Do You Struggle With Loneliness? Maybe This’ll Help
Image created by author in openart.ai
Sometimes we try to fight it in ways that aren’t so helpful after all
Last night, I started watching The Martian (Netflix), a 2015 film starring Matt Damon. It’s an excellent story about a guy who gets left behind on Mars when the rest of the crew thinks he’s dead.
Check out this trailer:
Video courtesy of YouTube@20thCenturyStudios
As I watched for a while last night (and a little more during breakfast today), I was contemplating the incredible “alone-ness” of that situation. It got me thinking about my own solitary life for much of the past 20 years or so.
Okay, I’m not remotely as isolated as Damon’s character, Dr. Mark Watney, but it did make me think about how much I love being Earth-kind-of-alone, and what causes loneliness, how much solitude is healthy and that sort of thing. I felt compelled to share some of my thoughts.
There’s a huge difference between being alone and being lonely. Being alone might make you feel lonely, but you might also love it and enjoy the solitude.
You can also be in a crowd with a thousand people and still feel lonely. So loneliness doesn’t have to be about being alone (unless you’re stranded on Mars for a few years).
Here’s the thing: When you feel lonely, it’s because something’s missing.
It gets a bit messy if what’s missing is a romantic partner to fix that emptiness. If you think that’ll make you feel better, think again. Because you can still feel lonely when you’re in a relationship. If six unhealthy marriages taught me anything (and I can assure you, they did), it’s that.
Does that mean that if you’re in a pretty good place emotionally and mentally and have healed a lot of your emotional wounds that you can never feel lonely and shouldn’t want a partner or want to be with other people? No, that’s not what I’m saying. We’re social creatures — generally speaking — and it’s natural that we should want the company of other humans.
I’m talking about when that loneliness is driven by emotional wounds. The kind of loneliness you feel because something’s missing, so you feel it even when you’re with a loved one. Or a whole lot of loved ones.
I’m talking about when we look to someone or something else to fix that hole and fill that need, and it’s the only way to ease that loneliness.
The truth is that whether it’s a person or pills or a bottle or a roulette table or a stranger in your bed, whatever else you might do to try to ease that loneliness, none of that will fix it.
The only way you can ever truly be happy is if you’re at peace with who you are on the inside.
That’s when you can appreciate solitude, an opportunity to be with yourself, to enjoy your own company, and to spend time in self-reflection. And from that place, a bit of loneliness now and then is natural and healthy and expected, as we are biologically social creatures. As long as you’re happy and at peace with yourself, you’re bound to seek positive ways to alleviate loneliness — i.e. making plans with friends.
This is why it’s important to have a relationship with yourself, to discover who you really are on the inside, and to get to a point of loving and appreciating and accepting everything about yourself. This means eliminating guilt, shame, regret, self-recrimination, berating yourself for past mistakes, feeling like a failure for the things you can’t do or haven’t yet done. It means forgiving yourself. Finding the beauty in yourself and appreciating the blessing you are.
This is how you get to a point of inner peace and happiness. This is the starting point for appreciating solitude, and not allowing loneliness to steal your joy.
I appreciate my time alone — probably way too much. It’s my happy place. It’s hard to imagine that when I was a very young adult, I hated being alone. But that was because I hated myself and needed distractions from my thoughts and feelings.
Now, after decades of self-discovery and a lot of healing of old wounds, I love being on my own. I’ve got a long (and growing) list of fun things to do that light me up and bring me joy. So many, in fact, that I can’t spend nearly enough time on any of them!
Therefore, I’m hard pressed to trade those activities for spending time with others (remotely or in person) unless it’s mutually beneficial.
I’ve been living an isolated, solitary life for many years and I’m in no rush to change it. Thank heaven for Zoom and phone calls to keep me just connected enough to humanity that I have a sense of community and a social network. It’s more than enough to top me up on that biological hard-wiring that keeps us needing some sort of interaction.
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