Loneliness Is A Serious Illness

Loneliness is a very serious illness that often goes unrecognized and undiagnosed. The consequences of a lonely heart include chronic sorrow, creative stultification and a lot of internal yelling at yourself.

Sometimes we feel lonely even though we’re in a group.

Sometimes we feel lonely right in the middle of feeling very happy.

Sometimes we get so used to feeling lonely that we wear it all the time like a heavy, dark cloak.

If your heart needs a friend, it’s time to do things differently.

Try these strategies – maybe even try one per day?

(Don’t roll your eyes – this is a serious situation and it’s time to try even the dumb things, OK?)

  • Go to a local coffee shop and give someone there an honest compliment
  • Take a class in something you know nothing about
  • Call up an old pal (even if it’s been years and years) and find out how they are
  • Practice seeing the eternal, undimmed beauty that abides in each and every person
  • Make sure you get touched every single day, even if that means daily self-massage
  • Go hang out in the dog park (whether you have a dog or not)
  • Break your habits: take a different route to work, eat a different lunch, create a new outfit

What have you tried? What’s worked for you when you’ve been lonely?

P.S. If you’re a single woman seeking a true and loving partner, check out “Calling In The One” – this is a free teleclass with Katherine Woodward Thomas and Claire Zammit – register and you’ll get the recording for free, too: http://bit.ly/clTnGH (yes, I’m a Big Fan and an affiliate for them, but honestly, I’d recommend them even if I weren’t, because I have several friends for whom the Calling In The One process has really WORKED!) – SSB.

Among Them But Not Of Them

Among Them But Not Of Them

The Solitude Cure

There is no real cure for loneliness. 

Except to transform it into solitude.

Solitude is remembering that there has never, ever been a single (solitary) person like you. 

You arrived alone

You’ll die alone.

And in between those two things, you will be having a discreet, one-of-a-kind experience of the world.

Everyone has that “among them but not of them” feeling, at least sometimes.  And creative people feel it more often, I think, than most.

Everyone yearns for connection, comfort, fusion, total immersion.  We read books where people fall in love and “become as one” and we think we should have that feeling ourselves.

But that only happens in fiction.

So.

The cure is to embrace the separation.  Enjoy the space.  Hold yourself slightly apart.  After all, you already feel apart, so go ahead and exaggerate that feeling a little bit.  Observe the world around you.  Retreat into your own skin and observe you having your very own point of view on the world.

That isolated, personal point of view is where your art comes from.  So go ahead and create something inspired by this particular vantage point.  It doesn’t have to be any good, and you don’t ever have to show it to anyone.  Just go ahead and let something flow.

And now you have the real cure for solitude: art.