The Nature of Loneliness
Let’s reflect for a moment on the nature of loneliness. Like all of our emotions, loneliness is merely a signal from deep inside our body and mind that tells us we have an unmet need. Loneliness is not bad; it is simply an emotional state that warns us when we are not connected enough to be both safe and fulfilled as a human being. When the loneliness signal arises within us, we are supposed to become motivated by it to reach out for personal connection and support.
We should never fear loneliness, or for that matter, any of our other emotions. Emotions are all generated naturally and automatically by our subconscious whenever we have unmet needs. Emotions are powerful, internal messages that stimulate both our awareness of our problems and the motivation to make choices and take actions to resolve them. The stronger we feel any emotion, the greater is the unmet need we are experiencing, and the more motivated we usually are to seek some interpersonal support. Just as we have learned to trust our many physical signals that warn us when we are hungry, tired, thirsty, etc., we should also have learned to welcome our emotional signals that tell us when we are afraid, sad, angry, or lonely.
Unfortunately, most humans have learned instead to fear and to avoid the emotions that cause them some discomfort, such as fear, anger, shame, and sadness. We tend to think of these as “negative” emotions in that they produce an unpleasant stress state within us when they occur. By contrast, we seek to experience the “positive” emotions of love, joy, and hope because these emotions are pleasurable when they occur. The reality is that all of our emotions are a “gift” to us whether they feel good or not.
Just as the pain of a cut or sore tells us that a physical problem has occurred and warns us to treat and/or be protective of the wound until it heals, so do the emotional wounds we experience require us to deal therapeutically with them. When we feel the emotions of loneliness, we are supposed to listen to them and to begin treating each of them directly and appropriately so that they can heal. Loneliness is a difficult emotional state to deal with because it is actually composed of a combination of emotions. Let’s examine separately the various emotions that may combine to produce the emotional state we call “loneliness.”
The Four Emotional Components of Loneliness
FEARFear is a primary component of loneliness. Fear is an emotion that arises automatically in us whenever we, consciously or subconsciously, recognize that we aren’t in control of our situation. Thus, if a large dog suddenly charged at us growling and snarling, a strong sense of fear would instantly sweep over our entire body. We would not have to stop and think about whether to be afraid or not, it would happen automatically as soon as any level of our consciousness realized we were being threatened.
Spontaneously, our body would release a flood of chemicals that trigger immediate physical changes that prepare us to deal with the threat. Our blood pressure and heart rate would rise sharply, our eyes and ears would focus intently on the menace, our blood would shift rapidly from our internal organs to our brain, and arms, and legs so we could run or fight (fight or flight) to protect ourselves. All these physical changes would occur instantly, and we would experience them as a stressful energy state.
Some of these same processes also happen when we experience the complex emotions of loneliness. The source of our fear response in the loneliness situation is related to the conscious (or subconscious) recognition that we are not receiving an adequate level of support from our environment. That is: 1) we don’t know where we can fit in, in our society; 2) we don’t where and how to ask for some kind of help from society; or3) we don’t know how or where to connect with people who need us. Humans are extremely sensitive to the absence of these kinds of support in their lives because, at a very primal level, they know they cannot find happiness or, ultimately, survive without them.
There is a difference, however, between the type of fear we feel when an aggressive dog attacks us and the fear we experience with loneliness. The dog situation can be an immediate threat to our survival and our body/mind automatically senses this and produces an intense, crisis level fear response to deal it.
On the other hand, our body/mind also recognizes that our loneliness is not a crisis situation and, therefore, signals us with lesser fear signals, such as chronic anxiety or a vague, low-grade stress response. Mature people generally learn to trust and “listen to” the intensity of their fear responses as dependable guides to adapting appropriately to threatening situations. (We will discuss later in this article how to deal with this type of low-level fear response, but first, let’s analyze the other emotions that may also be present in our state of loneliness.)
SHAMEShame is likely to be another part of a individual’s loneliness. Shame rises in us automatically when any level of our consciousnesses comes to believe that our loneliness may be due to some inadequacy or flaw in our character, that we may not “deserve” the love and support of society. This is a common belief system among groups that have been subjected to discrimination and among abuse survivors who have been raised with a “victim” mentality.
Again, shame is usually not a crisis emotion, but rather, one that builds incrementally over time. Shame often operates as a chronic stress state just below conscious awareness, which means many people aren’t cognitively aware that they are carrying a heavy emotional “shame burden” into all of their relationships. However, individuals can be trained to “probe” the emotional content of their loneliness to see if shame is part of their suffering. If it is, then, individuals can be trained to process and resolve their shame in mature ways.
ANGERYet another emotional component of loneliness may be anger. Anger spontaneously arises within us whenever we sense that we are being denied our fair share of social support. Human beings—especially small kids—have an intuitive sense of “fair play” that guides their social interactions unless their environment strongly rewards antisocial behavior, as is often the case in our modern society. Conducting interpersonal relationships in a just and equitable manner assures that all members of a society can get their needs met to the maximum degree possible, and that, in turn, promotes the maximum survival of the entire group. Unfortunately, this skill is often lost in this modern era of commercialism, elitism, and exploitation.
The mass media daily publicizes horror stories about commercial profiteering and political corruption that, ultimately, cause many people to mistrust their business and political leaders. Many average citizens believe their leaders are not protecting their basic social and safety interests, and do not feel united or connected enough to influence the causes of equity and justice in their communities.
Inevitably, these situations produce a pervasive, low-grade resentment (anger) that permeates large segments of society and transforms loneliness from a personal problem to a community-wide or national social problem. Most people who join adolescent gangs, cults, paramilitary or hate groups are experiencing this kind of cultural disillusionment because they are feeling vulnerable and unsupported in their daily lives. This type of low-grade resentment can be resolved when people unite through community-based social activities (voting, class-action suits, protest marches, etc.) to promote greater accountability and responsibility from our leaders in commerce, politics, and the mass media.
The anger associated with perceived “nonsupport” in one’s personal relationships is often difficult to resolve and must be dealt with through learning adult basic coping skills such as intimacy and discipline. Training in these types of personal skills can be very hard to obtain in our modern society. (Go to Services Offered and click on Class Schedule to see classes that address these issues.)
SADNESSThe final emotional component of loneliness that we would like to discuss here is sadness. Sadness spontaneously arises within us whenever we are experiencing the loss of something we value. Like all of our emotions, our sadness can range in intensity from “mild to massive,” and it can operate at both the conscious and subconscious levels of our awareness. Thus, we may feel mild disappointment when a rock puts a slight ding in our new car, or we may feel immense grief when we lose someone whom we love dearly.
Likewise, we may be aware that our “bad mood” tonight is the result of our poor play at the card table this afternoon, or we may drift in a prolonged state of quiet desperation over the “loss of our youth” without realizing consciously that this is happening. We may also feel sadness at our inability to participate in sports, or other physical activities, because of a disability. It’s not uncommon for pet owners to feel a great loss and sadness at the death of their pet. Some individuals feel “real” sadness when fall is about to become another cold harsh winter.
The most important thing to recognize about sadness and its relationship to loneliness is that we humans experience an enormous range of losses in our lives. Every day brings multiple losses—big and small—and all of these losses take a toll on our sense of well-being. If we have not developed adult basic coping skills for managing and resolving these losses, we can eventually find ourselves in a state of chronic depression, caused by the mass of grief we have accumulated. (Improving Adult Basic Coping Skills class.)
All individuals must be trained to recognize and “process” their losses on a daily basis for good mental health. This means learning to be aware of the waves of sadness that sweep over us with each loss, and also, learning to discharge that sadness in constructive, growth-oriented ways. We can build “grief muscles” to handle emotional losses in ways similar to our development of our physical muscles—through regular practice of certain skills and behaviors. We have a never-ending stream of disappointments and losses coming our way in life, including the greatest loss of all—our own death. Learning grief management skills is a powerful way to prevent loneliness. (Grieving Our Losses class)
Indeed, sadness and loneliness can never be entirely eliminated from our lives. When they occur, however, they should operate as a signal that we have some unmet needs and motivate us to change our behaviors in ways to meet those needs. Ironically, it is at this point that many people begin making very self-destructive choices to deal with their feelings of loneliness.
Destructive Management of Loneliness
As we mentioned earlier, all of the emotions associated with loneliness—anger, fear, shame, and sadness—create an uncomfortable stress state within us. This stress ranges in intensity from mild to massive depending upon the extent and duration of our isolation from social and emotional support. Unfortunately, the response many people have to their stress is to try to avoid their discomfort rather than to question why it is happening. In fact, the fear of being lonely can actually cause more discomfort and more poor choices than the loneliness itself. It can become a whole new layer of stress added on top of the original suffering.
Let’s look at some of the destructive patterns people adopt to avoid dealing with their loneliness. Some choose to use alcohol or drugs to numb their emotional stress and their cognitive awareness of the emptiness in their lives. This choice, of course, provides temporary, short-term relief from all three of their loneliness problems. 1) They can easily achieve group affiliation with other drug users; 2) In their stupor, they “feel no pain” so they don’t need to ask anyone for help; and 3) The co-dependent relationships they establish while abusing substances satisfy their “need to be needed.” The long-term consequences of this choice, however, are that they poison their mind and body, they lose touch with reality and trustworthy relationships, they must endlessly repeat their self-destructive behaviors to keep their pain away, and their burden of shame increases with each episode of abuse.
Some people handle their loneliness emotions with other destructive patterns such as “compulsive” shopping, eating, sexual affairs, gambling, smoking/vaping, etc. These patterns are usually not true compulsions by mental health standards, but they are repetitive coping behaviors that provide individuals with short-term gratification and distraction from their loneliness. Like substance abuse, these repetitive patterns all have long-term, negative consequences and never generate the intimacy and emotional support these individuals really need.
Some of the most common patterns of “escape from loneliness” in our society are excessively being on social media sites, playing computer games and watching television, movies, and sports activities. Being a passive participant in social media, video games, fictional dramas, and sports entertainment is, of course, a source of relaxation and stimulation in small doses. However, when individuals commit large amounts of their time, energy, and resources to these activities, it means they are not connecting to their real needs or relationships. It also means they are not making their own creative contribution to the world, but rather, are living vicariously through the efforts of other people.
Yet another destructive means of coping with the loneliness and disconnectedness of modern society is to join into the fads and media gimmicks that are generated through various advertising and “pseudo-news” promotions. Take, for example, the once popular “beanie-babies” craze in which many people bought stuffed toys for toddlers under the illusion that they are making some kind of a financial investment. Beanie Baby dolls have no real utility for adults, so the only persons who benefit from mindless fads like these are the commercial interests who promote them, and then, laugh all the way to the bank with their profits. These businesses are exploiting the “herd instinct” of people who are seeking some kind of purpose and social participation in their lives. Such needy people aren’t getting much of either for their money.
Another current media promotion that exploits the social neediness of our modern society is the voyeuristic “reality” shows in which the players allow themselves to be manipulated into bizarre, pseudo-intimate situations while being videotaped by camera crews. Large segments of the American public consistently watch these shows and strongly identify with their characters and plot even though they are so blatantly contrived and unreal. Witness the Survivor series that portrays a group of men and women supposedly “struggling to survive” on a tropical island. In actuality, they are surrounded by multiple camera crews and media staff who assign them competitive “tasks” to add artificial drama and conflict for TV audiences. The only thing “castaway” about this program is the American public’s common sense. Why do people allow themselves to be manipulated in these ways? There are many reasons, but primarily, they have not built “a life of their own.” They lack either the skills or commitment to create meaningfulness in their lives. They drift aimlessly and react mindlessly to the nearest and noisiest stimuli around them. In this vacuum, the mass media rush to fill the void with trivia and consumerism.
There are individuals who feel alone even at social events or in large crowds. They go to social events, such as cocktail parties, beer or wine parties, concerts, ballet, the rodeo, drag racing, even church, to escape their feelings of loneliness, and discover that their feelings of loneliness have deepened rather than lessened. The pain of loneliness is so strong, all they want to do now is run and hide.
Yet another management style for loneliness, and probably the most common of all, is just staying very “busy.” Many people avoid the awareness of their loneliness by cramming every possible activity into their daily lives. In this manner, they are able to distract themselves from their emotional isolation and to convince themselves they are being productive. Still, late at night or in their few quiet moments, they often wonder if their lives really matter.
This is particularly true for people who live alone and for people who are in “no-growth” jobs. They have nagging doubts that anyone really needs them, and they often yearn for more physical and emotional closeness to another human being. Managing one’s loneliness with “busyness” does not truly satisfy either of these needs unless there is some source of genuine intimacy in their activities. We shall explore the role of intimacy in greater detail in the following section.
Constructive Management of Loneliness
As mentioned earlier in this article, loneliness can be a gift to our lives because it stirs us to seek change and purpose whenever we feel unsupported by our environment. However, if we mismanage our loneliness in any of the ways described above, it becomes an additional burden in our lives that continuously warps our identity and prevents us from fulfilling our potential.
Perhaps we should explain at this point what we think really matters in the lives of individuals. We have a limited, irreplaceable supply of three important commodities in our lifetimes—time, energy, and resources. If we waste these on meaningless endeavors, we will not be able to use them to discover and promote our own creative development, which we believe is their ultimate purpose in life. What we are saying is that we all need some loneliness from time to time to orient us towards personal growth. And, since it is impossible to live without some loneliness in our lives, we might as well learn to make it work “for us” instead of “against us.”
We can accomplish this by facing up to our loneliness instead of trying to avoid it. It takes two sets of skills to confront our loneliness effectively and maturely.
First, we must learn to recognize our emotions and let them guide us to the sources of our suffering and unmet needs.
Second, we must learn to identify what types of personal support we are missing in our lives, and then, plan ways to create the support systems we need. See a Therapist Research suggests that loneliness and symptoms of depression can perpetuate each other, meaning the more lonely you are, the more depressed you feel, and vice versa. Sometimes just “getting out there” and meeting other people isn’t enough. It's possible to still feel lonely when you’re around them, which could actually be a sign of depression or social anxiety. If this is the case for you, it may be a good idea to seek psychologist or counselor to help with feelings of loneliness, especially if you also feel other symptoms of depression.
Some forms of therapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy, can help you to change your thoughts as well as your actions to help you not only experience less loneliness but have more tools to prevent it. Whatever you do to combat loneliness, know that you are truly not alone, and there are many things you can do to feel more connected.
We should never fear loneliness, or for that matter, any of our other emotions. Emotions are all generated naturally and automatically by our subconscious whenever we have unmet needs. Emotions are powerful, internal messages that stimulate both our awareness of our problems and the motivation to make choices and take actions to resolve them. The stronger we feel any emotion, the greater is the unmet need we are experiencing, and the more motivated we usually are to seek some interpersonal support. Just as we have learned to trust our many physical signals that warn us when we are hungry, tired, thirsty, etc., we should also have learned to welcome our emotional signals that tell us when we are afraid, sad, angry, or lonely.
Unfortunately, most humans have learned instead to fear and to avoid the emotions that cause them some discomfort, such as fear, anger, shame, and sadness. We tend to think of these as “negative” emotions in that they produce an unpleasant stress state within us when they occur. By contrast, we seek to experience the “positive” emotions of love, joy, and hope because these emotions are pleasurable when they occur. The reality is that all of our emotions are a “gift” to us whether they feel good or not.
Just as the pain of a cut or sore tells us that a physical problem has occurred and warns us to treat and/or be protective of the wound until it heals, so do the emotional wounds we experience require us to deal therapeutically with them. When we feel the emotions of loneliness, we are supposed to listen to them and to begin treating each of them directly and appropriately so that they can heal. Loneliness is a difficult emotional state to deal with because it is actually composed of a combination of emotions. Let’s examine separately the various emotions that may combine to produce the emotional state we call “loneliness.”
The Four Emotional Components of Loneliness
FEARFear is a primary component of loneliness. Fear is an emotion that arises automatically in us whenever we, consciously or subconsciously, recognize that we aren’t in control of our situation. Thus, if a large dog suddenly charged at us growling and snarling, a strong sense of fear would instantly sweep over our entire body. We would not have to stop and think about whether to be afraid or not, it would happen automatically as soon as any level of our consciousness realized we were being threatened.
Spontaneously, our body would release a flood of chemicals that trigger immediate physical changes that prepare us to deal with the threat. Our blood pressure and heart rate would rise sharply, our eyes and ears would focus intently on the menace, our blood would shift rapidly from our internal organs to our brain, and arms, and legs so we could run or fight (fight or flight) to protect ourselves. All these physical changes would occur instantly, and we would experience them as a stressful energy state.
Some of these same processes also happen when we experience the complex emotions of loneliness. The source of our fear response in the loneliness situation is related to the conscious (or subconscious) recognition that we are not receiving an adequate level of support from our environment. That is: 1) we don’t know where we can fit in, in our society; 2) we don’t where and how to ask for some kind of help from society; or3) we don’t know how or where to connect with people who need us. Humans are extremely sensitive to the absence of these kinds of support in their lives because, at a very primal level, they know they cannot find happiness or, ultimately, survive without them.
There is a difference, however, between the type of fear we feel when an aggressive dog attacks us and the fear we experience with loneliness. The dog situation can be an immediate threat to our survival and our body/mind automatically senses this and produces an intense, crisis level fear response to deal it.
On the other hand, our body/mind also recognizes that our loneliness is not a crisis situation and, therefore, signals us with lesser fear signals, such as chronic anxiety or a vague, low-grade stress response. Mature people generally learn to trust and “listen to” the intensity of their fear responses as dependable guides to adapting appropriately to threatening situations. (We will discuss later in this article how to deal with this type of low-level fear response, but first, let’s analyze the other emotions that may also be present in our state of loneliness.)
SHAMEShame is likely to be another part of a individual’s loneliness. Shame rises in us automatically when any level of our consciousnesses comes to believe that our loneliness may be due to some inadequacy or flaw in our character, that we may not “deserve” the love and support of society. This is a common belief system among groups that have been subjected to discrimination and among abuse survivors who have been raised with a “victim” mentality.
Again, shame is usually not a crisis emotion, but rather, one that builds incrementally over time. Shame often operates as a chronic stress state just below conscious awareness, which means many people aren’t cognitively aware that they are carrying a heavy emotional “shame burden” into all of their relationships. However, individuals can be trained to “probe” the emotional content of their loneliness to see if shame is part of their suffering. If it is, then, individuals can be trained to process and resolve their shame in mature ways.
ANGERYet another emotional component of loneliness may be anger. Anger spontaneously arises within us whenever we sense that we are being denied our fair share of social support. Human beings—especially small kids—have an intuitive sense of “fair play” that guides their social interactions unless their environment strongly rewards antisocial behavior, as is often the case in our modern society. Conducting interpersonal relationships in a just and equitable manner assures that all members of a society can get their needs met to the maximum degree possible, and that, in turn, promotes the maximum survival of the entire group. Unfortunately, this skill is often lost in this modern era of commercialism, elitism, and exploitation.
The mass media daily publicizes horror stories about commercial profiteering and political corruption that, ultimately, cause many people to mistrust their business and political leaders. Many average citizens believe their leaders are not protecting their basic social and safety interests, and do not feel united or connected enough to influence the causes of equity and justice in their communities.
Inevitably, these situations produce a pervasive, low-grade resentment (anger) that permeates large segments of society and transforms loneliness from a personal problem to a community-wide or national social problem. Most people who join adolescent gangs, cults, paramilitary or hate groups are experiencing this kind of cultural disillusionment because they are feeling vulnerable and unsupported in their daily lives. This type of low-grade resentment can be resolved when people unite through community-based social activities (voting, class-action suits, protest marches, etc.) to promote greater accountability and responsibility from our leaders in commerce, politics, and the mass media.
The anger associated with perceived “nonsupport” in one’s personal relationships is often difficult to resolve and must be dealt with through learning adult basic coping skills such as intimacy and discipline. Training in these types of personal skills can be very hard to obtain in our modern society. (Go to Services Offered and click on Class Schedule to see classes that address these issues.)
SADNESSThe final emotional component of loneliness that we would like to discuss here is sadness. Sadness spontaneously arises within us whenever we are experiencing the loss of something we value. Like all of our emotions, our sadness can range in intensity from “mild to massive,” and it can operate at both the conscious and subconscious levels of our awareness. Thus, we may feel mild disappointment when a rock puts a slight ding in our new car, or we may feel immense grief when we lose someone whom we love dearly.
Likewise, we may be aware that our “bad mood” tonight is the result of our poor play at the card table this afternoon, or we may drift in a prolonged state of quiet desperation over the “loss of our youth” without realizing consciously that this is happening. We may also feel sadness at our inability to participate in sports, or other physical activities, because of a disability. It’s not uncommon for pet owners to feel a great loss and sadness at the death of their pet. Some individuals feel “real” sadness when fall is about to become another cold harsh winter.
The most important thing to recognize about sadness and its relationship to loneliness is that we humans experience an enormous range of losses in our lives. Every day brings multiple losses—big and small—and all of these losses take a toll on our sense of well-being. If we have not developed adult basic coping skills for managing and resolving these losses, we can eventually find ourselves in a state of chronic depression, caused by the mass of grief we have accumulated. (Improving Adult Basic Coping Skills class.)
All individuals must be trained to recognize and “process” their losses on a daily basis for good mental health. This means learning to be aware of the waves of sadness that sweep over us with each loss, and also, learning to discharge that sadness in constructive, growth-oriented ways. We can build “grief muscles” to handle emotional losses in ways similar to our development of our physical muscles—through regular practice of certain skills and behaviors. We have a never-ending stream of disappointments and losses coming our way in life, including the greatest loss of all—our own death. Learning grief management skills is a powerful way to prevent loneliness. (Grieving Our Losses class)
Indeed, sadness and loneliness can never be entirely eliminated from our lives. When they occur, however, they should operate as a signal that we have some unmet needs and motivate us to change our behaviors in ways to meet those needs. Ironically, it is at this point that many people begin making very self-destructive choices to deal with their feelings of loneliness.
Destructive Management of Loneliness
As we mentioned earlier, all of the emotions associated with loneliness—anger, fear, shame, and sadness—create an uncomfortable stress state within us. This stress ranges in intensity from mild to massive depending upon the extent and duration of our isolation from social and emotional support. Unfortunately, the response many people have to their stress is to try to avoid their discomfort rather than to question why it is happening. In fact, the fear of being lonely can actually cause more discomfort and more poor choices than the loneliness itself. It can become a whole new layer of stress added on top of the original suffering.
Let’s look at some of the destructive patterns people adopt to avoid dealing with their loneliness. Some choose to use alcohol or drugs to numb their emotional stress and their cognitive awareness of the emptiness in their lives. This choice, of course, provides temporary, short-term relief from all three of their loneliness problems. 1) They can easily achieve group affiliation with other drug users; 2) In their stupor, they “feel no pain” so they don’t need to ask anyone for help; and 3) The co-dependent relationships they establish while abusing substances satisfy their “need to be needed.” The long-term consequences of this choice, however, are that they poison their mind and body, they lose touch with reality and trustworthy relationships, they must endlessly repeat their self-destructive behaviors to keep their pain away, and their burden of shame increases with each episode of abuse.
Some people handle their loneliness emotions with other destructive patterns such as “compulsive” shopping, eating, sexual affairs, gambling, smoking/vaping, etc. These patterns are usually not true compulsions by mental health standards, but they are repetitive coping behaviors that provide individuals with short-term gratification and distraction from their loneliness. Like substance abuse, these repetitive patterns all have long-term, negative consequences and never generate the intimacy and emotional support these individuals really need.
Some of the most common patterns of “escape from loneliness” in our society are excessively being on social media sites, playing computer games and watching television, movies, and sports activities. Being a passive participant in social media, video games, fictional dramas, and sports entertainment is, of course, a source of relaxation and stimulation in small doses. However, when individuals commit large amounts of their time, energy, and resources to these activities, it means they are not connecting to their real needs or relationships. It also means they are not making their own creative contribution to the world, but rather, are living vicariously through the efforts of other people.
Yet another destructive means of coping with the loneliness and disconnectedness of modern society is to join into the fads and media gimmicks that are generated through various advertising and “pseudo-news” promotions. Take, for example, the once popular “beanie-babies” craze in which many people bought stuffed toys for toddlers under the illusion that they are making some kind of a financial investment. Beanie Baby dolls have no real utility for adults, so the only persons who benefit from mindless fads like these are the commercial interests who promote them, and then, laugh all the way to the bank with their profits. These businesses are exploiting the “herd instinct” of people who are seeking some kind of purpose and social participation in their lives. Such needy people aren’t getting much of either for their money.
Another current media promotion that exploits the social neediness of our modern society is the voyeuristic “reality” shows in which the players allow themselves to be manipulated into bizarre, pseudo-intimate situations while being videotaped by camera crews. Large segments of the American public consistently watch these shows and strongly identify with their characters and plot even though they are so blatantly contrived and unreal. Witness the Survivor series that portrays a group of men and women supposedly “struggling to survive” on a tropical island. In actuality, they are surrounded by multiple camera crews and media staff who assign them competitive “tasks” to add artificial drama and conflict for TV audiences. The only thing “castaway” about this program is the American public’s common sense. Why do people allow themselves to be manipulated in these ways? There are many reasons, but primarily, they have not built “a life of their own.” They lack either the skills or commitment to create meaningfulness in their lives. They drift aimlessly and react mindlessly to the nearest and noisiest stimuli around them. In this vacuum, the mass media rush to fill the void with trivia and consumerism.
There are individuals who feel alone even at social events or in large crowds. They go to social events, such as cocktail parties, beer or wine parties, concerts, ballet, the rodeo, drag racing, even church, to escape their feelings of loneliness, and discover that their feelings of loneliness have deepened rather than lessened. The pain of loneliness is so strong, all they want to do now is run and hide.
Yet another management style for loneliness, and probably the most common of all, is just staying very “busy.” Many people avoid the awareness of their loneliness by cramming every possible activity into their daily lives. In this manner, they are able to distract themselves from their emotional isolation and to convince themselves they are being productive. Still, late at night or in their few quiet moments, they often wonder if their lives really matter.
This is particularly true for people who live alone and for people who are in “no-growth” jobs. They have nagging doubts that anyone really needs them, and they often yearn for more physical and emotional closeness to another human being. Managing one’s loneliness with “busyness” does not truly satisfy either of these needs unless there is some source of genuine intimacy in their activities. We shall explore the role of intimacy in greater detail in the following section.
Constructive Management of Loneliness
As mentioned earlier in this article, loneliness can be a gift to our lives because it stirs us to seek change and purpose whenever we feel unsupported by our environment. However, if we mismanage our loneliness in any of the ways described above, it becomes an additional burden in our lives that continuously warps our identity and prevents us from fulfilling our potential.
Perhaps we should explain at this point what we think really matters in the lives of individuals. We have a limited, irreplaceable supply of three important commodities in our lifetimes—time, energy, and resources. If we waste these on meaningless endeavors, we will not be able to use them to discover and promote our own creative development, which we believe is their ultimate purpose in life. What we are saying is that we all need some loneliness from time to time to orient us towards personal growth. And, since it is impossible to live without some loneliness in our lives, we might as well learn to make it work “for us” instead of “against us.”
We can accomplish this by facing up to our loneliness instead of trying to avoid it. It takes two sets of skills to confront our loneliness effectively and maturely.
First, we must learn to recognize our emotions and let them guide us to the sources of our suffering and unmet needs.
Second, we must learn to identify what types of personal support we are missing in our lives, and then, plan ways to create the support systems we need. See a Therapist Research suggests that loneliness and symptoms of depression can perpetuate each other, meaning the more lonely you are, the more depressed you feel, and vice versa. Sometimes just “getting out there” and meeting other people isn’t enough. It's possible to still feel lonely when you’re around them, which could actually be a sign of depression or social anxiety. If this is the case for you, it may be a good idea to seek psychologist or counselor to help with feelings of loneliness, especially if you also feel other symptoms of depression.
Some forms of therapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy, can help you to change your thoughts as well as your actions to help you not only experience less loneliness but have more tools to prevent it. Whatever you do to combat loneliness, know that you are truly not alone, and there are many things you can do to feel more connected.