As essential as food and safety, is our need to belong, hence loneliness is so debilitating. It begs the question though, if it is so fundamental for our wellbeing to belong, what do we need to belong to?
In my teen years I had a friend who often said how lonely she felt even when she was with people. It used to boggle my mind that a person can feel lonely surrounded by people, good friends, or family. The answer to the question, is also the reason why one can feel lonely in a crowd.
Not to be confused with solitude, (which many dictionaries use interchangeably), is actually choosing to be alone in order to enjoy one’s own company. Loneliness on the other hand is by no means pleasurable, nor a desire to be alone in order to relax and contemplate. Quite the contrary, people who genuinely feel lonely deep to their core, experience emptiness, isolation, and alienation, which often leads to depression if allowed to go unchecked.
First and foremost we need to belong to ourselves, we must accept ourselves fully just the way we are. The fact is until we love ourselves, and feel totally comfortable with ourselves there will always be reason to feel lonely, even in a crowd. Loneliness stems from low self esteem, finding fault in oneself, not liking or valuing oneself.
Down the comparison rabbit hole we go:- Now more than ever due to social media we have the where withal to spend endless hours on the negativity wheel. We convince ourselves that others have better bodies, are more intelligent, better liked, richer, prettier, more fun, the list goes on! Like a dog chasing it’s own tail, we compare, and our self esteem plummets, we compare some more, perhaps with a vague idea of making ourselves feel better ; instead down goes our self esteem again. Round and round it goes. End result is a feeling of inadequacy and unworthiness, an inability to have meaningful social relationships.
Basically like a fly trapped in a spiders web, we have created loneliness. The key to managing the situation is self love.
It is time to realise that a garden grows no matter who comes to admire it, it’s up to the gardener to take care of it, shower love upon it, feel proud of it, nourish it correctly, then stand back and watch with joy as it flourishes.
To get out of the pit of loneliness you must begin to dig deep. Interrogate yourself until you really know who you are. What makes you tick, what gets you excited, what motivates you, what makes you happy or sad. Go deep into issues that have affected you profoundly both in a good and bad way. Ask yourself what do I need to change about my belief system and my issues in order to go forward. What is it that I really really want out of life.
Having done that, and believe me it is certainly not a quick fix nor an easy task. Starting this journey is a brave move but one vital to take.
There will be heavy emotions involved, including heartfelt sobbing – just let it all happen – embrace your failures and celebrate your wins. Definitely let go of what you think other people think of you. On the other side of all this you will find firm ground and feel more clear about how to go forward, you will have achieved greater self confidence and self love.
When you start to love yourself you become a magnet for like minded people, you feel good in their company, another kind of belonging begins to evolve.
Thank you for making it this far, I truly hope that you have gained some value from this article. I would really love your feedback, feel free to contact me at carol@carolcassar.com. ou might also like to follow me on Facebook, where I post more self love content, and where you can connect with like minded people.
