I think we are all a little bit lonely. I think people of any age feel a little bit lonely a lot of the time. Maybe it's just this time we're all living in? Maybe we all just feel a little bit disconnected from others?
Recently I have been feeling alone, even when I clearly know I'm not. In a group full of people that, deep down, I know love me, I can't help but feel like I am alone in anything I do. This feeling comes in waves, ludicrous, unpredictable, huge waves. It makes no sense.
I don't want to say that I am alone, because I am not by any means, but it sure does feel like it pretty often.
I worry, because I know it comes from my own brain, I create this idea of being alone within my mind and sort of stick to the narrative because I make myself believe it. How do you pull yourself out of a fake narrative when it feels so real?
I feel like I sit with these emotions so often that I genuinely don't know what to do with myself. It's such an empty feeling that leaves me with my own thoughts and twiddling my thumbs until there's nothing left to do but feel more alone.
In baby steps, I have been trying to learn to be proactive. I started off extremely small with the little daily interactions I have. When I got coffee I would pass along a simple "How are you?" and maybe even comment on the weather that day or the music they are playing in the store. It's incredible how many people are willing to respond and make such a normally isolated situation feel more welcoming and less lonely.
Learning to get comfortable with my own company was the next item on my list. I can admit that I am not fully there yet, but just learning to be okay with alone time instead of begging for people to be with me has proven to be so much healthier than doing the begging and ending up feeling lonelier in the end. Plus, we're all stuck with ourselves so we might as well take the first steps to enjoying our time with...us.
This one's deep, hang in there with me. Identify why you are feeling alone in the first place. It seems complicated at first thought, but it's really easier than you think. When do those feelings come in? Are you looking for something specific in that moment? Are you pushing yourself away from others or isolating yourself? Do you just have a hard time in social settings? The good news is, once you find even just one reason, you can take even more steps to a remedy to some of the loneliness.
Finally, I decided to try and embrace myself, again, I'm not fully there, but I want to be, which is a start. I realized how I compared myself to so many who seem to be less lonely than me, doing more than me, having more fun than me; when the bottom line is, they are probably feeling the same way sometimes.
None of us deserve to feel this way, maybe if we all took a moment to look into where it comes from and realize all of this, we would all feel a little bit less alone.
