Look around and feel your loneliness has lifted

November 01, 2018 9:56 AM

You’re never alone in the world unless you want to be.

If you are lonely, it’s because you are not letting other people in. It’s because you are surrendering to your antisocial tendencies and isolating yourself from the world.

And maybe it comes from a place of stubbornness. You already convinced yourself that you are not a team player. Or maybe it’s rooted in an outdated identity narrative, because you romanticize your loneliness as a form of heroism.

But whatever way you spin it, ultimately, you are the result of yourself. You are the perpetrator of your own separation.

This realization hit me like a hammer about six years ago. After a decade of going it alone as a freelancer, spending most of my days working on a laptop in my living room wearing pajamas, these mini anxiety attacks started to show up. Little existential waves of dread swelling inside my brain that lasted for about ten minutes.

They were nothing that required medication or hospitalization, but the attacks seemed to be getting heavier and more frequent. And that’s when the voice of reason told me the following.

The way you’re working isn’t working. Not anymore. Solely existing in the lovely timeless world inside your head might have been a sublime arrangement for an earlier version of your heart. But attaining the pleasure of solitude by paying the price of loneliness is no longer a healthy or sustainable business model. This has to stop. It’s time to bridge the lonely gap of alienation in your soul. Otherwise loneliness will continue to visit you, gradually move in, and eventually take over for good.

Thus began a journey of reconnecting to the world. Changing my pronouns. Searching for those feelings of belonging which I had been seeking for so long, but unknowingly ran away from.

A good friend of mine said it best:

You are obviously being called to something different. You’re currently in the liminal space, in severance, pulling away from your previous patterns. And that requires you to do the opposite of what you would normally do. If your tendency is to drive towards solitude, you must consciously create more moments connection and belonging with others. If your tendency is to do stubbornly do everything yourself, you must intentionally create work that forces you to collaborate with other people.

She was right. It’s very uncomfortable admitting that your biggest problem might be yourself.

But it’s the first step towards healing. It’s the first step towards to the glorious release from being all alone.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…