Happiness is generally believed to be reserved for those who are in love. Here’s what happened when I began to love myself.
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I was living in Paris at 19 years old, I was discovering the world outside of my small-town Texan upbringing, and I was dealing with my second bout of existential self-doubt. If you’ve been through that before, or you’re in it now, I feel your pain.
I found myself very alone even among friends.
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I found myself very alone even among friends. There was nothing rational about it except I was feeling the incredible power of human separation that so many of us feel on a daily basis… and I was feeling it deeply.
I had friends, I had family, I had a phone line that reached round the world… but I FELT alone and out of my depth.
It was my blue period.
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It was my blue period. And a lot of beauty came from that period, after I realized how beautiful it was.
…I lived 1,000 lives through those books.
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I felt my most melancholic in many of the most inspiring corners of Paris. Because I was studying abroad, I had a pass to visit the Musee D’Orsay and Rodin’s Gardens as often as I wanted. I found dusty old corners of the American Library and I lived 1,000 lives through those books.
It was about this time that I discovered Michel de Montaigne and his Essays. A single line changed my life… “Be a Crowd Unto Thyself.”
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Up until that point in my life I thought I needed other people to like me in order to like myself.
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Up until that point in my life I thought I needed other people to like me in order to like myself. I suppose intellectually I knew it was unhealthy to make my self-worth dependent on the perception of others, but I wasn’t embodying self-love authentically yet.
Through a bit of this wisdom and the coaxing of adventure (I walked the Loire Valley, which you should do if you ever get the chance), I emerged from my blue period to discover that the mask I’d been wearing of “the perfect gentleman” and “the prodigal son” and “the model big brother” were holding me back from having deeper relationships with women, my family, and my friends.
…the relationship I was missing the most was with myself.
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And really, the relationship I was missing the most was with myself.
So I began learning to love myself. I took myself to movies, I wrote daily in a journal to see what I really cared about, I began to respect my body with better nutrition and exercise… and I began to emerge into an appreciation of what I really am lovable for… it’s not about awards and titles and grades.
I’m lovable because I love – because I see beauty and recognize truth.
…I’m good enough as I am.
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I don’t need to prove anything. I don’t need to know why. I just need to be me. I’m good enough as I am.
Carrying that home with me – I need support for my goals and to hold me accountable and to provide a mirror… but mainly I find that I have all of the beauty and wisdom I need inside of myself. I just need practice accessing it.
This simple shift… being able to be a crowd unto myself… has opened me up to doing the best and most purposeful work of my life. I now have a 7-year relationship with my soul’s partner. I am surrounded by people I love who really see me and support me. I get to show up 100% in my life. Is it still work? Sure. But it’s fun now… and not quite so alone.
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How have you dealt with feeling alone? What have you overcome?
Let me know in the comments below, and if you want to go deeper into this I encourage you to tap into my new program for men who are looking to make a big leap from isolated and stagnant to connected and purposeful. We start on Monday. Connect with me for more information.
Kgbb, learn to know thyself anew…explore life inside and outside yourself..hang out with people of similar interests for starters, and then form social groups of your own – small but secure – and spend time with people you’d normally pass by… When we see pain and struggles in others surpassing our own, we not only find connections of the soul with them, we also start to value ourselves and our journeys, thereby creating an appreciative outlook towards life that makes us feel happiness of contentment instead of disdain. We learn to appreciate time spent with ourselves as much as with… Read more »
How do you go from hating being alone (lonely) to liking being alone? I read about how important it is but nothing about HOW. What thoughts do you tell yourself? I’ve been alone for 16 years and I’m just tired of being alone, doing everything by myself. I look around and everyone else my age is married or dating or divorced and bitter. I’ve never met anyone to date except one person who is one of the divorced and bitter and is determined to be alone the rest of his life, so it’s caused me an enormous amount of hurt… Read more »
Hi KGBB, I’m sorry to hear it’s been so hard. I know it sounds silly, but really it is about loving yourself first. Michel de Montaigne famously said, “Be a crowd unto thyself.” That may take some work, but I’d start with taking yourself on the dates you want to go on. Go do the things that interest you because you want to. The more you find ways to love yourself – to actively treat yourself to the life you are allowed to experience – the more you will become attractive to others (and the more you won’t need that… Read more »
Great article and yes, we need to love and look after ourselves more often. We need to have a balance between helping people and helping ourselves considering the fact that too many times in life, we get reject and outcast from people due to various reasons, so we need to look after ourselves when that happens.