Understanding and Breaking Free from Loneliness
You can be surrounded by people and loved ones, yet still feel lonely, if you choose to.
Learn to be at one with yourself and at peace in your own company.
If you are experiencing loneliness, know that it will pass. If you want to be entirely free from it, know that it is entirely possible.
We have all experienced loneliness at times and dealt with it in our own way. Then it returns and we have to cope with it again and again, experiencing pain and even despair. What we learn is only a survival strategy and not an understanding. In order to be free from loneliness, we have to understand what it is.
So what does this emotion evoke?
- Being alone in the world, unwanted, un-cared for, worthless or unworthy of the love of another.
- Missing another or the absence of others;
- Sometimes it is a sense of loss and betrayal. A loved one has left or passed away, or acted in an unloving manner.
- Abandonment, unfairness, self-pity and all of it is based on fear.
Loneliness immediately after bereavement or break-up is natural and human. For most of us there is a process to go through and no one can tell us how to do it. Emotions flow and change in an unpredictable and confusing manner. It takes time to accept our loss and the reality of it; to adjust and to fill the void; to once again embrace our own life and begin to live it.
What we feel is hurt, pain, sadness and anger. This can sometimes manifest even in the physical. This comes from anxiety through fear of the unknown and lack of self-belief. All of this arises when we loose connection with our Higher Self, our true essence of love, the Devine, or who we truly are and when we give too much of ourselves to another or others.
We all want to love and be loved.
Firstly, it is about the Self. We are taught to put others first and ourselves last. To put ourselves first is judged to be selfish and bad. Well, it’s not! How can we give love to others if we have none for ourselves? We end up running on empty as we have given ourselves away. Loving yourself is not only good, it is essential. It can also appear difficult, especially after a lifetime of not doing so. We all experience this uniquely and there is no right or wrong way. It is also not a race, so it takes as long as it takes. The more we connect to our hearts and the more we are able to open them to ourselves, the quicker we can fill with love. Eventually we can have so much love that we emanate love back into the Universe. This is the time to be able to offer real love to others without diminishing ourselves.
Secondly, when we have self-love we gain self-esteem and value ourselves with love and honour. As this grows we come to understand that we don’t need anyone else in order to be happy. Our condition is no longer determined by others. This is not isolating, nor hiding. It is letting go of the need for others. Need should not be confused with love. True love is free of need. We are enough.
In this state of self-love and freedom from need, we come to realise that there is no place for the fear of loneliness. We are complete in ourselves. We can now become aware of our original state of Aloneness in the Universe having separated from the Source for this incarnation. Aloneness is the realisation of our uniqueness and the full experience of being in a body on a planet. This is what we chose to do and when we are done we will return Home.
Much of our 'suffering' is due to our confusion as to what love is, having never really experienced it, even from our parents. What we received from them was called love but may not bear comparison with pure original love as it is meant to be expressed. An article on Love will follow.