In today’s world more and more people are suffering from loneliness. Have you have ever been somewhere surrounded by people but felt completely alone? If so, then you know what loneliness feels like. Loneliness can sometimes feel like the world is going on around you but leaving you behind and it makes you feel invisible and forgotten.
Have you ever put on a mask to the outside world pretending everything is great wishing that someone would just take the time or pay enough attention and see how you really feel?
Feeling Lonely vs Being Alone
The feeling of loneliness is quite often compared to the feeling of being alone. However, feeling lonely is very different than simply being alone. The feeling of loneliness is one of the worst feelings you will ever experience. Loneliness makes you feel that you are not worthy enough to warrant someone’s interest and unworthy of love. It tricks you into believing that no one is thinking of you and that you need to be someone else and change your identity for others to accept you.
What if you weren’t the problem at all? Rather than feeling that something’s wrong with you, that something isn’t measuring up and that you are not good enough what if you weren’t to blame at all? Wouldn’t that offer you hope? Could it be that it is society that has forgotten what it’s like to reach out to others, to stop being disinterested to look outside of ourselves and be aware of those around us?
Being alone on the other hand is actually quite healthy. It is a different feeling completely. Spending time with ourselves is one of the most healing things that we can give ourselves. It is a beautiful gift when you can be alone with your thoughts, time to think, analyze, dance and celebrate who you are. Feeling comfortable in your own skin gives you strength, resilience, it creates awareness, gratitude and peace. Being able to be alone with yourself without feeling lonely, is an incredibly peaceful and beautifully amazing awakening. This is very different than experiencing loneliness.
The Easy Way Out
Society today expects instant gratification that has been granted with technology therefore loneliness is becoming more common. It is much more convenient to order dinner, text a friend, and post on social media than it is to really connect with people. That would require more effort such as getting dressed, getting ready, and making plans. Why use the phone when we can simply text instead? However, when we take the time to actually listen to someone’s voice rather than just read the words in a text message we can instantly hear the emotion behind what is being said. Whatever happened to preparing dinner as a family and eating together. Humans need human connection to thrive, grow and evolve.
We claim to not have time to reach out to others because our lives are so busy when in reality you choose how to spend your time or how not to spend it. We have convinced ourselves that we just can’t find the time. We have forgotten how to prioritize what is really important.
Did you know that…
Most people spend an average of 4 hours on social media posting on their profiles and wanting to project these amazing lives. In reality, they may be disconnected from their lives and the lives of those who love them and are instead seeking instant gratification from strangers online. Let’s think about this, these are people just like me and you who hold a job, perhaps have a family and other responsibilities and still find an average of 4 hours a day for social media.
Perhaps it’s the greed and wanting to outdo others. But what if we committed to using just 30 minutes a day to reach out to someone. What if that small gesture was the difference between that person feeling worthless to making them feel worthy. So many of us feel invisible, we feel isolated and forgotten and this is no way to live! Can you imagine the impact that 30 minutes a day could have to someone who has lost hope. It would mean everything!
What does loneliness feel like?
The feeling of loneliness can take many forms. It can make you feel worthless, ugly, unmemorable, angry, hopeless, invisible, neglected, uncared for and unloved. This is such a horrible place to be in, I know.
Feeling lonely can be dangerous, and it often manifests itself into many things such as anxiety, depression, addiction, rage and anger issues. Humans need love and to feel a sense of belonging. Despite this longing and need, some of us feel forgotten, irrelevant and invisible, which can result in isolation, create phobias, and lead to suicide.
As humans, we need to have something to strive towards, something to look forward to. It is so important and crucial to be able to have a dream and a goal to work towards, anything that creates a future. We need to feel a part of a community. If you are reading this and you have treated someone with indifference and have made them feel less than they should, please reach out to them today and use your 30 minutes to inspire them instead.
Can you imagine feeling that you do not belong anywhere, and then something traumatic or tragic happens to you? What would you do? It is hard enough to go through life, but going through life alone can be unbearable.
Ways to Combat Loneliness
It is my belief that loneliness can be combatted in two ways and that some of the responsibility lies within ourselves. There are outside factors such as what others contribute to our lives and to our sense of happiness and acceptance. However, I also believe that there are things that we can do for ourselves that will help.
Self-worth needs to come from within not from outside sources. Low self-worth is like a Cancer that eats away at our core. Loneliness can often stem from the stories we tell ourselves. Feelings of loneliness, anxiety and depression can feed off of other people’s actions towards us or lack of interest and love but then I think wait a second that would mean that we ourselves do not have any control and that is simply not true.
What can we do?
One thing we need to acknowledge is that when we are feeling depressed and perhaps lonely, we are not always capable of helping ourselves at that moment. Perhaps we are not feeling strong enough or not aware of what is truly happening to us at that moment and if this is the case please seek out help and advice from the right professionals. Knowing when to ask for help is brave and should not feel shameful. We cannot always rely on others to just sense that something is wrong especially when we are hiding behind masks.
In reality, whether we like it or not we need to put in an effort to love ourselves despite others and to stand up for ourselves when others push us down. In a perfect world, everyone would get along and include others, people would take special care to not exclude others and no one would be lonely but unfortunately, this is not the way the world works… not yet. My goal is to eradicate loneliness from the world because I’ve been there and you shouldn’t have to!
What WE can do for Ourselves
- Change Our Mindset
- Improve Our Self-Worth
- Join A Community of Like-Minded People
- Take Control and Make an Effort even if we are Afraid
- Accept Yourself and Who You Are… Unapologetically You
- Learn to Forgive Yourself
- Practice Gratitude
- Stop believing what others tell you
- Change negative Self-Talk
- Accept the help of others
- Live with honestly integrity and faith
What OTHERS can do to help us
- Ask what can I do to help – Assuming can be dangerous
- Not Knowing how to help does not mean DO NOTHING at all
- Reach out anyway despite your fears
- Be aware of others around you
- Commit to active listening
- Speak up For Those who can’t
- Check-in on someone that may be lonely
- Validate the feelings of those that are struggling
- Teach Self-love and affirmations
- Simply be there
My Hope for the World
How many of us give all of our energy to our jobs, careers and save the leftovers for our family and friends. What changes can we make so that we have more energy to give to what matters most. How can we prioritize our life so that we give to ourselves, give to our families and to our community without feeling like we’re running on empty? We need to give ourselves time to be silent in the hustle of the day to day, to be grateful for the things we do have and to remember those that do not have.
What would the world really be like if we could all commit to ending loneliness and become aware of what is happening around us? How fabulous could all of our lives be when we commit to helping one another and not judge imperfections. How incredibly beautiful life would be if no one ever felt lonely again and we all had each other’s backs. I have faith that not only can this be achieved but that it can be achieved in our lifetime! Let’s all do our part to end loneliness and love one another.
Challenge
I challenge you, the reader, to schedule in 30 min/day for 7 days and reach out to someone who you believe is feeling lonely. If we were all to take this initiative, take time to see those who feel unseen, what a beautiful world this would be. If we could all just slow down and actually feel alive and appreciate life rather than rush through it and let it pass us by we would all feel happier and less lonely.
For those of you who take this challenge I would love for you to share in the comments.