Feeling lonely is caused by isolation and a disconnection from the person or people you feel connected. Plus, it is a feeling of sadness that can lead all the way to depression. You can feel lonely while surrounded by other people who mean nothing to you.
I remember once, when I was aged 17, I was stuck in Australia’s largest city – Sydney for one day. I was waiting for my flight out, and decided to visit some of the tourist hotspots scattered around the city by myself.
I realised I felt something alien to me – it was loneliness. Here I was in a city filled with millions of people and I was lonely. I started talking to an American couple who were also visiting a tourist spot. They quickly turned away. I felt so rejected.
The whole experience was surreal to me at that time. Some people feel loneliness like that all the time, even when with their friends and family. They feel a disconnect.
“Lonely people build walls, not bridges”
We all value loneliness from time to time. Some enjoy the feelings of isolation, and peaceful solitude. I have observed that having grown up in a rural environment with only my immediate family around me, I am happy in my solitude, and can imagine myself being contented in a world with no other people, in truth that may not be true. If I was totally alone, I would eventually go mad. I only need think of hapless Ben Gunn in the Robert Louis Stevenson story of Treasure Island.
I have friends who seem to need to have other people around them almost all the time – otherwise they slip into depression quickly. They need social interaction. They need to hear sounds in the background.
I had been living in suburban Melbourne for years. Although I was in a beachside suburb there were millions of people around me. I actually felt a little vulnerable to think what might happen if the social fabric were to break down in a pandemic or worse.
I decided to make the move back to the country, establish a vegetable garden and catch fish in the river – a back to my roots ‘sea change’. I found an old farmhouse to rent for just $10 a week located on 50 acres. The King River flowed along one boundary and there was plenty of work available on vineyards in the valley.
Two friends, who came from rural backgrounds moved with me. The nearest neighbours houses were out of sight. After work we would swim in the river naked. Unspoiled nature surrounded us. We joined two different meditation groups. It was bliss.
A friend came up from Melbourne to stay for the weekend. First thing on Saturday morning he was packing his bags to go home. Why go home so soon? He said the deafening silence kept him awake all night. He had to get back to the unrelentless noise of the city.
Later I married and we bought a farm in the same vicinity. My wife had a friend come to stay from Melbourne. The same thing happened. She acknowledged the beauty of the valley yet felt uneasy and unsafe in our isolation.
Some people prefer rural isolation, they do not feel lonely. Others feel uneasy, unsafe and vulnerable in the country – and feel a need to get back to the city as fast as possible.
Synonyms of the word lonely include; alone, lone, lonesome, single, solitary, solo, unaccompanied, unattended, unchaperoned, forlorn, friendless, cloistered, disassociated, hermetic (also hermetical), insulated, isolate, isolated, remote, retired, secluded, withdrawn, quarantined, segregated, separated, sequestered, separate, unattached, unconnected, unlinked, detached, disconnected, disjointed, dissociated, disunited, divided, fractionated, abandoned, adrift, deserted, desolate, forgotten, forsaken, lorn, neglected
Some reasons you might feel lonely or isolated.
- Losing a loved one or friend through separation.
- Lack of close family ties
- Living alone with access difficulties
- Introverted personalities
- Feeling like you don’t belong
- Feelings loss and grief
- Poor physical health, frailty and mobility issues
- Depression or anxiety
- Irrational fears and phobias
- Fear of rejection or feelings of being ‘different’
- Starting out in a new community
- Lack of purpose or meaning in life
- Language or cultural barriers
- Geographic isolation and distance
- Feeling lost in a crowd
Perhaps the first step in overcoming your own feelings of loneliness is to identify the reasons for your feelings. Having done that, you can avoid those triggers, if you can.
Loneliness is usually empowered by feelings of unhappiness, so one effective way to avoid feeling lonely is to avoid feeling sadness. Other people’s feelings of loneliness are also influenced by their self-esteem, self-worth, fears, and confidence issues. Perhaps they are wandering through life without any sense of purpose? Identify what the issues are for you and do something about it. Take control of your life – for the better.
Free From Feeling Lonely; The solution.
- Challenge yourself to escape the loneliness vortex by taking small steps, such as chatting to sales staff at retail stores.
- Get out and about. Go to a park (and share a bench seat), the mall (and chat with sales assistants). Go to a café (and share a table).
- Get a pet or offer to take care of someone else’s pet. (It is amazing how many people will stop and chat with someone who is walking a dog. You should try it).
- Accept every invitation which might pull you out of the loneliness spiral.
- Listen to your favorite music. Sing out loud.
- Sign-up for a course of study that interests you.
- Write a journal. Write poetry. Write a book.
- Get into a craft or creative endeavor such as art.
- Join a sporting club.
- Challenge yourself to learn a musical instrument or a new language.
- Volunteer to help others.
- You can use technology, including social media to maintain a connection with your loved ones, the people you feel most connected.
- You can build new bridges to people who until now you had no connection.
- You can join social, sporting, religious, political, or ideological clubs and groups who share similar interests to you, thereby connecting with individuals to whom you are attracted.
- You can contact a helpline in your area to talk to a support worker about how you feel.
- Be proactive in your own life. Refuse playing the victim. (Actor Gavin MacLeod always played ‘the victim’ role in TV. He described his character on McHale’s Navy with Ernest Borgnine as a character with only “two lines a week” and was sometimes simply used as a prop: “Sometimes they’d have me stand there. They’d shoot on a back lot, and they’d use me to cover something they didn’t want anybody to see on the back lot.” So he quit the show. Then he won the role of ship’s captain Merrill Stubing on the hit TV series The Love Boat. He then became the confident and dependable hero.
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Love Boat Captain Merrill Stubing - He never looked back. His work on that show earned him three Golden Globe nominations. MacLeod became the global ambassador for Princess Cruises in 1986. He played a role in ceremonies launching many of the line’s new ships.)
- Take control of your life – for the better.
You can listen to the Welcome Life Free From Feeling Lonely subliminal affirmations and Prime Hypnosis to influence your deep unconscious mind to find solutions that work for your unique situation.
“If you don’t look out for others, who will look out for you?
“Above all else, be yourself. Be original, even if you are different.”
Woopie Goldberg
There is one simple thing you can do right now to create changes in your future. Download and start listening to the Welcome Life Free From Feeling Lonely MP3 before you do anything else.