Loneliness is a shared universal experience. I feel confident saying everyone has had their humbling dose of it in the last year.
Loneliness doesn’t discriminate between socioeconomic classes, cultures, ages, marital statuses, genders, or any identifiers.
Yet none of us want to openly admit to feeling it. We’re conditioned from a young age to connect loneliness with shame. Perhaps it’s why as children we were sent to our rooms to be alone as punishment.
Or why adults without families and partners are pitied by default. Maybe that’s why some move on from breakups by finding someone else immediately, rather than finding themselves. We’ve normalized this so much so that we’ve even given these relationships their own classification as rebounds.
No matter the size of one’s social network or paychecks, people nor affluence can rid one of loneliness. You can be surrounded by friends, have a calendar filled with back-to-back happy hours, return home to a partner, and still feel lonely to the core. Been there, done that?
Loneliness is an internal state that doesn’t depend on external factors, and more often than not, is largely unrelated to what’s going on around us.
That’s the thing about the ego;
It does not like being alone which is why loneliness can feel uncomfortable.
It craves distraction, entertainment, noise… and fillers.
It doesn’t like to be in solitude.
Loneliness and solitude are used interchangeably as if they’re the same state. So we assume someone who spends time alone must, naturally, be lonely. But that’s not the case.
Loneliness is a feeling.
Solitude is a choice.
When we feel lonely it can be hindering how we show up in the world. But once you gain awareness to see the blessing in that wave of loneliness for your growth, you can choose to use that time constructively in solitude and harness that time of stillness to find answers and clarity to questions and problems.
Our fear of solitude is really fear of boredom
We scroll through our phones as we get up, in the bathroom, up until moments before bed. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. Pause. Scroll. Swipe.
We listen to music and podcasts during our commutes, exercises, and cooking. We turn on the television for background noise in between.
We can’t simply be because we feel compelled to always do.
We try to do everything we can until there’s nothing else to do other than be alone. But there’s so much to gain from solitude. When you connect with solitude and your source, that’s when internal movement happens.
Since each of our paths is unique to ourselves, it makes it feel all the more lonely because no one else can fully understand our lived experience.
So, we have to do the inner ‘work.’ I laugh whenever I say it or hear this because as cliché it is - it really is what loneliness calls for.
We have to be willing to let go of illusions and attachments.
To let go of drowning our discomfort with distractions.
To shed some skin and to shed expectations.
To sit alone with our emotions.
To work through those emotions, rather than to avoid them or simply unload them onto another — be it a partner, friend, or family. Ask ourselves some questions. The tough questions that allow us to know ourselves deeply. If you are to ascend and connect to your source, it’s important to shift your attention inwards. Lean into it.
Let the heaviness undo you so that you know yourself, and so that you don’t need to search for validation outside.
We’re connected to everything but ourselves
Society tells us our most important relationship is to community and others. But the most important and constant relationship is the one you have with yourself.
Because you are the most permanent person in your life.
It is a superpower to know that no matter who walks in or out, no matter what happens, and no matter how many times I fall, I’ve got my own back.
How many times have you told a good friend that you’ve got their back? Now how many times have you told yourself that?
…Actually told yourself, “It’s ok, I’ve got my back?”
It might feel silly at first to talk to ourselves like we do to our best friends, but compassion shouldn’t be reserved just for others. Sprinkle that $#&! everywhere.
Once you do that, you’ll begin to realize that you’re less likely to feel lonely if you like who you’re alone with. When we find peace in solitude, we live far more enriched lives with ourselves, and consequentially, with others. So here’s to years in good company.
