How to Overcome Loneliness Part #2

This blog, “How to Overcome Loneliness, part 2”, is the second part of the eight-part series to help you overcome loneliness. If you have not read the first one, please read that blog and then come back to this one.

If you don’t resolve the causes of the loneliness, you will continue to experience negative emotions that come with them. You will also remain stuck in adverse living conditions.  You have had those negative conditions for so long that you don’t know how much happier you would be without them, making you miss out on being your full potential self. That means that you will continue to miss out on your true fulfillment. You will also miss out on your best possible life: the Happiness Formula.

The following are the main culprits:
1) You believe you are not lovable.

When you continue to believe you are not lovable, you will continue to allow people who are less than loving to you, confirming your already held belief that you are not.  Your head knows better. You even feel guilty and foolish for putting up with people who treat you less than okay.  You feel bad about the fact that you don’t treat yourself well.  But as long as you do not “KNOW” in your heart, in your subconscious mind that you are, you will continue to believe that you are not, and you will not feel lovable.  And when you don’t feel lovable, your less-than-self-loving-you will continue to allow those people to get into your life and remain there in the comfort of discomfort.

You will continue to feel obligated and dutiful toward those who bring you much more unhappiness than happiness by treating you in far less than kind and loving manner as they do not value you. Since you agree with those people about your value(knowingly or unknowingly), you cannot see that you deserve better. 

You will continue to prematurely reject yourself from potentially positive and beneficial relationships by not entering new ones or leaving them too early avoiding potentially good and loving relationships. Doing that makes it difficult for you to truly learn how to overcome loneliness.

2) You feel not good enough, and not enough

If you don’t gain the knowledge that you are good enough, that you are enough just as you are, you will continue to downgrade yourself in too many ways.  

You will continue to be prone to feeling insecure and less than others.

Others will find you overreacting to things that they do or say. You will continue to give power to others to hurt you, whether they meant to hurt you or don’t mean to hurt you.  

Bullies in your life will continue to have too much power over you. Your belief that you are not enough will continue to win out and keep you under the thumb of oppressive insecurities.

You will continue to hold yourself back from trying things that will stretch and grow you and help you reach emotional, spiritual, and financial success in the way that would feed your life.

3) If you continue to stay disconnected

Not knowing who you really are, your needs, and what your wants are, you will not really know what it means for you to be happy.

You will continue to feel disconnected from your spiritual self.  How could you reach for spiritual connection when you don’t even have your basic connection needs met by being in touch with your core self. How could you gain skills as to how to overcome loneliness, if you do not learn how to connect?

4) You have a negative mindset

You will continue to see life through powerfully unhealthy perspectives of thinking and feeling that most things go wrong for you.  

You will spend too much of your time feeling miserable and untrusting of people, even those who may deserve your trust. Trustworthy good people will continue to leave your life feeling unseen and unappreciated leaving behind plenty of those who are not reliable and not good-intentioned, leading you to unhappy connections in your life.

The problem with this mindset is that it is very addictive.  It isn’t that you are addicted to good feelings, but you become addicted to negative anxiety ridden bad feelings that lead to stress and suffering.  

Your brain becomes normalized by them, and it becomes an easy ride down path, sliding lower and lower in negative states which then creates more profound and deeper roots of negative thinking and feeling habits.

This whole pattern of life is very easy to remain in if you do not change from it.

5) You are continuing not to live your purpose, not doing your life’s work.

If you are not on your life’s path, you will continue to miss out on the real fulfillment that living your purpose gives you.

There will be a deep sense of emptiness inside you, confirming the less than good feelings and esteem that you have about yourself.

You will continue to miss out on the joy that self-fulfillment can only provide.  You are born to experience it.  Without it, you will have a massive void in its place.

6) Not feeling whole; not being your best you. 

If you continue not to feel whole, that continues to manifest adverse outcomes in all areas of your life.

Your life will remain less quality than you would want.  Your relationships, career, health, success, joy, happiness, and everything will be less than you can ever want for your life.

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In the next blog, I will discuss all the benefits you will gain by freeing yourself from the causes of loneliness.

How to overcome loneliness Part #1(What causes loneliness)

It is crucial to know the cause, the correct cause of a problem, any problem if you desire to solve and resolve it truly.

It is, of course, true that you want to resolve your problems.  Everyone wants that. 

It is also true that we often focus our attention on the wrong area of the problems as it then continues to persist.  We focus on the symptoms, the reactions to the symptoms, and the results of them.

We desperately want the symptoms and reactions to the symptoms to go away.  We try and try to make them disappear to no avail. We then give up or give in to the idea that we are going to just have to live with them, the problems.

Giving up and giving in then puts us on a path to a victim mindset, depressions, anxiety, failure leading to unhappiness.

No!  This is not for us.  This is not for you.  You know this, and that is why you are reading this.

Onward!

Where was I?  Oh, yes, we are talking about the importance of focusing on the right area of a problem if we want to correctly and virtually eliminate the problem.  

The right area to focus your attention on to get rid of a problem is to focus on figuring out the cause of the problem.

It sounds simple, and it is simple.

What’s exciting about tackling the cause is that the very cause of your current problem or pain has been and will continue to affect many other areas of your life powerfully.  And as you discover that, you will be even more glad that you tackled the cause of your problem.

So there are more than enough reasons to truly find the true cause and attack them to rid your life of things and conditions that you do not like or may even hate in your life.

The causes of loneliness in your life are very likely causing other problems in your life as well.  You have more than one good reasons to tackle the cause of the loneliness that is causing unhappiness in your life.

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It is a common belief that human beings are hardwired to connect.  That appears to be true.

We human beings indeed find joy in deep connection with other human beings. It is one of the most influential and beautiful things, human connections.  Human relationships can inspire, create, and heal most amazingly and beautifully.

It is, however, not true that being alone is the primary cause of loneliness.  It is an association(correlation), not causation.

Being alone can cause you to feel lonely if you have been alone for an excessive amount of time. In those cases, the simple solution is to put yourself in a situation where you are with people or around people, and doing that is not difficult.  Just put yourself in a social situation. 

Most of the time, however, loneliness is not caused by being alone.  If you are lonely because you have spent too much time alone, yet have refused to do something about it, ask yourself the question, why have you not done something about spending time with others?

When you see the answer to that question, you begin to see some of the potential causes.  Some of your answers might be: 

  • Insecurity
  • Not feeling wanted
  • You do not feel that people will like you.
  • Depression
  • You are bothered by the imperfections of others.   

If you choose to be alone because it makes you happy, then you are not lonely in the first place.

If you have spent too long a time alone and feel that you are powerless to change it, that powerlessness itself indicates a problem of perception and not a true representation of how things exist in your life.

Much of the time, the cause of the loneliness is something other than being alone. You think that being alone causes feelings of loneliness because when you are alone, the feelings you have been distracted from resurface.  Those feelings show up in front of you when the disappearance of the distractions of other people’s presence unearth the emotional pains you had.

Some Buddist monks spend most of their time alone in meditation and do not experience loneliness. They are joyful and ready to be useful to the world when they keep their meditation practice going.

As we can find true joy in connecting and sharing with other human beings, it is also just as true that we can find joy and connecting while not being in the presence of other human beings.

Loneliness cannot be caused by being alone.

Trying to stop loneliness by surrounding yourself with people only deepens the problem because it is avoided and masked by temporary solutions.

It’s like having a cut and giving yourself novocaine shots to not feel the pain while ignoring the cut wound that needs stitching and medicine and cleaning to get rid of germs and to heal the wound.

If you don’t heal the cause of your pain, physical, emotional, and even spiritual, your injury can become a bigger problem in your future. They most often do.

There is every reason to look for and find the real cause of any and all problems.

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Following are the core things that are causing the deep loneliness inside you.

1) You feel unlovable
  • Because you believe that you are not lovable, you will always be ready and vigilant for signs and warnings that confirm your belief.  You see them everywhere, even if they are not true.  And because you see them everywhere and believe you always get rejected, you create and produce those situations.  You remove yourself prematurely, or you will cause others to reject you by dismissing them. You are likely acting negatively or not even giving anyone a chance to leave you or love you by avoiding social situations that will offer you a chance to experience rejection and miss out on love and connection.
2) You feel not good enough, and you are not enough
  • You believe something is lacking about you  
  • You always feel less than others, no matter who they are.  You look for ways that they are better than you or you are less than them.  You compare yourself unrealistically and unfairly, where you always end up with an answer in your mind that they are better than you. 
  • In your mind, you are a loser.
  • Nothing that you do is good enough.
  • You don’t feel that you deserve to belong anywhere.  
3 You are disconnected
  • You are not genuinely in touch with yourself.  You are in the habit of ignoring your needs, wants, and wellbeing.
  • You do not feel genuine connections to people in your life. You don’t connect emotionally with others in ways that are emotionally satisfying.
  • You do not feel spiritually disconnected.  Whatever your spiritual beliefs are, you are feeling unhelped, uncared for, and unsupported.
4 You have a negative mindset
  • Victim mindset
    • You feel like everything goes wrong for you.
    • You feel like everyone is against you.
    • You feel like life is against you.
    • You often wonder, “Why me? Why is this happening to me? ”
    • You feel like the Universe is against you.
    • You could feel like you are doomed.
    • You could feel like you are stuck.
    • You could feel like life is hard.
    • You could feel hopeless.
    • You could feel like a victim of life and victim, period.
    • You could feel like life is not in your control and often experience depression.
    • You could feel like you just want to escape those feelings and decide to use alcohol or other substances to feel better.  These substances then change the physical chemistry that can put you deeper into bad moods and depressions.
    • When you have a victim mindset, you become self-focused.  It is truly a lonely existence, even if you don’t know that you are.
  • Bully mindset
    • You feel like everything will go wrong for you unless you bully to get what you want.
    • You feel like everyone is against you, so it is ok if you hurt them.
    • You feel like life is against you, so you take what you can get.
    • You often wonder, “Why me?” even when you are the one that caused the unfavorable situation to happen.
    • You feel like the Universe is against you.
    • You could feel like you have to beat anyone and everyone so that you are not doomed.
    • You could feel like a victim unless you are on top.
    • You feel like you have to take control, so you win.
    • When you are a bully-mindset, you are self-focused.  It is truly a lonely existence, even if you don’t know that you are.
    • You feel like the only way to make good things happen for yourself is by taking what you want no matter the cost. You have to win at all costs.  There are only winners and losers in your world.
5 You are not living your purpose (doing your life’s work)
  • Suppose you are not doing something that you believe in, something that calls to you, something that is meaningful to you beyond measure, something that is your way of contributing to making this world a better place. In that case, you will look for substitution in other ways that only make you feel emptier, as if you are drinking seawater to quench your thirst.  You cannot be your best self or your whole self when you are not connected to what it is that you are here to do. That empty feeling will make you feel lonely even if you are surrounded by people.
6 Not feeling whole(not your best you) 
  • When you are not feeling lovable, not feeling good enough, are disconnected from your spiritual self, negative mindsets dominate your mind, and you are not living your purpose, you are not your best version of yourself.  You are not your whole self.  And in that state, you are going to be dominated by feelings of loneliness.

When you closely examine the real reasons you are feeling lonely, you can see that you can change the painful condition in your life.  You can see now that you and only you can help you free from it so that you can find your true happiness.

Next week, I will go over with you the consequence of not working to free yourself from the problem of loneliness.

Please enjoy my video on Youtube to learn more!

How to best deal with the loneliness after a breakup

How to best deal with the loneliness after a breakup – advice from a life coach.

When someone close to you is gone from your life, the loss is painful.  When a romantic partner is gone from your life, the loss can be far more intense.

Here are six things that you can do to overcome the loneliness that you are going through from a broken heart.

  1. Decide to learn about yourself and grow from this experience
    1. Carol Dweck in her book, “Mindset” talks about the people who heal powerfully versus people who remain hurt for years and years.  The ones that heal powerfully most often look inward after a breakup to see what they could learn about themselves so that they do not repeat the same mistake with their next partner.  Their goal is to heal and find happiness and they heal and find happiness.
  2. If you have a support system that you trust, share with them what you are going through
    1. Some people may lose connection with their support network while in a relationship, especially if it was a controlling or abusive one.  This is a time for you to work on reconnecting with your tribe to find yourself back again with those who truly care about you.  
    2. If you do not have a group that you trust, begin building and nurturing a tribe of your own.
  3. Have an adventure
    1. Do something that allows you to stretch your image of you.  When you take on something that you had been intimidated by, it can let you see a new dimension about you so that you can gain self-appreciation
  4. Seek out people who inspire you.
    1. Instead of drowning in self-pity that everyone can get into during this time, surround yourself with voices of people who when you are around them or listening to their talks or reading their words, elevates your aspirations to lead you to reach for self-growth.
  5. Help someone in the way that you love helping someone
    1. If you are serving soup in a soup kitchen, you might be a person that gets touched by that experience but you may not be.  I love helping people heal emotionally so when I am helping someone with their emotional wounds, I am inspired. But for you, it might be teaching someone how to paint, play music, play baseball.  Whatever it is that you like teaching or helping people do, do that.
  6. Get a breakup coach
    1. If you’re having a hard time doing it alone, hire a breakup coach(life coach who specializes in healing heartbreaks) so that you can actively work on healing yourself.

Finally, what you need to know is that it is up to you, how long the lonely period lasts or how fast you heal.  Be patient with yourself as you move up and down through the emotional roller coasters and know that if you do the right type of work, you will gain powerful stuff from this lonely experience after a heartbreak.

Things you can do to be better than happy during the coronavirus lockdown

The Coronavirus lockdown has been stressful for a lot of people.  It has caused them to feel afraid for the future and frustrated with what they cannot do right now.  Some even have to deal with feelings of loneliness. None of us asked for this condition and you have the right to feel the negative feelings that you do.  While that is true if there is a way for you to experience something different, would you do whatever it takes to experience better feelings than you feel right now?  I am guessing yes. No one wants to feel bad and everyone would like to feel better.  

Let me tell you a story about a man who was captured during the vietnam war, tortured for over 7 years as the prisoner of war and he used a philosophy to not only deal with the torturous prison but also to guide his men through it as well.  He used Stoicism. It is a philosophy that comes in very handy for use during stressful times as well as being a great guide for happiness in life.

Using Stoicism, I would like to guide you through a few questions and reveal to you what you can do afterwards.  Have three pages of papers ready. Or you could do this on the computer.

First, make a list of things that are happening that you do not like, because of this coronavirus lockdown?

It might go something like this:

  1. Cannot go anywhere.
  2. Can not go to work.
  3. Live in a small place but cannot go outside.
  4. Have less money now and am afraid of running out.
  5. Gaining weight sitting at home and eating.
  6. Feeling stir crazy
  7. Feeling lonely

Then create two headings:

  1. Things that you have no power to control
  2. Things that you have the power to control.

Take all items listed in your original list and put them in the appropriate category.  They might look something like these.

  1. Things that you have no power to control
    1. Cannot go anywhere
    2. Cannot go to work
  1. Things that you have the power to control
    1. Afraid of running out of money
    2. Gaining weight
    3. Feeling stir crazy
    4. Feeling lonely

According to Stoic philosophy, we should take focus off the list 1 and focus all our attention on list 2.  A Stoic would believe the list 1 is a waste of your time and it is foolish to waste time.

Next, below each item, write down all the actions steps that you can take to solve the problem.

  1. Afraid of running out of money
    1. Make money online
    2. Conserve spending
  1. Gaining weight
    1. Exercise
    2. Eat to lose weight
  2. Feeling stir crazy
    1. Learn a new skill
    2. Work on a creative project
    3. Join and start a zoom group
  3. Feeling lonely
    1. Join and start a zoom group
    2. Find ways that you can help people online
    3. Work on your passion-ed project/If you don’t know what that is, then work on finding it

Once you have made the list and wrote out what you could do about each of the issues, you then can take action steps that you have listed.

Taking those action steps can be very powerful.

Mother Teresa was quoted in saying, “We can do hard.”  We can do hard.