Loneliness is a common feeling of being on your own and without the emotional and spiritual support you need from others. Feeing lonely or alone can result from life situations or your perspective on life and yourself. Here are some tips to shape how you see your loneliness.
- Know that Loneliness is a State of Mind, Not a Life Sentence
Realize that loneliness is normal and accepting the fact that you can’t feel love and fulfilled all the time, can make periods of loneliness more tolerable. Sometimes just being by yourself can be relaxing and a time to recharge.
- Learn How to Like Yourself
It is usual for people who dislike themselves to wrongly imagine that other people will also dislike them. Expecting to be disliked and rejected, they tend to withdraw from people, thus perpetuating their loneliness.
Work to break the bondage of chronic loneliness by remembering your worth is not found in the perception of others or in what you do or accomplish.
- Avoid Dependency on Another Human for Your Own Happiness
To put responsibility for your happiness in someone else’s hand is a scary thought, unless that person happens to be always available, never fails, never changing yet never boring, all-wise, all-powerful, immortal, and is always unselfishly devoted to maximizing your long-term happiness. People, not matter how well intentioned and loving they are, can disappoint and fail to meet our every need.
Much of the pain of loneliness is nothing more than pining for things that we don’t have or will never have from the people around us. It’s hard to accept some things we have always craved that we will probably never have.
- Exercise & Take Care of Yourself
A good, brisk walk several times a week can be surprisingly effective in picking up your spirits and making your world a whole lot brighter. It produces chemicals in the body which are natural antidepressants
- Fake It Until You Make It
No matter how unhappy you are, the very act of smiling triggers the brain to release chemicals that make you feel better. A smile also brightens your face, improving your looks better than almost any makeover. Moreover, smiling is a magnet that attracts people to you.
People instinctively sidestep a person whose unsmiling face suggests he or she might be grumpy or angry or preoccupied. It makes them wary, heightening their own fear of rejection.
- Maximize the Advantages of Solitude
Make the time alone your solitude time to exercise your spiritual disciplines and as devotional or meditation time spent thinking about things beyond your physical conditions, needs and life situations. We all have a need to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.
- Avoid the “Poor me” Syndrome
It is alright to feel lonely. We were made with a need for human companionship. Use your loneliness as a motivation to get out of yourself, be with others and do things for others.
- Focus on Giving, not Receiving
In our desperation to fill the emptiness inside us we can fall into the hole of subconsciously becoming obsessed with our needs and discounting the needs of those around us. Try to be a person of deep compassion.
We reap what we sow. So seek to give to others what you would like someone special to give to you. It is in giving that you receive.
- Don’t Give in to Desperation
It is terrifyingly easy to sell your soul in a crazed attempt to find a quick fix for loneliness. Your actions decide whether loneliness leads to honor or shame. To become entangled in unwise relationships is to sentence oneself to life-long regret. Not only is loneliness a test of character, it is a challenge in which there could be no higher stakes.
Act in haste and you could move from temporary loneliness to permanent remorse. Take time, and be led toward relationships that will be meaningful, fulfilling and productive.
- Turn Being Alone into a Blessing
See your time alone differently as an opportunity to grow as a person.
