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By Sarah Lustig
Have you been feeling lonely and isolated lately with the Pandemic still going on? Do you feel alone in all you are going through and don’t feel you have enough support? The past few years have been quite hard on our connection to our loved ones and community. Loneliness makes life feel empty. When we feel alone in our pain, it makes life unbearable. So, let’s dive a little deeper into loneliness and where it stems from...
Where does loneliness come from?
We are all very different and unique people. Even though we are like each of our parents, we are also a combination of their genes. Our experiences shape our life and our reality. We can see this from siblings. They might have grown up in the same home, with the same parents, but they can be wildly different and have had different experiences from each other. For this reason, no one can ever truly know our inner world, our life experiences, and how they shaped us, not even our parents or siblings. We want deeply to be understood. We want deeply to share ourselves and our lives with others. We are social creatures as humans. We understand, at a deep core level, we need each other to survive, to help make life more enjoyable and meaningful.
When we don’t have others to share our lives with, or when we don’t feel safe sharing with people in our lives, then we tend to feel cut off from others and a sense of loneliness grows within us. We feel lonely when we feel empty of love and connection. Being with people doesn’t automatically mean we don’t feel lonely. I know I have been with many people who made me feel more alone in their presence than when I was alone with myself. This loneliness when we are in a group is usually a sign that we don’t feel accepted for who we are. We feel lonely when we cannot express our authentic selves; When we are not connected ourselves to our authentic self. We feel lonely when we are pretending or playing a part to please another or make them more comfortable at the expense of ourselves.
What helps us feel less lonely?
Being our true authentic selves and being around people who value and appreciate you will help you feel significantly less lonely! When we feel safe within ourselves and safe with who we are, we tend to feel less lonely, as we are more full of love. Strengthening your self-love and filling your self-care cup can help you need less from others. Taking care of ourselves is an important part of adulting. When we meet our own needs, we enjoy other people’s company more, as we aren’t looking to them to meet our needs. No one person can do this, and when we put this on others, we add expectations to the relationship that can leave us disappointed and feeling more alone. So, learning how to take care of yourself properly will help you feel more internally supported. Feeling connected to ourselves can alleviate our loneliness.
Connecting to people who share our values, interests, and accept your quirks helps us feel comfortable being ourselves in the world. When we feel safe and comfortable, we feel more at home in the world, as less alone. We feel seen, supported, and acknowledged by the people in our lives. We need people who are similar to us to socialize with. Life is more fun when we have friends to go to the movies with, grab a meal with, or see a concert with. We need friends who we can have deep conversations with and we need friends we can be silly and laugh with. Having a variety of types of friends can help us better navigate our lonely feelings. We can engage with different friends depending on what we need in the moment.
We feel less lonely when we have different areas of our lives that we find meaningful, like having hobbies and creative activities outside of our jobs or school. These can also be opportunities to get to know ourselves better, or meet other people. Activities like joining a kickball league, joining a yoga studio, taking a pottery or stained-glass class. You could take an online language or dance class. Connecting to your community through volunteer activities can be a powerful way to decrease your loneliness. When we are serving others, we tend to feel better, knowing we are making a positive difference in the world. There are so many community programs that need help. Do some research into what might be interesting or fun for you, and where there is also a need in your community.
There is another surprising source that can alleviate our loneliness, and that is nature. We don’t call the planet Mother Earth for no reason. She is a feminine energy and is the ultimate mother to us all. She provides shelter, food, medicine, and can nourish our hearts, mind, body, and soul. Nature can soothe our heart and gives us a connection to something greater than ourselves. Nature connects us to every living thing in the world. When we are in nature we are at home with a greater truth, which is that we are never truly separate. We are always a part of a whole. This is the salve to the feeling that no one can ever understand us. Because while there is truth to that, we also all feel the same emotions. We all face rejection, fear, shame, loss. We are all having this experience together, invisibly connected to each other. We are never truly alone.
What does it mean to shift social circles + how does this contribute to loneliness?
Our social circle is our group of friends and these naturally shift throughout our lives. During our teens and 20s our social circles tend to change a lot. Many of the people who come into our life will be temporary. This is normal and typically because these ages are so transitory. We are changing, learning, and evolving a lot during this time. We are settling in to our authentic selves and along that road we will become different than our friends. Sometimes we simply outgrow people.
People grow in different directions, or one person is willing to put effort into maintaining the relationship, while another is not. The pandemic the past year has caused a lot of shifts in social circles. If you stopped hearing from certain friends, you are not alone. Our capacity to handle as much as we were before the pandemic had changed, and we might need our social circle to be smaller right now in order to feel truly connected.
We might also have to leave these circles if we are being mistreated. We all deserve to be treated well. If we are being left out, called names, or made fun of in a harmful way, it is important to decide how you want to address this. It might be necessary to simply walk away, and not try to explain yourself, if you don’t feel safe in doing so. We must be heard, acknowledged, and respected by our friends in order to feel safe with them.
If you don’t feel comfortable talking to your friends about how you feel, because you fear their reaction or retaliation, then that is a pretty clear sign it is time to leave the relationship behind. This can be hard on us, as it might mean choosing loneliness, at least for some time. This is deeply uncomfortable to us, as we are wired for connection. Try to see it as choosing to love and honor yourself, above those who are causing you harm. It doesn’t mean that you don’t love them, but it might be easier to love yourself when they are not in your life anymore. It is okay to let go of people who wound us and are not willing to change or acknowledge this.
There are many reasons we might feel lonely, but when we show up fully for ourselves, we can drastically reduce this feeling in our lives. When we connect more deeply to ourselves, people who truly value us, and a greater source than ourselves, life can feel more meaningful and joyful. We struggle and suffer less when we feel more connected. Letting go of people who misunderstand or mistreat us, also helps us feel less lonely. Our relationships should always encourage and accept us!
If you struggle with loneliness hopefully this article helped give you some ideas on how to fill the void you have been feeling. You deserve love. Remember to give this to yourself each day. As you do, you feel less empty.
About the Author
Sarah Lustig is a Licensed Therapist in Colorado and a Holistic and Spiritual Coach living in Asheville, North Carolina. She is the owner of a Nurtured Essence, a healing space, aimed at helping women overcome their fears, heal trauma, and live with more purpose, peace, lightness, and magic. She specializes in working with highly sensitive, highly intelligent women who are wounded healers, cycle-breakers, empaths, and lightworkers. She combines elements of Psychology, Spirituality, and nature to deepen the healing and self-exploration.