I wrote an article about the loneliest experiences you can ever go through.
I wished I didn’t get any engagement on that article because it would mean many people relate.
Unfortunately, many people obviously feel lonely in today’s world where the elephant in the room is this loneliness epidemic.
So, I sat down and decided to come up with solutions.
I came up with tips discussing 3 areas: communication skills, lifestyle, and deep insecurities.
I wrote an article separately for the first 2 areas.
But for the deep insecurities that keep us lonely, I decided to write a separate article to dive deeper into the topic.
It’s this article you’re reading.
But I have to warn you. It won’t be an easy-to-read article. I will not say what you want to hear. And some of what I will say can be uncomfortable to hear.
But it’s what you need to hear.
#1 Write down what you want to say instead of saying it
The cure to loneliness is feeling understood, seen, and heard.
Having a conversation can give you that if the person understands you.
Here is something I have been doing since I was a teenager.
And it helped me not only understand myself but also feel less lonely. It makes me feel understood, seen and heard by myself.
It’s writing.
Instead of talking to someone else about the vulnerable spots on my psyche, I would write them down.
That might be a form of avoiding vulnerability.
But it helped a lot.
It even helped me develop the courage to be vulnerable and express myself in situations I would usually not.
You don’t have to currently talk to someone if you are not comfortable with that.
Write down your thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Have a conversation on paper. Wrestle with the pen.
See, speaking is a form of thinking.
Real thinking is hard.
And when we are in our heads, we think that we’re thinking.
But most of the time, we are not. Our thoughts are chaotic and so is the process of thinking.
Speaking is one of the ways we organize our thoughts.
It’s a way to think better.
When you talk to someone, you are laying out your thoughts, preparing them, and sharpening them.
Now, writing is the same. It’s a sophisticated way of thinking as Dr. Jordan Peterson describes it.
It’s a way to understand ourselves, unlock our thoughts, regulate our emotions, and even heal some wounds in our psyche.
I can second that.
I have been writing online since 2015.
And in general, I have been writing on my own since high school or before that.
I can confidently say it got me through a lot. Without it, I would probably not have been who I am today.
It is therapeutic. The insights I get while writing my articles are worth the effort.
How can this help you overcome loneliness?
First, the level of self-awareness you can achieve by writing, in addition to self-regulation and organizing your thoughts, will help you connect with yourself on a deeper level.
I am not saying that by connecting with yourself you will no longer need any human connection.
No. Anybody who claims that knows very little about relationships.
What I am saying is, by establishing a better relationship with yourself, you will feel less lonely.
The essence of loneliness is not being understood. What if you don’t understand yourself?
Second, writing will help you become more articulate and expressive. It’s one of the best ways to become an articulate person.
And when you can articulate your thoughts, feelings, and ideas, you will feel less lonely.
Why?
Because you will make people understand you much easier. You will become an effective communicator.
So, although this is not a quick fix, it works way beyond what you might expect.
#2 Take a reliable personality test to understand yourself
As I mentioned, you could be feeling lonely because you don’t understand yourself.
A better relationship with yourself and more self-awareness will lead you to feel less lonely, all things considered.
Understanding your personality will help you understand what type of people, environments, and conversations engage you.
If you aree introverted, you will understand your nature of being consumed by social contact.
Your social battery drains faster.
If you are interested in intellect or art, you are more likely to find conversations about these things engaging.
If you are stressed out quicker than others, you will understand what triggers you in social situations and cause you to shut down or explode.
All in all, understanding your own personality will have dramatic effects on your life, not just on how lonely you feel.
A reliable personality test can give you a lot of insights.
Those insights will help you create a lifestyle that aligns with who you are, and that includes your social life and relationships.
Again, this is not a short-term solution.
You will likely see the benefits in the long run when you least expect them.
I would recommend the Big Five personality model.
#3 Learn to ask for help and develop some interdependence
This is something for those who usually don’t like to ask for help.
I call this hyper-independence.
And guess what?
It will make you lonely.
In this case, you might have people in your life who can help, who are willing to help you, and even who are offering their help.
But you decline.
You choose not to rely on anyone.
And hey, it’s a spectrum.
Some people refuse to rely on anyone at all.
Others rely on external help only to a certain extent.
But overall, you are the type of person who does not want to be helped.
Okay, that is fine. I understand it. I am this type of person, but I learned to unlearn it.
It will just make you feel alone.
Actually, you are making yourself alone by not asking for a reasonable amount of help from someone who can and is willing to offer it.
You’re isolating yourself.
I assume that in the past, you were disappointed and were around people you could not rely on.
So, you had to teach yourself to never ask.
It was dangerous to ask and to allow others to take control.
It is a useful skill here and there.
It teaches you how to become independent.
But, if you take it to an extreme, you will feel terrible loneliness.
The people who care about you will feel rejected, useless, and neglected.
Yes, it is their responsibility to not take your behavior personally.
But, it will affect your relationship with them.
It will build a wall between you and them.
Your relationship with them won’t be as deep as you truly desire if you don’t allow them to help you.
Even if they don’t admit it, it will make them less likely to ask you for help when they need it. You might think it’s good, but you want to think again.
This seemingly healthy behavior will destroy interdependence and build a wall between you. An invisible wall.
This lack of depth will affect how connected you feel with them.
It depends on how strong the relationship is in the first place, how big of a help you refused to ask for, and the other person’s temper and beliefs.
But regardless of all of this, it will build a wall.
You’re hiding a part of yourself and refuse to share it.
And you’re neglecting that your life will get better with how efficient this help can be.
I am not asking you to go out there and ask people for help whenever you have the slightest inconvenience.
No. That’s a weakness.
It’s wisdom to ask those who can and are willing to help when you truly need help with something.
And it’s foolish to ask for help to the point of being overdependent on people.
Let’s discuss that.
#4 Stop asking for help and develop some independence
In this case, your loneliness comes from the emptiness inside you that you’re trying to fill with the existence of other people.
But it never gets filled permanently.
That’s because that void needs to be filled by you.
By your independence.
So, if you are the type of person who cannot function alone and always needs help, you need to work on becoming more independent.
Over-dependence is never a good thing.
People will start avoiding you, and this is where it will make you lonely.
If you’re the type of person who always needs to be helped, held, lulled, and taken care of, people will start avoiding you.
No one will tell you that.
Most people are too polite to tell you that you are acting like a spoiled child.
And that’s not even the worst part.
The worst part is that you will lose yourself, your independence, and your strength.
You will never fill this void inside you by making someone else pour their time, effort, and money into it even when you don’t actually need that.
You will make yourself weaker, and that’s the ultimate loss.
Again, no one will tell you that.
So, don’t be surprised you’re being avoided without any explanation.
Start working on your independence, but not because you want to feel less lonely. That’s only the side effect.
The real reason should be not losing yourself and taking your strength back.
Make yourself stronger, more interesting, and more desirable.
#5 Exert more effort in helping others understand you instead of giving up at the slightest hint of being misunderstood
Some of us have problems expressing ourselves.
Maybe we weren’t understood in the past.
We were always misunderstood and made fun of.
So, we no longer put enough effort to be understood.
And when we sense that someone doesn’t understand us, we just shut off.
Literally! We don’t have the desire to continue explaining ourselves.
Look, some people out there are way too different than you that there’s no room for them to understand you at a certain level.
And maybe those are the people you have always been around.
That’s okay. People are different.
You need to find people who do understand you.
People with similar beliefs, values, and perspectives.
You don’t need to agree on everything.
But do understand each other, both intellectually and emotionally.
But still, you need to exert some effort into explaining yourself.
Here are two facts about people:
- People cannot read minds.
- People have their own limitations, insecurities, and fears that will make them misunderstand you.
In fact, it’s most likely the case that we misunderstand each other most of the time.
Just like it takes effort to understand someone, it takes effort to be understood by someone.
And it’s quite arrogant to assume that you’re just too complicated to be understood.
You are. We all are, and that’s what makes you arrogant.
But we exert effort to understand each other and to be understood by each other.
So, the next time someone doesn’t seem to get you, put more effort into articulating what you mean.
Make them understand you. Make sure you understand yourself first (refer back to points #1 and #2).
You’re special and complicated. But you can always explain yourself a little bit more and put extra effort into articulating your words. Don’t complain you’re lonely if you’re not exerting that effort.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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