Liana Gergeli
Author, content strategist and brand marketing expert. She has written for HuffPost, InStyle, Thought Catalog and Medium.
I go to the cinema alone. I visit museums alone. I'm eating dinner alone (and yes, I've given up the temptation to scroll through my Instagram feed while I wait for my order). I’m sitting alone in a coffee shop and leafing through a magazine. Alone, I take a train ticket and go to a new city, where I walk completely alone.
I understand that this may seem very strange. You probably think that I’m a cute weirdo, and also very lonely. It's funny, I was much lonelier before I started spending time on my own. The constant feeling that I was out of place, and the feeling that I needed people around me like air - that was loneliness. The feeling of constant anxiety and fear that the guy will leave me is loneliness. And spending time alone brings peace. This is interesting. And it increases self-esteem. And now I’ll tell you how I learned to spend time alone.
Decide who you want to be
Using three adjectives, describe the kind of person you want to be.
Perhaps the image will change over time, but the very fact of its presence is very important: the selected qualities will serve as your value guide and the basis for decisions and actions. Perhaps some qualities will be relevant for a short time, for a specific task or goal. Others will stay with you for a long time. Decide for yourself. Adjectives don't have to be serious. You may have gone through difficult times, so cheer yourself up. Consider whether you want to be: positive, brave, kind, skillful, strong, motivated, calm, optimistic, wise, gentle, loving, resilient, generous, compassionate, open, effective, friendly, active, energetic, patient, happy, generous , passionate, disciplined, responsible, caring.
Act like the person you would like to become and you will eventually become that person. Be your own beacon and guide.
Social loneliness
When does it occur?
When we don't feel like we belong to a group. This happens to all of us - at least once in our lives. We go to university, move to another country for work, retire - the connection with our social circle weakens. A more complex reason is changes in personality. Interests and values evolve, and people who seemed close become distant and alien.
What should I do?
Find like-minded people to find a sense of belonging.
Join a group activity - this could be dancing or running together. The more active the group, the better. Research shows that it helps overcome feelings of loneliness more effectively than one-on-one meetings [, ].
Revive old social connections.
Do something with friends. From kayaking and singing to DIY apartment renovation. Often shared experiences bring people closer together than heart-to-heart conversations. Maybe this is what your relationship is missing.
Control your reactions
Very often you will have to mobilize all your internal resources to remain strong and courageous. You must admit that you cannot run away from unpleasant emotions or shrug them off. You must face them, acknowledge these feelings, understand them properly and learn to control them.[…]
It's important to remember this when people hurt your feelings, either intentionally or accidentally. They themselves are not always aware of the impact of their words and actions. At such moments, I try not to forget that people are only projecting their own attitude towards themselves onto me. By impulsively reacting to your interlocutor’s remark, you give him your strength. If I see that a person is really trying to hurt me, then I mentally raise a shield with a mirror facing him in order to protect myself and show him that now he is not talking about me, but about himself.
Of all the advice I have received in life, one of the most useful was the following: you cannot influence how people will treat you or change some situations, but you can control your reaction to them.
You cannot change the direction of the wind, but you can control your sails.
The same goes for living alone: perhaps you would like to share shelter with another adult or have a family, but the reality is that there is no one nearby, so how joyful such a life will be for you will depend only on your attitude to the current situation .
As my own life experience shows, difficulties strengthen us. A grain of sand in a shell turns into a pearl. Therefore, perceive any troubles - and they will be - as veils, through which you will become stronger and wiser. And if you urgently need to throw out your seething emotions, take a dozen eggs and go for a walk in the forest; Throw the eggs into the trees with all your strength - and feel how satisfaction replaces anger!
Return connections
There is nothing unnatural in the desire to give all your free time to your loved one. This is happiness - living with each other. But being left alone, you may suddenly realize that you have moved away from everyone who was important to you, besides your partner: friends, family. This realization adds stress to your attempt to be alone. If for some reason you are left alone, one of the most effective ways to quickly get rid of fear is to establish connections with loved ones and acquire new ones. Your family and close friends always know how to support you and restore your sense of self-worth, no matter what state you are in. Learning to be happy again around those who always make you feel better is a very important step towards freeing yourself from the fear of loneliness. Use this time to strengthen existing connections and create new ones with people who will bring changes, emotions and, perhaps, a desire to change into your life.
Look down on loneliness
The mere fact that no one is around doesn't mean anything. The problem is the feeling of loneliness, which appears under different masks. It can be hidden behind sadness, apathy, indifference, fatigue, depression. It's tangible. It's real. It won't go away that easily. How to defeat him?
Understand that this is normal. Accept your loneliness and move on with your life. There is no escape from the feeling of loneliness. It is a fact. Everyone I talked to while working on the book touched on the topic of loneliness. Everyone experiences this feeling: some to a greater extent, some to a lesser extent. It's like you're driving through hilly terrain and occasionally descending into dark valleys. This feeling is expected. The main thing is not to linger in the lowlands, do not set up camp there.
You can fight the oncoming feeling of loneliness with moral and physical means. The first ones are much more important. You can, of course, physically surround yourself with people, but your sense of self has nothing to do with them. This is an internal attitude. There is no hiding from him; you will only run away from yourself. So accept it, come to terms with it and move on with it.
Accept that loneliness, like happiness, sadness, death, birth, love and delight, is an integral part of being human.
Resign yourself and move on with your life.
Loneliness provides an opportunity to learn to value relationships with people
Jacob Lund
Many people, being forced to spend time alone regularly, eventually get used to this state so much that they get a certain pleasure
. This happens to a large extent because such people use the advice offered to you in this article.
In addition, the state of permanent loneliness, which is not burdensome, but brings satisfaction, opens up another unique opportunity for us: in this state we begin to especially appreciate moments of communication
with other people. We become selective, choosing higher quality interactions, enjoying rare moments of interaction with people more than those who are constantly in society.
Let's be honest: people who like to be alone often antagonize us because they seem arrogant to us. It's all about that self-sufficiency
which such a person feels. But if such people choose someone with whom they communicate on a regular basis, then they value such communication much more than those who are already constantly in sight, constantly in companies.
Replace "loneliness" with "solitude"
Paul Tillich wrote: “Language wisely separates two sides of one phenomenon. There is a word for loneliness that means suffering without others. And there is a word, “solitude,” which means bliss without others. Turn away from loneliness with its criticism and isolation. Turn to face its more welcoming brother - solitude.
Solitude is closer to a conscious decision and allows you to maintain your self-esteem. Solitude is a personal choice, while loneliness is a condition imposed by circumstances.
An old Buddhist saying goes, “A tenth of an inch is the difference, and heaven and earth are separate.” Solitude and loneliness are also separated by a tenth of an inch, but it is crucial for our sense of self.
When you live alone, you have to rethink your worldview, and this is not all the changes. Don't even think about considering living alone as a prison sentence that you have to serve. Change your perspective. Reframe the concept. Solitude is not a stone around your neck, but a protective capsule. A means to achieve a goal. Learn to draw strength from it - and you will be rewarded.
The Art of Solitude: How to Benefit from Isolation
Many of us are afraid of loneliness. Being isolated is uncomfortable and even scary. To understand how much we want to avoid this, consider a scientific study in which people were given a choice between an electric shock and 15 minutes of alone reflection. Believe it or not, many chose electric shock.
But there is good news: being alone is a skill. And like any other skill, you can improve it with practice. Honing this skill now can help us get through the winter during the pandemic. Instead of being afraid of loneliness, you can immerse yourself in it.
Whether you've had to forego a family vacation to contain a new surge of coronavirus, or you're quarantining due to illness, it's hard not to feel at least a brief surge of panic at the thought of being physically cut off from loved ones for days, weeks, or more. even months.
It's a reasonable sentiment: social distancing is terrible. There's nothing even to discuss. Over thousands of years, people have learned to live together, so isolation is harmful to us on a physiological level.
However, we can recognize that some concerns about loneliness are not unique to the current pandemic. This is a fear that has been hidden in us for years because we have forgotten how - or perhaps never really knew how - to be alone with ourselves, including our unpleasant thoughts and emotions.
“I think most of us are afraid of being alone because getting to know yourself is such a scary process,” says Jack Fong, a sociologist who studies loneliness at California State Polytechnic University. To get rid of this fear, we turn on a podcast, watch a TV show, or call our friends one by one.
We feel bad being alone for a number of reasons. And mostly it's not our fault. As Jenny Odell says in her book How to Do Nothing, we live in a culture that rewards sociability and constant communication, and choosing to be on your own labels you as a failure, crazy, and possibly immoral.
And when we find ourselves truly alone, we find ourselves at the mercy of the attention economy—pleasant opportunities for distraction are everywhere around us. Escape from the inner world is now easier than ever, just a click away. Why be bored or sad when you can text a friend, watch a show on Netflix, or call someone via Zoom?
Indeed, these technologies are like a balm for loneliness, offered on every corner. Don't get me wrong: they can be really useful. As I said, loneliness harms us both physically and mentally. I live alone, so to keep my sanity, I regularly go to Zoom dance parties.
However, these tricks don't seem to be satisfying because they're all about avoiding loneliness rather than about... well, just being alone. And this makes us even more afraid of loneliness. Decades of psychology research have taught us that trying to avoid unpleasant emotions is a poor long-term strategy. The brain gets used to the fact that it cannot cope with this emotion, and our suffering actually only intensifies.
How can you use this opportunity not to avoid loneliness, but to immerse yourself in it? You can look at the people who figured out how to do this long before the coronavirus arrived.
What we can learn from survivors of solitary confinement
To begin with, it is worth distinguishing between voluntary and forced loneliness. Many people who have experimented with the first - hermits and monks, philosophers and artists - can teach us to be alone with ourselves. But now the experience of people from the second category is especially instructive.
For example, Keith Lamar, who has spent 27 years in solitary confinement in a special security prison. It is important to emphasize: I believe that solitary confinement is torture that should be abolished, and in comparison with it, our voluntary isolation is simply a vacation. They simply cannot be compared. But recently, Lamar and Jason Rezaian, a journalist who survived solitary confinement in an Iranian prison, discussed their experiences in the context of today's quarantine to help us get through this period. Let's take a look at Lamar's thoughts:
Being put in solitary confinement means that you are left to fend for yourself: here you are, running hither and thither like people in normal life, and then suddenly you are faced with yourself and find that in many cases you have nothing inside you to do myself. Everything is directed outward. This is what happened to me 27 years ago, and what happens to many who find themselves in this situation - it's like being thrown into the ocean. I have to learn to swim. You have to learn to somehow live with yourself.
I was lucky in many ways. In my cell there are three shelves with books and a table where you can sit and write. I have a lot of music and books. Not to distract yourself from yourself, but to dive deeper into yourself. I draw, workout, do yoga, meditate.
I've seen quite a few people fail at this and go crazy. But I went in a different direction. So 27 years later I am still sane, strong in both body and spirit. I believe that reading and self-improvement played a major role in this. Here's the thing: When you're on your own, you often realize that you're much better prepared than you expected. Many systems prevent us from recognizing our own power. And loneliness is a good opportunity for people to take advantage of this power. ... I hope that young people who are now forced to sit at home will be able to look into themselves and unravel this tangle.
This is a very wise position. And it echoes many important observations scientists have made about loneliness over the years.
First, learning to be alone requires accepting that you are “left on your own” in order to confront that reality rather than avoid it. Then you need to “invest something in yourself” - turn solitude into a productive practice that allows you to gain a deeper understanding of who you are and how to develop further.
Researcher Matthew Bowker says something very similar in The Guide to Loneliness. The ability to be alone, he says, “implies the ability to create meaningful and valuable experiences in the inner world.”
In other words, you need to stop thinking that loneliness takes something away from you, and look for what it gives you. And this is your “I” - the true “I”, because, finally, you, and not someone else, build it. You no longer seek other people's attention or approval.
Psychologist D.V. Winnicott often made a distinction between the "true self" and the "false self." Without realizing this difference, we look to other people to reinforce our idea of who we are. And they are the ones who create our identity. When we are alone—when others' judgments and preferences no longer influence our self-esteem—this no longer happens. It can be terrible. But it can also be a gift. Because when the false self disappears, you have a chance to find your true self.
What can we learn from people who pretend to live on Mars?
Psychologists have found that another key component of successful solitude is a clear sense of purpose.
UCLA researcher Steve Cole is studying interventions to help people deal with loneliness. He found that the ones that worked best were those aimed not at reducing loneliness, but at increasing a sense of purpose. Recalling one pilot program in which lonely older adults were asked to mentor elementary school students, Cole said, “The secret is that this program is really designed to help older adults.”
Philosophers have long noted the strengthening effect of a clear sense of purpose. “Nietzsche said that if you find purpose in your suffering, you can endure all the pain that comes with it,” reminds sociologist Fong. “When people don’t see purpose in their suffering, they become horrified.”
In 2003, Kate Green moved into a geodesic dome atop a Hawaiian volcano, where she spent four months posing as an astronaut on Mars. This experiment was funded by NASA. They wanted to understand how people experience isolation, so that real missions would not end just because someone felt lonely. In a recent essay, Greene describes how difficult it was for her to live in the dome. Being separated from her loved ones and not receiving clear information from the organizers, she was not always able to maintain a sense of purpose. But as soon as this feeling returned, everything changed:
The idea that our mission could be beneficial for the future of space exploration and perhaps important for all of humanity kept me grounded when I wanted to fly and soared when I felt heavy and discouraged. I realized that I was part of something historical, potentially grandiose for other people - and it was so amazing that this feeling was enough to concentrate.
Billy Barry has lived alone in an abandoned miner's shack high in the Rocky Mountains for almost 50 years. Everyone needs to keep an eye on something, he said. In his case, it is the surrounding nature. How much snow fell today? What animals visited here this month? For decades, he tracked the answers to these questions, and his writings influenced the science of climate change.
Now he encourages people to cope with the pandemic by participating in voluntary science projects, such as CoCoRaHS, which tracks rainfall. “I definitely recommend it,” he says. “You take a small rain sensor, put it outside and become part of a network where thousands of other people are doing the same thing as you at the same time of day.”
He and Green also emphasize the importance of routine—small daily rituals that give us time orientation and form a routine.
Source
Interesting article? Subscribe to our Telegram channel to receive more educational content and fresh ideas.
Happiness at will
“If you want to be happy, be happy,” said Tolstoy. He knew something about life even before scientists began to seriously study the problem of happiness, and authors raced to write their practical guides for those who wanted to find the joy of life.
The world is as you see it. So if you feel like you missed your chance or that life has treated you unfairly, that is your reality. I'm not saying you should think positive thoughts with a fake smile on your face, but research (and common sense) indicates that a positive inner attitude leads to positive outcomes. In the morning, as soon as your feet touch the floor, think about how you would like to live the coming day.
Experts have proven that feeling happy contributes to success, and not the other way around.
Breakup shakes
The period after a breakup is the best time to understand who you are and what you want from life.
They say that from love to hate there is only one step. And I’ll tell you that it’s not far from despair to joy. Whenever shocks occur that break your heart, the gates of the soul simultaneously open wide for new emotions, new knowledge, new experiences that can lift you to another level of existence.
It's scary to leave the comfortable haven that is a long-term relationship. But think about what will happen if the butterfly refuses to come out of its cocoon?
She will never grow, transform, spread her wings. Imagine that you no longer fit into a dress: even if it once fit perfectly, you will no longer wear it. So why do we hold on to our old connections so much, even if it is absolutely clear that we have outgrown them and the person next to us is not suitable for us?
Parting shakes a woman up, makes her wake up and helps her see what she really needs. Thanks to this, we stop adapting to circumstances and begin to understand ourselves.
Increase your power with a totem
We single people are like aerial acrobats in a circus, performing without a safety net. Criticism and sarcastic comments can throw us off balance in no time, and I am continually surprised and saddened by the number of them. Some come from strangers, some from friends and enemies pretending to be friends. Most of these people do not know what it means to live alone, and do not even suspect the extent to which their statements hurt us.
Okay, don't worry, life goes on. Without false optimism, I am sure that difficulties strengthen us and give us the opportunity to learn something, even if it may take many years to master the lesson. Perhaps our abusers are learning something too.
We must become thick-skinned. Wrap yourself in an imaginary protective cloak and let it ward off all grievances.
I learned resilience from three animals and began to consider them my totems. These are wild dog, lioness and bison.
Wild Dog Solo
As a child, I was given the book Solo by Hugo van Lawick. It tells about a wild dog puppy. After the death of her brothers in a fight with other dogs, Solo is left alone. She joins someone else's pack and tries her best to keep up with it. Strangers ignore her, but she does not give up. For me, this dog with sparkling eyes and torn ears from numerous fights is the embodiment of resilience. Her story serves as an example for me.
Lioness
During that period of my life, when the divorce process was going on, I accidentally came across one image that made a deep impression on me. On a bas-relief in the British Museum I saw an Assyrian lioness: wounded, she continues to fight. Now I see myself as a lonely lioness, restored to strength, restrained and proud.
Buffalo
Did you know that during a snowstorm, of all living creatures, only bison instinctively turn around and go straight into the heart of the storm, knowing that this is the shortest path to salvation. Perhaps I'm too carried away by anthropomorphism, but it is impossible not to fall in love with an animal that rushes towards difficulties without blinking an eye.
Solo's tenacity, the lioness's desperate resistance, and the buffalo's ability to face difficulties remind me that I should not give in to the negativity of pessimists, spiteful critics and imaginary friends.
Fear of marriage or victim of love of freedom
A considerable number of men experience it. Of course, not all. There is quite a large category of those aspiring to the aisle of almost birth. From a young age, such people dream of a family life, full of children, and then grandchildren. But, alas, not all of them are like that.
More often, due to his youth, and youth, as you know, is an elastic concept, a man runs away from serious relationships, seeing them as a limitation of his own freedom. Freedom to establish relationships with others and freedom from the obligations, stresses, and inconveniences of everyday life that are inextricably linked with family life, children and similar circumstances. The family colleague is seen by his single colleagues as something like Novoseltsev, who has stopped taking care of himself in “Office Romance,” crushed by the burden of worries and eternal lack of money. The years pass unnoticed. Yesterday's hero-lover is slowly losing its presentation, and the intimate side of life is losing its sharpness. Organization, primarily psychological, comes to the fore. Mental comfort, an established life and a strong rear in any circumstances. And the rear is just a strong family, it will always support.
And yesterday’s dandy remains broke, secretly envious of his married acquaintances, whom he once teased. And the longer he is single, the more difficult it is to break this vicious circle. This is how the well-known loneliness of men after forty begins.
The difficulty of a psychologist working with this type of person is that meeting him in consultation is extremely difficult. He is unlikely to come himself; men generally rarely come to a psychologist on their own initiative. And there is absolutely no one to take him by the hand and lead him, because he is lonely and independent. Hope is only in friends and caring loved ones in general.
Turn your lonely life into a project
Why not write a book about your single life story or document it? What helps you? What advice would you give to other people in the same situation? What challenges have you faced and what lessons have you learned from them? How did the process of changing your sense of self from “I’m alone” to “I’m on my own” develop?
Many women have written about their experiences of secluded life, including Joan Anderson (A Year by the Sea), Anne-Morrow Lindbergh (Gift of the Sea), and Alix Cates Shulman (Drinking in the Rain). Read it. Perhaps you will find something inspiring in these books.
A full life alone is an internal attitude that cannot be formed on its own. Explore new experiences as if you were in a strange land, and draw a map of your life alone, as if it were an island. What is good about this island, and where are the problems? What beauties are you proud of? What corners have not yet been explored?
For myself
If you are single now, then the best way to survive loneliness is to take time for yourself with your loved one. If you are lonely, this is not a reason not to love yourself! You need to please yourself, take time for yourself, communicate with friends and lead a fulfilling life.
How to implement this: try starting with shopping. End a hard day with a trip to the cinema. Buy yourself a bouquet of flowers or, better yet, flowers in a pot. Good literature, quality music, delicious dinner - train yourself to receive only the best. Worthy men often “fly” to the best, like butterflies to the light, don’t forget about it.
Read also: Psychologist explained why we often remain lonely
Be kind to yourself
We women are prone to harsh self-criticism, and it seems to me that living alone exacerbates this quality of ours. Sometimes I feel like the central mast of a circus big top - when I have to be responsible for everything at once - and I don’t always cope with this load successfully. We demand too much from ourselves, and when we don't meet our own expectations, it significantly undermines our self-esteem.
Not everything is going smoothly for everyone. So don't think about others. Congratulate yourself on the progress you have made and do not be afraid of what remains to be accomplished. Everything will work out.
Each of us has our own path, and it is different for everyone.
We have the opportunity to reflect on life
The life of the modern average person passes at an incredibly frantic pace. For some, this rhythm is so crazy that not only do they not have enough time to think about some philosophical things
, give yourself time for deep and important thoughts, but you can’t even find a moment to be alone.
Moose
If there is a period in your life when you often find yourself alone, you can only rejoice at the opportunity to reflect on your life in complete peace
. You don't waste your energy analyzing other people's thoughts, you deal with your own thoughts.
You can focus completely on what is happening personally within you. A calm atmosphere allows you not only to tune in to a philosophical mood, but also to analyze many aspects of life
. Loneliness gives us the opportunity to get to know ourselves better and, having made certain conclusions, choose the right direction to move forward in life more confidently.
Find your ikigai - your purpose
The Japanese have a concept called ikigai - the reason that makes them get up in the morning. This is a person’s healthy craving for what fills his life with meaning; in other words, the goal. Finding it means finding the direction of movement; it's like marking a destination on Google Maps.
If you don’t set yourself such global goals as finding a higher goal or calling, if you’re not at all interested in that, don’t worry. Not everyone is born for a great mission.
There are many threads of experience in our lives that point the way to our goal. It happens that it is already known, but perhaps it is hidden on the periphery or in the past. Look into the depths of your consciousness and search hard. The goal does not have to be global and great. The main thing is that it suits you. She will be found; and you don't have to chase it too hard. Life constantly talks to us and gives us hints. Our job is to listen.
Convinced bachelors
When constructing an impromptu classification of male loneliness, it is impossible to bypass this, albeit small, category. There is, after all, such a character type. They are completely consciously lonely, they really don’t need anyone, and they have everything figured out, including the classic question of who will give them a glass of water in old age. They save for old age and insure it in every possible way. Don't worry about who will serve them this glass.
Many of them tried more than once to live a family life or a semblance of a family life, and each time loneliness turned out to be the lesser evil for them. And they, as a rule, are not biryuks at all. On the contrary, they are often sociable and charming people, the life of the party. But they are lonely by nature.
This is such a special kind of “people”. There are very few of them, just a few, but they still occur.
Be your own good company, encourager and supporter.
You are your own team. One person team. You spend more time with yourself than anyone else, so try to be your own good company. I'm lucky. I feel good alone with myself. But if everything is wrong with you, how can you improve the situation?
People rarely compliment or praise others, so fill that vacuum yourself. Don't wait for someone to tell you "well done" or "great job." Pat yourself on the back systematically. You do not lose heart and move on - this is already worthy of praise.
Loneliness gives you the opportunity to stop feeling like a victim.
Dean Drobot
Being a polite person is a very good quality. But the need to constantly please someone is hard and thankless work, which often puts us in the position of a victim.
. Telling someone "sorry" because you stepped on their foot is being polite. And constantly apologizing for not living the way someone else wants is trying to please someone, being in the role of a victim.
We often have to ask for forgiveness for what we have done or not done. This is because we constantly do things that upset other people and affect their feelings. But once you learn to have fun
from the fact that you are often alone, you will feel no need to apologize for anything to anyone (except for those whose toes you stepped on, of course, since no one has canceled basic politeness!).
The feeling of not having to constantly ask for forgiveness for anything, as well as not having to constantly feel guilty, makes it possible to feel truly free and independent.
human. Now you don’t have to constantly look around because you might accidentally offend, anger, or offend someone in some other way.
Slam the door in the face of all negativity
If you are tormented by negative thoughts, do not brush them aside, but acknowledge them. You can even give them names if it helps: “you are pettiness”, “you are impatience”, “you are tired and frustrated”. Now, with Nora's determination, slam the door in their face so they don't ruin your life anymore.
Instead of complaining about how and why you ended up in a particular situation, find the nearest reflective surface and say out loud what you are going to do about the situation.
Of course, anything happens in life. I don't live in a fantasy world and don't wear rose-colored glasses. My heart still shrinks a little from the sound of my “thank you” to the cashier at the supermarket, said in a voice hoarse from a whole day of silence. And sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t sleep from worry. I miss the calming feeling of having someone nearby who I can rely on.
The thoughts in your head are not idle, and negativity always does its dirty work. They whisper in your ear: “You are old. You're ugly. You're a loser. You are fat. Is it possible to love you? What good are you to the world?” Women are very strong by nature, and it is doubly offensive that we voluntarily become hostages of these vile voices in our heads.
Fight them as best you can, do not succumb to their corrupting influence. We must deprive them of their strength, otherwise they will take root and bloom magnificently. Don't let yourself get bogged down in habitual dissatisfaction with everyone and everything: this is an emotional dead end. Pull yourself out of the swamp, shake off the dirt and move on. You choose your thoughts.
How to deal with loneliness and is it necessary to fight it?
First of all, you need to decide what you really want: to get rid of loneliness or learn to live with it, even getting some pleasure. This will be the first thing you need to find out during a consultation with a psychologist. Find out not only for the psychologist, but also for yourself. The psychologist will only lead you to the answer that you yourself will give. All further actions will depend on the answer to this question.
If you really want to get rid of loneliness...
Here are just a few of the most general recommendations.
- From now on, never refuse if you are invited to visit or attend some event. The only valid reason for non-appearance is your death. I don’t want to and I can’t, but force yourself to be around people. Make it a habit. So you will slowly get involved.
- Log off from social media. It's difficult, but then you'll get used to it. Make a vow to sit online no more than a quarter of an hour a day. Time it with a stopwatch. A social network is an ersatz, a surrogate for real life and real communication, just like a rubber woman.
- Set a goal to find a loved one. Let it be by trial and error.
- Errors and failures in such a search are normal, and not at all a disaster. This search is similar to gold mining - to find a nugget, you need to dig through tons of rock with hard work.
- Forget about the imaginary ideal. This is nothing more than fantasy. Someone you didn’t even think about, someone you didn’t like at first glance may become close. It can reveal itself from a completely different side. But the main thing is that you yourself can open up with her in ways you didn’t even suspect. This also applies to intimate moments. Experts have long discovered that sexual attraction is based on a genetic nature with an odor signaling system. That is, a man loves not with his eyes, but with his nose. A woman, however, too: not with her ears, but with the same olfactory receptors. There are special studies on this topic. So, as the famous saying goes, don’t drink water off your face. With a conventionally ugly woman you can find yourself in seventh heaven; with a beautiful woman (again, conventionally) you can go through all the circles of incompatibility.
- Assess your strengths and weaknesses, and learn to be ironic about the latter out loud. This will show you in a favorable light, and it will become much easier for yourself.
- Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses again. Make a list of those that can be developed or eliminated accordingly. And start immediately to the best of your physical and financial capabilities. There is nowhere to go any further.
Act as if...
The words we choose significantly influence our sense of self, our approach to many things, and the outcome of our actions. The more often you say “I want...” or “I need...”, the less likely you are to get what you want. Instead, act as if everything has already happened and you are reaping the benefits. Replace “I would like to be successful” with “I am successful” and “I would like to have a job that I like” with “I have a great job” and behave accordingly. You will immediately notice dramatic changes in your attitude towards the world. This inner mindset is much more likely to lead you to success.
I am confident in the effectiveness of this technique, because I myself was forced to look for a full-time job when I was already over fifty, and everything worked out. Now I have to do it again. A harmful inner voice whispers: “I’m too old, no one will hire me.” I understand that such prophecies turn into a disaster, so I consciously changed my internal attitude to “Now I bring a lot of benefit to my clients. I am calm about my abilities, confident in them, I have significant valuable experience behind me.”
However, sitting at home, doing positive auto-training, reading “The Secret” and eating crumpets, I’m unlikely to find a job. To do this, I have to shake up my connections and send out a resume with a compelling cover letter. Now I approach this task with confidence and act as if...
If you can’t act on the “as if…” principle, try rephrasing the problems in a positive, pragmatic way, look at them as problems for which you simply need to find solutions.
- It was: “I can’t afford this.” It became: “How can I make it so that I can afford it?”
- It was: “I can’t.” It became: “How can I do it?”
- It was: “I find this difficult.” It became: “I’m working in this direction.”
- It was, “I should have.” It became: “I will do it.”
In general, the idea is clear.
How a Gap Turns into a Breakthrough
If you're going through a painful breakup right now and are trying to take off on a solo flight, remember that happiness is just around the corner. It is around the very corner where you will find yourself immediately after saying goodbye to the past.
It must be said that almost always the end of a relationship is replaced by something new. But this is wonderful! Events go “joint to joint”: one ended, the other immediately began. Doors open that previously could not be opened because the past blocks them and does not allow them to open.
Pain shakes you up and makes you wake up. Thanks to this, we begin to realize that today we deserve more than what we had yesterday.
The heart will not remain broken forever. A new start awaits you. Right now, at this very moment, you are face to face with something incredible and unexpected. Accept it, open your arms to him. And you will see how old wounds heal, wisdom is acquired through painful experience - your main treasure, found on the difficult path of life.
