Responding to Loneliness and Longing - Yolanda Koumidou

This small book, borne from a dialogue between two close friends, offers unique answers to two age-old questions: Why am I still lonely? Why does nothing I do sate this longing I sometimes feel? 

As much of humanity finds itself increasingly driven to distraction, finding answers to these questions is a pressing need. Why do some of us feel a compulsive need to shop, to be entertained, to check our phones? Why, even in the midst of friends and family, do we feel isolated? Why, after acquiring a long-hoped-for good, is there a nagging sense that something is still missing? 

After decades of introspection into these and related questions, Yolanda Koumidou, a psychotherapist and poet, and Renate Moritz, a teacher and painter, found themselves in an intense conversation that, over the course of several years, they expanded into this book. 

The concepts that the two authors bring forward here are revelatory—and not at all prescriptive. This is not a how-to book in any sense. Instead of recommending a new way to do this or to do that, the book delves into still-deeper questions: Why do so many people experience loneliness as an undercurrent of their lives? And what if this experience is, in fact, inescapable? What if it is intrinsic to the human experience? 

Drawing on Sufi and Christian concepts, the teachings of Meher Baba, the Theory of the Psychology of the Selves, and their own lived experience, Yolanda and Renate take the reader on an unforgettable journey of self-discovery. By journey's end, the world does not appear the same. A new awareness of the fundamental causes of loneliness unleash untapped inner resources. As the authors have found, the creativity of the heart offers a way to make use of the existential predicament of human longing.