Loneliness or Blissful Aloneness?
In a world where social media runs 24/7, it’s harder and harder to truly be by ourselves. Societal pressures also pushes us to avoid being alone. Here are a few points of reflection about the differences between feeling lonely and being alone, and how we can create a deeper sense of connection through giving ourselves the chance to be in solitude.
Being alone doesn’t have to mean loneliness.
Society often puts pressure on us to not be a “loner”. However, no matter how many people we’re around, that may not equate to freedom from loneliness. While being alone is the physical state of solitude, loneliness is the emotional distress that comes with feeling disconnected from others regardless of the social environment that we’re in.
Loneliness and feelings of disconnection can be influenced by various internal and external factors. Internally, feelings of disconnection can come from feeling misunderstood, lack of belonging, or that others do not care about us. Externally, physical distance and migration, social differences, and qualities of one’s community can fuel feelings of loneliness.
There are however many benefits to learning to be alone. Being alone gives us the opportunity to develop greater connection with ourselves - away from the immediate social messages from family, friends and the broader society. By learning to sit with aloneness, we can develop a greater sense of our likes, our dislikes and more fundamentally, our emotional needs. Having greater clarity about our emotional needs allows us to set healthy boundaries, which then paves the way for self-care and paradoxically deeper relationships. Comfort with being alone allows us the abillity to discern the social company that we’d like to keep, and in the process finding company that we have a closer affinity with. Being alone can therefore pave the way for developing a deeper connection with not only ourselves, but also with our social circle and broader community.
While some external factors are outside our control, we do have the ability to change some of the internal factors that contribute to feeling lonely. Each individual may have their unique tendency to feel disconnected based on their past personal experiences, but we also have the ability to change.
While developing deeper feelings of contentment can take time and a bit of patience, there are some shorter term ways to get started on the process. Here is a list to get you started:
Taking a break from social media
Disconnecting from the phone for an hour or longer
Unwinding from technology or any forms of media
Seeking out physical activity to connect back with your body
Finding a spot of nature
Journaling
Getting creative
Seeking out play! From dancing, team sports, to online/table-top games, to anything else
Cooking yourself an amazing meal-for-one
Treating yourself to an in-home or professional beauty treatment
Noting a list of things that you’re grateful for
Seeking out solo outings, from going to the cinema, to a museum, to any festivals or markets
Taking solo adventures to explore new places, or perhaps longer-term stays
This is far from being an exhaustive list, but it can hopefully kickstart some ideas of ways to befriend aloneness. For more ideas, there’s a longer list here. While these ideas may seem trivial, finding small moments to be alone can nurture our familiarity with solitude more generally. While therapy may be needed for addressing deeper psychological sticking points, there are ways that we can start shifting our relationship with solitude today.
