Loneliness is a choice, let’s take a look
What is Loneliness?
As per WikiPedia:
Loneliness is a complex and usually unpleasant emotional response to isolation. Loneliness typically includes anxious feelings about a lack of connection or communication with other beings, both in the present and extending into the future. As such, loneliness can be felt even when surrounded by other people and one who feels lonely, is lonely. The causes of loneliness are varied and include social, mental, emotional, and physical factors.
As per Urban Dictionary:
Loneliness is a feeling that is indescribable to those who have not felt it, and needs no description to those who have. That desolate feeling of being left out, left behind, and being all alone forever. This not only applies to girlfriends (though they bring the strongest effect) but also major life changes – graduation, deaths, etc… It is that hole that appears in your heart, which cannot be filled by your efforts alone. In such a case, crying occurs and is often encouraged as it heals the soul.
Loneliness can be characterized by a negative \ unsettling feeling or state of being that is created by thoughts in response to a perception or expectations related to:
- Being alone
- Lacking friends
- Lacking love
- Lacking family
Everyone will experience loneliness to different degrees, in the same way they experience love, jealousy, fear, greed etc.… it is cyclic part of the human condition. These feelings come and go throughout our life and usually only become a problem when there is continued or escalated focus that does not dissipate.
For example:
- Continued focus on “Being alone” may equal loneliness
- Continued focus on “Not having a lover” may equal loneliness
- Continued focus on “Never having enough money” may equal lack
- Continued focus on “Complaining about work” may equal stress
The above examples can be labeled issues because of the “continued focus” portion.
If however, you take the same scenarios from the previous examples and reduce the focus:
- Brief focus on “Being alone” is a just a thought you noticed. If you do not spend any more time noticing that thought then it was just a thought you noticed and not a condition labeled “loneliness”
- Brief focus on “Not having a lover” is a just a thought you noticed. If you do not spend any more time noticing that thought then it was just a thought you noticed and not a condition labeled “loneliness”
- Brief focus on “Not having enough money” is a just a thought you noticed. If you do not spend any more time noticing that thought then it was just a thought you noticed and not a condition labeled “lack”
- Brief focus on “Complaining about work” is a just a thought you noticed If you do not spend any more time noticing that thought then this was just a bad day at work
As originally stated, “loneliness is a choice” and depending on the thoughts you choose you will either have a continued focus on loneliness which is probably making you feel lonely , or a brief occasional thought of being alone then moving on to the next thought, bypassing the loneliness thought loop.
Some thoughts may seem harder to change than others but the gist is that you are the controller of all your thoughts and have the ability to choose the thoughts you create.
For whatever reason, you may feel that your “loneliness” thoughts have a formidable hold in your mind, so instead of trying to force a major change, just try changing your focus.
How to change your focus
Changing your focus is simply changing your current thought. You change your mind by changing your thoughts. Simply place another thought in to your mind. For example, if you are constantly thinking about a car then consciously start thinking about a bicycle. You moved from a thought of a car over to a thought of a bicycle. Everyone already does this many times daily. Every time your thought returns to the car thought, immediately think of a bicycle, rinse and repeat the process. At the begging it will feel forced like this manual process is frustrating, so to make this process simpler, try this for only 5 minutes at a time.
Eventually you will get used to the 5 minute process. Don’t worry; you will not have to do this forever. If you tell yourself that you need to force your thoughts for the rest of your life then it will feel daunting. Instead, use forced focus for 5 minute sprints. The reality is that forcing thoughts for an eternity is torture, don’t worry, forever will not be necessary. Instead, you will quickly become used to these 5 minute sprints and during this period, focus on anything other than a thought of loneliness. During the sprint, every time you have a thought related to loneliness, immediately change the thought to your hands and start mentally counting your fingers. Counting 1-10. Once you are finished counting, remove the thought from counting fingers and simply move over to a new thought, a thought unrelated to loneliness.
- You are noticing a loneliness thought
- Move your thought over to your hands and start counting in your mind from 1 to 10
- Place a new thought in to your mind
- “What time is it”
- “What did I eat for lunch yesterday”
- “What is the best way to cook a hamburger”
Let’s try this now. When a thought of loneliness enters your mind, stop that thought and focus on your hand and in your mind start counting your fingers silently. At the end of counting, immediately place any new thought in to your mind. The new thought can be something like “what will I eat for lunch” or “when will I do my laundry”. Repeating will initially feel forced and robotic but this cycle will eventually become second nature.
The goal of this process will be to instantly change your focus to a new thought immediately when you start to think of loneliness. Right now if you review the last few thoughts you processed, note how easily your thoughts changed from one topic to the next. Eventually, with practice, when a thought of loneliness occupies your present thought, you effortlessly move away from that thought and continue on to the next thought.
We are not trying to never have a thought of loneliness again; instead, loneliness thoughts will just not continuously occupy your current thought. You will move away from that thought just as easily as moving from a thought of “what time is it” over to your next thought “is it time for lunch”
So, loneliness is choice, you just need to practice changing your thoughts and eventually your choices and thoughts will change.
I understand that to some, loneliness may feel devastating and seem very scary but please know that everyone needs to deal with issues in their life. For some, loneliness is not an issue for them but instead, jealousy or stress may be what occupies most of their thoughts. These thoughts will occupy most of their noticed thoughts making them just as uneasy and consumed about their jealousy or stress just as you are about your loneliness.
loneliness by definition refers to a state that is “continuously” experienced or is an unsettling thought that simply creates a hopeless state because you are surmising you will “be alone and by yourself forever”. These are both consuming because:
- A “continuous” thought that occupies the majority of your noticed thoughts is repeating and exhaustive.
- An unsettling message of “always and forever” is eternal and hopelessly unchanging
With practice, you will be able to break the loop and pay attention to other thoughts.