a whole, there's so much love and care on a daily basis that I receive. Um so much witnessing on such a deeper level than humans can usually give me, because humans, let's be real, are the most unreliable species on this planet. Very unreliable. By design. We are here to be messy. We're here to like find our way, which means we start out lost. You know? And you know, life happens to us, makes it worse. So so so I actually kind of let go. I thought about, you know, I openly talked about like 90% of my needs or 80% of my needs get met through spirit. Very not that much get gets met through humans. Don't expect too much from humans, actually. And that and I think that was that was helpful to a certain degree, where like I feel like I learned secure attachment, not through my family, but through through my relationship to spirit, actually. And then um, and I do think that's that order is first. I think we do need to get our needs met through spirit and how we relate to ourself before we try to get all of our needs met through other human beings. Because once again, humans are unreliable. Very it's not it's not a good, it's not gonna work out. Um if that's if that's the main deal. If I'm not gonna put my eggs on that in that basket. And as a human being, I still need humans for human needs and human contact and intimacy and all that jazz. And once I really kind of that that realization really settled my body, and I started releasing a lot of the energies that was keeping me in that, in that mistaken belief that like I can't get my needs met by humans. Once I started really releasing that, it really opened up a different world for me where I was able to shift relationships and become open to different relationships that felt like very serendipitous. Like I wasn't trying to make any of this happen, but I'm like, and then bam, like I just got it. I was like, damn, how is this person able? Uh how do I go from how do I get this person who's just like so into like exactly what my body somatically needs to feel emotionally cared for in a way that I just haven't my entire life? And so, and recognizing they're both humans, we're both messy, right? But there is, but there is something I needed to move through the pain of no of acknowledging my own loneliness, my own repression before I could open up to the possibility of real intimate human care. And bam, it happened. And here I am.

Rev Syd 24:34

Yeah, I love it. It's this the unexpected, right, of um that opening up to care is an opening up to the unknown. Of like, if I open up to it, then I have to admit that there's needs. And then I don't know where they begin or end, right? So there's kind of like the what is possible. I don't know. Maybe it will be really uncomfortable. And um, as you were talking, it made me think about how when I was a kid, um, I really wanted a lot of animals. So I love animals, and I'm like, I want lots of pets. And my parents were like, no. And they're like, that's too much. That's too many, too many like beings to take care of because I'm I'm the eldest of five. And um I remember my mom being like, Well, you could have a pet rock. I had a pet rock when I was a kid. You should have a pet rock. And she was trying to sell this to me. And I was like, that sounds like the dumbest thing ever. It can't interact with me. Um, and then I would see over time, like this was, you know, late 70s, early 80s, that I would go to relatives' houses and there'd be pet rocks, right? Like people would have like rocks like sitting on their windowsills or on their mantle or like in their home. And I was like, what is the appeal of this? And um, and then I realized it's like, oh, you don't have to be emotionally present with a rock, right? Because it's not demanding anything from you. You can, there's an assumption of like I can be, I'm this caring, giving being to this inanimate object because I get to determine what that relationship is. And when I got older and started um adopting my own pets and animals, right? So not try not to use the word pets as much, but like little animals who like share my life with me, all of a sudden these living beings are not static, right? They have needs and they're like, oh, let me tell you what I need now. Does that do you does it interrupt what you're doing? Yes, absolutely it interrupts. But how do we be in relationship? Right. And it's that like coming back together. And I remember I was going through this really, really hard time um after a breakup many, many years ago, and I had two cats. And um they woke me up every single morning because they're like, we need to be fed. And I was like, I want to sleep, I want to wallow, I want to be in my grief. And they're like, no, we want to be fed. And so they're this like practice of like keeping me um alive. And they were those little teachers who are like, we're here with you and we're here for you. Right. And they're like, we're not going to pretend like you're not here because we are in relationship. You feed us, so feed us, right? And that relationship was that first place of like me being like, oh, here are teachers for me. Here are beings who are guiding me in this loving, caring relationship who aren't in this hierarchical system, right? There is this choice to be in this mutuality or this interdependence, this interbeing with each other. And that's where I was able to heal, that's where I was able to grow, that's where I was able to ground into being a human and like choosing to be a human in this world, right?

Sandra Kim 28:17

Yeah, animals are great. They're much more reliable.

Rev Syd 28:24

They can be needy, but Oh, totally. Yeah. That's part of it. I think that's they help us understand that they're unapologetic. Yes. About who they are, what they want, which doesn't mean um, you know, they also compromise, negotiate, right? In their own in their own ways, but but they get they they don't hide themselves the way humans do in order to survive. Right. And I think we're here to learn that we're not here just to survive. We're here to be our unique expression of the divine. And our loneliness is a reminder that that exists. Like that reality, that calling, that imperative of being um is is here. We are a part of it and we participate in it. And I think about um like my cats. Um, and I've lived with cats for probably the last three decades. And um, I think about the ways that they their loneliness is like they can be alone all the time. But then when they're like, I want to connect, then they show up and they're in your face or like they're like, hey, we're right here and I need you. And then they can go do their own thing. And it's this like reminder to me that that whether we want to call it loneliness, maybe it's the desire to connect has made me think of like, what if this idea of loneliness has been misrepresented for so long to us, right? Or misdefined. Um, and that it is a way of being that is that reminder of like I need to be in relations, relational care with other beings. What are those right relationships? Who are those beings that I want to be in right relationship with? Spirit beings, ancestral beings, human beings, animal beings, animal beings, insect plant beings, insect beings, right? Um one of my practices these last few years has been in to renegotiate or examine, explore what is right relationship with the insect world, which is that's a lot of fun. Um I get to confront a lot of my like, I don't want to be part of that, those places where I want to disconnect and like pull away. Um, and yet it's that please. I'm like, oh, right, we are in this co-relational way of being. How do I show up for that? Um, and animals are like unapologetic, like you said, in like they're like, well, yeah, that's how this operates. You are a part of it. Do you remember you're a part of it? So how do we show up for it? Because we're here with you.

Sandra Kim 31:17

Right.

Rev Syd 31:18

And the loneliness is that reminder of like that um longing that is, I would say, the like the essence of life itself is right there.

Sandra Kim 31:32

My grandmother used to say that to be human is to give and to receive. And once again, in American society, that's not we don't even say give and receive, you say give and take, right? Like there's a even that phrasing, there is a taking versus a receiving, right? Um and so, and we're taught to be on guard to be taken advantage of, or to say no, right? So we're not there's not a lot of healthy modeling because it requires a collective effort to give and receive in right ways, in consensual, co-creative ways. And and I come from a culture that's more very caring, but not not really consensual about that caring a lot of times. It's not imposed caring, whether or not you want it. Um and and so I feel like there's the there's a mixture of like care and consent that I want to see cultivated in our spaces, particularly for folks who are committed to justice, healing, liberation. It's like how can we how can we understand that we carry wounds of loneliness, of feeling not belonging because of feelings of unworthiness, and know that they get kicked up real hard when we try to be in relationship with people, when we're a part of a group of folks, and to not pathologize actually, the fact that they get kicked up, because that's once again, it's just part of being human, real messy. And we can choose to work with them as individuals and as part of a group, knowing that's that's just our trauma and our conditioning, our baggage, and bring in skills, bring in practices, bring in frameworks to really help us navigate that from a more skills, skillful way, right? And I've been a part of groups like that. Um, and it was interesting because it also led me to one work through and release a lot of, I think, some of the trauma and baggage I had from being a part of groups and feeling that they that like I needed to sacrifice myself and put their needs first, the group first over myself. And then through the process of me like really coming much more home to myself and prioritizing my own needs and feelings and desires, it was to separate from that group. And but in a way that left me more free. And if in the future, if I choose to participate, engage, then I can do it from a much more whole, like whole, joyful, alignment-based place versus a sense of responsibility, loyalty, or guilt, because there's there can be really thin lines between those things, actually, especially for somebody like me. Um and so and so for me to really coming from a place of energy alignment and being like, there's not that's not present for me here, much as I want it to be present here, it is not present, and and as somebody who has such a intense spiritual calling, um, you know, I I say that you can't have two masters, and so I've really follow the call of spirit, and and that that really takes precedence over what the group wants, what I want, honestly, because and after having done this for so many years, I know that when I follow those breadcrumbs that spirit shows me into like the most bizarre paths and doorways. Like, I'm like, ah, what is this? But okay, like I've learned to say yes, so I say yes. And then something so remarkable beyond my imagination becomes possible for me. And when I don't say yes, things things really go sideways. There are consequences, a real consequence. It's not a hard, it's not um, if you're gonna fight the path of spiritual calling, it's not it's not an easy path, I gotta tell you. Um, and so, and so I was like, I need for me personally, like I needed to have a level of freedom to follow the call of spirit, which would then direct me, but how I do engage with different groups of folks, versus me being tied to a certain group and feeling the need to support that group at every regardless. And even if though that group also wanted me to feel free there, like it was I'm not in a maybe I could do it after more years of healing, more years of practice, who knows? But at this current moment in time, I did not personally feel like it was possible. And so I think the path from loneliness, a sense of belonging, once there's so many layers to belonging, um it is not is is not linear, it's very twindy. And I think, and there I each each time it's like another layer gets revealed to me. So I think that's the other thing that it's important for people to understand is that this coming home to ourself and coming home to like the greater us and coming home to source, like that's that's that's the path of somebody who believes in reincarnation. That's the journey of so many lifetimes, perhaps all lifetimes.

Rev Syd 37:00

I love the this piece around spiritual callings. I remember early on when we first met many years ago, we were having this conversation around like what what is your spiritual calling? There's this rising, how do you respond to it? And I remember you asking me specifically like, how are you engaging that calling? Because it is so much a core piece of my life. It's such a core piece of your life. And it's like, this is the spiritual calling, this work, the dharma for me is like, go this way. Okay, that makes zero sense to me, but okay. You just go this way, right? Even this whole loneliness project, the dharma of loneliness, this is that teaching of like you go in this direction. Okay, I don't want to talk about loneliness, but okay, here we go. Right. Like this is the that saying yes. Um, and what teaches us how to say yes, right? Who is that teacher, who's that guide, who's that like companion along the way, and thinking about like those who we are in relationship with, right? Is can we say yes? And I know that for me, um to get really sappy for a moment, that our friendship, our connection is a big part of like what keeps me going. So I'm like, I know that there are others. There's Sandra saying yes, I can say yes, right? I can keep saying yes. And that there is this connectedness in that that is like a counterbalance to the loneliness of walking a spiritual path because I walk this alone. And yes, I have my guides, I have the bodhisattvas, I have the dharma, I have my ancestors and those who are with me. And I also walk this alone in a human realm, right? And so, like having those connections, like that loneliness reminds me, like, oh, here's an anchor over here, here's a uh a co-seeker over here, here's somebody else, right? And so, like, what are those, like those relationships are also the ways that I find meaning, where I find grounding, where I find that ability to be like keep going, right? Or step into that that vast unknown, which is lonely, right? Because loneliness comes up. I'm like, why am I here? Um, yeah. And so thank you for that.

Sandra Kim 39:27

I I remember the first time I was like, I'm a mystic, and who the fuck says that about themselves? And then talking to other person people who who identified as such, right? Like I think, I think it's part, it's that juxtaposition of because I do follow the call of spirit, I do feel them, and I see and I experience the abundance that comes out of me following that those breadcrumbs. And so I don't feel very guided, I feel very held, very supported. And there is that human need. Like we just we still need that, we need humans to witness us, to care for us, and to like fuss over us. It can be uncomfortable and it feels good, right? Yeah, and that's and that's where I feel like the inner work of like I that I've done around like my my desire and somatic need for that is completely valid. And and and it's all I did. I didn't I didn't like start seeking somebody for that, but I was just like, that's completely valid. And I just kept releasing everything that said it wasn't valid, and I was like, this is this is actually what I want. And then then Spirit brings somebody into my life that was like, does all that fussing? And I'm like, oh great. And I'm like, this is really weird. And then I get put into this space with somebody who who like that's their work that they do is help people navigate these these like new different types of dynamics. And I was like, oh my, I see you, Spirit. You were just doing all the coordination of making sure that I understand and I don't just like sabotage this because it's weird to me.

Rev Syd 41:14

I love like how we're what you're talking brings up this the question for me around trust. Can I trust what is arising? Can I trust or do I trust my loneliness? And as we're saying that, it's it feels like, oh, this is it's moving in like a new edge of that contemplation of loneliness. Is do I trust it? Do I trust the loneliness to guide me where I need to go to the connections and places and relationships that will feed me, but also where I am most needed?

Sandra Kim 41:54

Yeah. And I think this is what's really hard for most people. It wasn't a movement outwards, like we've been taught to do, take action and make it happen. It was a movement downward into deeper layers of my sense of loneliness. And like being like the first layer was like, oh, I've I've settled. I've just accepted that this wasn't possible for me, and then keep going deeper and deeper, and then like feeling the grief of that acceptance and the pain of why I thought that was true because of my experiences starting from a very young age, and then just I kept going deeper and deeper. And in the end, because I was bearing witness to all of that, and I was being held in the process by all the spiritual support, it led, I came out, I think, more whole and more solid about my belief that yes, this is what I need. That's okay. I can have that. And that and that that was it. There is no more, there's no forward movement from that other than just openness. Right? Just openness. Yeah.

Rev Syd 43:13

Lean in, right? Go deeper, dive in deeper. Right. I think about um when was it? Like I don't know how many years ago there was that um, I'm forgetting her name, some corporate woman who wrote a book about like leadership, corporate leadership, and women should just lean in more. And complicated. I have a lot of thoughts on that. And what I'm gonna talk about is like that idea of leaning in, right? Of here, like in practice, of like it's the loneliness that shows up. It isn't the reaction to or that automatic response that we've been taught or conditioned to how do I fix it, how do I swage it, how do I mitigate it, how do I make it softer, how do I make it. Go away, how do I not feel? Right? Instead, to be like, oh, you're here. Let me lean in to why you're here and let me go deeper. And I love that as a practice and kind of as a way of being because it requires us to stay. And staying isn't always easy. There was um, when was this? Maybe I was still living in San Francisco at this time, and I was working with my therapist, and I was dating a couple of people at the time, and um, I was complaining about all these people I was dating. There's like three people. And I was like, they don't know how to stay. And I was like going off and off, and I was like, bliss and this, and they're pulling away and all of this. And my therapist, you know, kind, very wise woman, just sat there and listened to me. And as I was talking, I was like, oh, I don't know how to stay. And just like her face just like beamed, and I was like, okay, fair. I don't know how to stay. What does that mean? And so since then it's been like, I can hear that like that awareness, like that kind of moment of insight is still in me of like, can you stay, Sid? What does it mean to stay? Doesn't mean stay in abuse or stay in places of harm or stay in places of like lack of movement that's not moving me towards right, growth or expansion, but can I stay in those places that are really uncomfortable, really distasteful even? Can I stay? And I think that's the piece in this, and coming back even to the poem that we were engaging with at the beginning that I read is can I stay in a way that I can then perceive and hear and receive the teachers and the love and the care that is always right there?

Sandra Kim 46:09

Yeah. And I would I would emphasize in what you're saying is can I stay with myself? Yes. As I feel the anger, the grief, the pain the that comes from feeling abandoned. Can I not abandon myself? Can I stay for my own feelings of abandonment? Right? That is for me the biggest lesson that I just keep practicing in the last 20 years is can I stay, can I not abandon myself? Can I stay with myself through all this crap that I have run away from and repressed? And learning how like the repression, the ignoring the unconsciousness, that's what keeps me in this, in the crap, not being able to release it and heal and get more whole. And it's the actual staying with it, not abandoning myself. And that actually allows it to be released. It just, you know, you gotta, you know, the only way that is through though. So you don't have to do that by yourself, right? Like I think that's the thing. It's not, I think the biggest thing that I've learned is that both with human support, animal support, plant support, spirit support, right? Like to to be like this fresh and doll, basically, where like you have so many layers holding you. That is what allows me to go as deep as I do. Um, because if I had to do it just with my own little nervous system, my own little body, like that, that would be terrible. I'd be so dysregulated, thrown into a panic attack. No, I need to like be super supported energetically.

Rev Syd 47:56

Absolutely. We're not meant to hold it alone. We're not meant to be one separate entity or organism, right? That's not how ecosystems work. That's not how life works, that's not how this whole system works.

Sandra Kim 48:18

That's not how the Dharma works. And and to put it, make it really concrete, like I do daily prayers, right? And I do daily, um, daily energy practices that help me connect to the flow of earth and cosmic energy. So I feel like I'm co-regulating with not with both divinity, but also with the earth and cosmos in a way that's very concrete. That's why, that's why I offer a regular centering practice space for folks. Yeah. Because I think that I'm this is my way of co-regulating with the earth and cosmos, which are obviously far more stable than the other human beings around me, which once again, love a cuddle. I will never turn down a cuddle as to help regulate me. But but and sometimes it's not possible. That's true. And so if my foundation is through these non-human ways, all the human ways are kind of this extra toppings, extra like frosting on the cake, right? Like it's um, I and I don't I don't get graspy about it, I don't get mad about it, I go don't like, you know, it's just it's it's the extra that's still needed makes life way more fun. Um, cuddling is more fun than doing an energy practice, I gotta say. So much more fun.

Rev Syd 49:36

Right.

Sandra Kim 49:38

Um, but uh because I'm not trying expecting that this like unreliable human to fill the void, right? I'm much more able to be spacious and gracious with with this, which makes it much more possible for that person to be able to offer that type of care because I'm not getting graspy and demanding and like judgmental if I don't get it in the way that like the void in me needs.

Rev Syd 50:04

Right. Right. Not asking somebody else to fix in a way. Yeah. So I know that this is you know a contained amount of time that we're talking today. And there's so many things that we have woven through, walked through, danced around, lifted up, leaned into. And I want to name one other thing just to give it space to breathe. And then I'm gonna read one of the excerpts, one stanza of the poem as a closing for us, is something you mentioned earlier was about the inclination towards separation. And I'm not sure if you use the inclination piece, but that's how I heard it is often there can be this inclination when we feel loneliness to pull away. And that that response to separate or self-abandon or to disconnect or disengage is it's so interesting because it's actually the opposite of what loneliness is trying to teach us, what loneliness is trying to offer us, is that because of the learned shame of being lonely or being alone, that we can often be like, I'm just gonna disconnect. And how much I have done that, I'm like, I'm just gonna separate myself from these spaces or from these practices because I'm feeling a certain way that I'm embarrassed that I'm feeling. Right. And so kind of thinking about that is where is separation showing up for me? Where is the inclination to separate showing up? And can I notice that, sit with that, and be like, what if I move in a different direction? What becomes possible then? Right. So um I'm gonna read one of the stanzas um that I read earlier. And so here we go. And again, this is from a teacher looking for his disciple by Tiknat Han. That is why I promise I shall be there for you anytime you are in danger. Sometimes you have lain unconscious on the hot sands of frontier deserts. I have manifested myself as a cloud to bring you cool shade. Late at night, the cloud became dew, and the compassionate nectar falls drop by drop for you to drink. Sometimes you sit in a deep abyss of darkness, completely alienated from your true home. I have manifested myself as a long ladder and lightly thrown myself down so that you can climb up to the area where there is light to discover again the blue of the sky and the sounds of the brook and the birds. And so thank you, Sandra, for being here with us. And may in your practice, my practice, in all of our practice, may we learn to receive the care, the love, the cool shade, the drinks of deep drinks of water that our loneliness is offering to us as it is seeking us out on a daily basis. Thank you.

Sandra Kim 53:33

Thank you so much for having me.

Rev Syd 53:37

Thank you for joining me for this month's conversation. I hope it has offered you some space to slow down, to get curious, and to touch into the wonder and magnificence of all of who you are. Until next time, may you find the cadence of your longing and the wisdom of your heart as you meet your loneliness as a teacher, a friend, and when possible, a lover.