Yesterday I met a beautiful man called Nev. We shared a yoga class, coffee and life stories for hours in sleepy Batemans Bay. Nev has just turned 80 years old.

He’s been practicing yoga (predominately asana) for over 30 years and told me he has no interest in the ‘spiritual stuff’, just the limber muscles and hydrated joints. We then talked openly for over an hour about love, loneliness, family and loss. It was one of the most ‘spiritual’ conversations I’ve ever had.

Nev lives alone. He told me he gets lonely sometimes, especially in the evenings. I told him SAME. Then he gave me his most important piece of advice. “Always be who you are. Never sacrifice who you are out of fear of being alone”. He told me he feels lonely but never ‘alone’ because he is not afraid to stand in the world as he is and be with himself.

‘Clare. When you meet that person with whom you are completely yourself, and they are completely themselves, and you don’t want to change them, and they don’t want to change you, then you’ve found something special. That is incredibly rare. When it happens follow your heart and don’t be afraid’. I cried into my coffee.

I’m fascinated by how similar we all are. We want the same things, we have the same struggles, we grieve the same, we experience love in the same way. Yet somehow we’ve become so disconnected from each other. I believe that we miss each other on a deep level.

In perfect synchronicity I stumbled across a Brene Brown interview called ‘Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart’.

She articulates how our ability to experience true belonging is only equal to our willingness to be vulnerable, to expose our soft heart, to be authentically who we are and stand up for what we believe, even if it means standing alone ‘in the wilderness’.

It’s an agonising paradox. To experience true belonging we must be willing to stand alone.

We’ve all had that horrible experience of being surrounded by people (or with one person) and feeling completely alone. I believe this happens when we are hiding or manipulating who we really are due to fear of being ostracised. We are not letting ourselves be seen, therefore it is impossible to feel connected. This for me is true loneliness. Feeling like I’m on the outside looking in.

When I’m (literally) standing in the wilderness or sleeping in my van I don’t feel alone. I feel intrinsically connected, not just to nature but to all those people who are doing the same thing. Standing strong in their beliefs and not letting fear of being alone squash who they really are.

Yesterday at yoga I met a beautiful man called Nev. He bought me a coffee and we shared life stories. Nev has just turned 80 years old.

Nev has been practising yoga for over 30 years. He told me he has no interest in the ‘spiritual’ side of the practice, he was just there for the limber muscles and hydrated joints. We then talked openly for over an hour about love, loneliness, family and loss. It was one of the most ‘spiritual’ conversations I’ve ever had. My definition of spirituality is ‘the deeply held belief that we are inextricably connected to each other by something greater. This something greater is rooted in love and compassion’. (Inspired by Brene Brown).

Nev lives alone. He’s been married twice and divorced twice. He has children who he doesn’t see very often as they live elsewhere. He told me he gets lonely sometimes, especially in the evenings. I told him SAME.

Then he gave me his most important piece of advice. “Always be who you are. Never sacrifice who you are out of fear of being alone”. He told me he feels lonely but never ‘alone’ because he is not afraid to stand in the world as he is and be with himself.

We talked about love. ‘Clare. When you meet that person with whom you are completely yourself, and they are completely themselves, and you don’t want to change them, and they don’t want to change you, then you’ve found something special. That is incredibly rare. When it happens follow your heart and don’t be afraid’. I cried into my coffee.

My definition of spirituality is ‘the deeply held belief that we are inextricably connected to each other by something greater. This something greater is rooted in love and compassion’. (Inspired by Brene Brown).