We have all heard it said that we humans are not an Island and that in order to thrive emotionally we need the love and support of others. Research also confirms that babies and children don’t flourish if they don’t have warmth and love and are physically close or attached to at least one significant person ( John Bowlby,1998) Conversely, there is a great deal written, especially in Eastern teachings explaining the value of knowing how to be alone with ourselves and comfortable with our own company. Perhaps both are true in their own way. Perhaps the monk who sits alone on a mountain has trained and adjusted his mind so well that for him being alone to meditate is perfectly fine. He may not feel lonely because it may not be his perception that he is lonely; he is simply alone out of choice in order to meditate.
Could it then be a matter of perception, of conditioning, or of the meaning we give to situations that will dictate how we feel? What are the essential ingredients that give us the feeling of peace in our lives? Would changing our perception, belief system and meaning we give to these situations resolve the problem? We will explore this question soon.
Are being alone and being lonely two different things? Apparently yes they are. We can be in a room full of people and feel lonely, we can also be alone on a mountain and happy with our own company. I myself have experienced both so I know it’s true, at least for me and at least sometimes..
What does either mean for any one of us individually at any given time in our life? How come it is possible to be alone, reading a book, walking about, on a mountain listening to music or just hanging out, and yet feel fine and at peace with ourselves at one time of our life, yet at another it might feel very different indeed?
How come we can be in a room full of people, sitting in a room with our partner or friends, be at work with our colleagues, not alone, and yet feel extremely lonely?
Perhaps one of the answers is related to what our particular emotional needs are at any particular time in our life as well as our particular situation at any given time in our life. Maybe it is down to just this, we have different needs at different times. Life is not static neither are our emotions or our needs, all are ever changing and we adjust according to our needs of that moment. Sometimes we need one thing, sometimes something else.
We might feel alone with friends if we feel that at that particular moment we don’t connect, aren’t communication with each other, aren’t sharing the same interests and don’t relate to the same feelings. Is it that we then start to feel distanced and alone even in their company? The same might be said within a relationship where two people are no longer communicating and cannot connect, so feel alone.
I can understand that if we are alone we might feel lonely when we crave company or intimacy that never comes our way. Most of us have emotional needs after all. When those needs repeatedly don’t get met and the situation goes on for months or years, then yes, it’s very possible to feel great loneliness.
If our individual essential emotional needs are not met and we feel empty and lonely, these are not perhaps the right conditions for feelings of well-being. Perhaps the monk is filled up because his needs are met. They may not be our needs, but if they are his and they get met, he is going to be quite fine, even if we would not in a similar situation. We are all individuals with different needs at different times. One person can experience being alone well, while another experiences it badly and in a detrimental way to him/herself.
Perhaps it is also a matter of general well-being where a person will feel fine alone when they have the right support system surrounding them on a stable basis?
Perhaps it’s to do with life experiences where a person may have found themselves in a situation of loneliness too many times and where the memories are too painful, so when it happens again all the past experience and feelings come flooding back evoking negative thoughts and feelings?
Clearly it is not black and white and what will affect one person at a particular moment in their life many not affect them in the same way at another time and in a different situation. Not only does loneliness not affect everyone in the same way, it does not affect one person in the same way all the time, it greatly depends on what else is in place in terms of love, support sense of belonging etc at any moment in time, which will vary from day to day, week to week, and year to year. It is that individual.
If the above is the case and prediction of the future is unreliable, do we as individuals want to have some sort of safety net in place to protect us from falling pray to the emotions experienced when and if loneliness hits suddenly, or not suddenly. It would be nice to think we have the right tools to deal with all the difficult emotions involved for now as well as the future.
It is clear that the problem we are addressing here is far from black and white. Everyone has different needs they want met at different times. People strive in different ways to get their own needs met, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. Understanding why our specific needs are as they are would be helpful, because perhaps it would then be possible to adjust them when the situation dictates a need to adjust. There are clearly many factors involved as well as many different situations, none of which have clear cut rules.
There is the illusion that being with people is supposed to guarantee we don’t feel lonely, why should we feel lonely if we are not alone? Yet it doesn’t seem to work like that. Why, when in company can we feel lonely when we are buffered by other people? Why do people report feeling fine being alone and not lonely? It is not black and white, but clearly it is possible to feel fine when we are alone and also not feel fine when we are with people. Neither has a guarantee one way or the other.
What is it about then, and how do we find out the big secret and the big answer to this mystery.
For those who suffer from loneliness and become depressed as a result, could it be possible to learn to manage the feelings involved and attached to the situation in a better and more productive way so that the suffering will be wiped out? Yes, you’d hope so, as that would be a very important and significant solution and a solution well worth striving for.
If it is possible to be alone and to feel fine about it, and if it is possible for others, it should be possible for the rest of us. To some extent it’s a matter of learning how and what needs to happen to bring about the necessary change.
For me one big question is: What is it that those who are fine when they are alone have, what do they have in place in their lives that makes it fine? Is it simply about state of mind and ensuring their state of mind accommodates being alone, and accommodates it well? Is it about having the right support system in place which buffers emotions in difficult times, whether that support system is family, partner, friends, colleagues or outside support that is there solidly? Is it about having emotional needs met in those times when needs are great? If it is all of the above, then how do we go about ensuring each is in place for us in our own lives so that we are strong enough to withstand a difficult situation when it arises?
The truth is that only you or me or whoever is experiencing feeling very alone or feeling depressed can know the feelings attached to that experience. It is so individual, so private, and therefore no one person can tell another how they feel or what they should feel, or that what they are feeling or thinking is wrong or what to do about it. It simply doesn’t work like that.
What possibly is true is that yes our feelings and emotions belong to us and no one else is experiencing them, so no one has the right to judge or criticize us because no other person knows exactly how we are feeling. However, it is possible that we are so programmed or conditioned to see the world in a certain way, to experience our feelings in a certain way, that both just kick in, invade us without warning, unconsciously and we just go along with it because we always do, always did and always will unless we stop it here.
Perhaps this is the very place to learn something new. Perhaps it is possible to break away from old habits of coping and not coping and learn how to find support systems, how to ask for help, how to go to family, how to adjust our own thinking and perceptions. There are many steps we can take in order to bring about change in our lives and this definitely includes the experience of loneliness. We can all change it if we are not passive and are really determined for change to happen, it can and will.
As I have said many times in different places on this site, there are things we can control and things we can’t. Luckily, one of the things we can control is our own ability to change the way we think, feel and behave. We can be completely instrumental in this. We may not have control of external factors, but as long as we have control of the internal stuff there is no reason to give up. We can be in control of what we think and feel. If we don’t allow ourselves to be controlled by negative thoughts, we won’t be which will reflect in the way we feel.
What I am talking about is not, not having your feelings validated, of course not, what I am saying is to allow yourself to take a second look at these feelings, thoughts and perceptions, examine them very closely to see whether it is actually possible to update them, challenge and change them in a way that will open up the possibility to bring about positive and effective change for yourself and your life. This is my very important point. Yes your experience and feelings are absolutely valid, but if they bring about misery to your life, then taking a fresh look at how you can go about effectively challenging and changing them can only be a good move that will contribute to new emotional well-being.
If you don’t like the way you feel, the very least that is possible is to try to change it. That is the very least you owe yourself. Because you have thought or felt in a certain way for a long time doesn’t necessarily mean these thoughts and feelings can’t be changed. They can if you want it enough.
It would seem that our own unique experience of loneliness has its reasons as well as the emotions accompanying the situation.
Two people might be in the same place, experiencing the same thing, but the experience will be completely different for each, uniquely different for each. How come? How come I can be lying on a beach somewhere alone, listening to music, getting a suntan and feeling fine, enjoying every moment of my peaceful world I have escaped to, while next to me is another person who is feeling the exact opposite? This other person hates being alone on the beach and watching all the other couples and families enjoying their day together. He or she finds the situation unbearable because the loneliness he/she feels brings about emotional pain which is difficult to cope with, so they leave and go home to even more loneliness; and on and on…..
Why could I love the peace, the sun, the sea and the other person could not get pleasure from a potentially wonderful experience of being by the sea? How and why can two people experience this so differently?
Why? Surely being alone is being alone? Being with people is being with people? Being by the sea is being by the sea? Well obviously not. So if it is not about the external situation being the problem, then what is responsible and where does the answer lie if there is one? If it is not external then maybe it is internal and to do with our emotional or psychological state, our expectations and perception of the situation? Yes, exactly so.. this is the core of the matter.
We have established that we all have different needs at different time and maybe it is just this. My needs are one thing at one time and something else at another time. In any event I want my emotional needs met because it’s painful when they are not.
If the feelings are due to our particular internal emotional or psychological state at the time, would changing those states then change the way we perceive the situation and could this then help us to feel better about the situation? Could it be that changing our particular expectations or perceptions of the situation would also contribute to better feelings of well-being? Most certainly yes! It’s all about our internal state.
Is an emotional or psychological state static and unchangeable? No as we all experience a hundred times a day, we are changing constantly. Our emotions can constantly change at the flick of a switch and many of us jump from thought to thought like a frog jumping from leaf to leaf, never stopping long enough to enquire as to the validity of our thinking, we jump around, here, there, all over the place.
Do we even have time to catch up with ourselves sometimes? As we have learned along the way much of our thinking can be reactive, automatic and conditioned. Not all of the highest quality. We need quality conscious thinking to think well. A lot of us don’t have it unless we are trained to. Here hopefully you are getting the much needed training.
As you have learned from other articles and perhaps some of the videos, you may not be able to control what is external to you, but you can control and change what is internal, meaning you have the capacity to change how you think and feel if you know it and learn how to do it and train your mind to do it.
If for example it is to do with the meaning we give to a particular situation or experiences (internal and our choice) does it mean that changing the meaning we attach to a situation will resolve the problem? Yes very possibly.
Is it to do with conscious awareness and conditioning where, if we are used to feeling a certain way in a certain situation, then we expect to feel the same each time a similar situation rears its head? Yes very possibly.
If we were to check out our consciousness level or our state of conditioning would we find that we react negatively because we are used to reacting in a certain way to a certain situation? Yes very possibly.
If we change this internal state, would this be enough for us to then consciously ensure we monitor and change our negative state when necessary? Yes very possibly.
In another article I wrote about a personal experience when my father died where my brother and myself had attached completely different meanings to our experience. I of course am not him and he is not me, and we are both equally entitled to our very legitimate feelings. Nevertheless it demonstrated to me that the meaning we gave to our father’s death profoundly affected how we dealt with it, how we felt, how at peace we were and ultimately how we lived with it. For each of us the experience had been different, so it is with life and most aspects of life, the way we perceive the situation will dictate to a lesser or greater extent how we feel and manage the situation.
Could it be then that our personal perception is the key? Or, the meaning we give to the situation which is really the same as perception is the answer? Yes, very possibly. Is our internal state responsible for how we feel and see the world? Most definitely a big YES; most definitely.
How much are we affected emotionally or psychologically by our individual perceptions, our own meanings we give to being alone or lonely? If we were to change the way we think and perceive being alone could we then have a better quality of life free from depression and suffering? Yes, very possibly.
In fact, dealing with both the internal and external state is almost the complete solution. I believe that many of us (and I include me from my past life) believed that by changing the external, we were dealing with the problem. This is not so. Even more important is dealing with the internal self and this is the place to begin. External is the plaster, internal is the solution.
Why is it necessary for so many people to suffer from both loneliness and the depression that accompanies it so often? Is it necessary or is there something we can do about it? So far many questions but few solutions yet!!
Here and now for most people, we can do something about the way we feel and the situation we are in if we try hard and seriously enough. We do have the ability and capacity to take control, to ask the right questions and to hopefully help ourselves. If we have the ability, we have a valuable tool to use wisely. It is important to use every tool available to us in order to help ourselves, it is our responsibility and within our control.
I believe that once we learn what we need to do, we can set about doing it. What that”something” is undoubtedly changing our internal state, training it and by so doing changing out internal and external state. This is the start and finish of it all.
In the next article I will attempt to address some of my own questions and look to see whether there are solutions that work and if so, what are they?
See you then
Carole