For many of us, the idea of being alone conjures up a sense of
dread. Maybe it’s the sense of boredom, or the feelings of isolation, or being
forced to confront our own thoughts. In fact, a recent study in the journal Science showed that people would rather give themselves electric
shocks than be alone with their thoughts for just 15 minutes.
The main
distinguisher: Being alone is a physical description (meaning when we are
alone, we are just not with people), while loneliness is a feeling that often
is experienced as negative and painful. “You can be alone and happy, you can be
alone and lonely,” Rosenberg explains. “The idea of being alone is what you
make of it.”
Many people who
struggle with feelings of loneliness can link their struggles to deeper roots.
According to Rosenberg, loneliness is a feeling fueled by trauma, loss and
grief, a lack of self-esteem, and insecurity. Those who lead healthy, balanced
lives are better equipped to face these negative experiences because they have
both internal and external resources that help guide them through the process —
from a sense of community to a strong and positive self-concept.
“Loneliness is a
normal part of the human existence,” Rosenberg says. “We all feel lonely, but
chronic, pathological loneliness is a deeply embedded pattern that is
self-reinforcing. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Healthy, resilient people
respond to normal loneliness by resolving it. Unhealthy people become
overwhelmed by it.”
Personality type is
also a big factor when it comes to who experiences discomfort from being alone.
Introverts — who lose energy from being around others — may find alone time
more desirable than extroverts, who instead gain energy from the company of
others.
“If you’re an
extrovert, you are comfortable and feel compelled to be around other people. It
is just the way you are genetically set up. If you’re an extrovert and you’re
not around people, you feel uncomfortable and if you’re psychologically
healthy, you use internal and external resources to be around people,”
Rosenberg explains. “If you’re an introvert and you like being alone, that’s
also completely psychologically healthy. You can be very secure and
self-confident and still be very nervous around crowds of people, but you have
friends and loved ones, and those are the resources that make an introvert feel
just fine when they’re alone.”
At the end of the
day, whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, all humans experience
feelings of loneliness. And many do so during the times they are physically alone. But it doesn’t have to be that
way. Here are seven
ways people who struggle with “me” time can learn to like it, and maybe even
love it.
Consider the root causes.
Take the time to ask yourself where the discomfort of
solitude comes from. Is it true feelings of loneliness or something else? If
it’s the former, explore what that means for you and come to the realization
that loneliness usually can be traced back to an unpleasant experience or past
memory. To truly understand what makes being alone so painful, you must
recognize that it comes from a deeper situation — no matter how uncomfortable
it may be to do so, Rosenberg says.
Just do it.
With any uncomfortable situation, sometimes you have
to push past the negative thoughts and hesitations and just take the
plunge. The same goes for being alone. More often than not, the
result will be far more positive than you anticipated.
“It’s like jumping in the pool when you know it’s
cold,” Rosenberg says. “Everyone knows that once you jump in the pool and get
past the coldness, you’re going to have a blast and not even notice it’s cold
anymore. You have to tell yourself that that shock to the system is only
fleeting and that you’re going to enjoy yourself.”
It’s all about addressing what are called “cognitive
distortions,” or things that tell us that the pain is not going to be worth it.
“We have to actually tell ourselves the opposite,” Rosenberg says. “We have to
do reverse self-talk.”
Explore new hobbies
Some people who find that
they don’t like spending time alone are simply bored when they do so. By
spending the majority of their time entertaining others, they haven’t learned
how to entertain themselves. To remedy this, you must retrain the mind by
developing habits and hobbies that can consume your attention, inspire your
creativity and spark your imagination, Rosenberg says. It may not come naturally
at first, and it will likely require experimentation with different activities,
but you get that much closer by taking the first step.
Deepen your relationships
It might sound counter intuitive, but the strength of
your relationships can speak bounds to how secure you feel when spending time
alone. A lack of depth and connection can make you feel less heard, understood,
appreciated or secure in the fact that you do have someone to call should you need to.
“To solve that problem, deepen your relationships,
take risks,” Rosenberg advises. “Knowing that there are people out there that
love you whom you can call will solve your feelings in one of two ways: You’ll
actually call them, or you’ll just know that you can call them and that will
make you feel better. It makes you feel less lonely in your world, and
paradoxically, you don’t need to call them because you know they’re
out there.”
Opt for a change of scenery.
If you hate being alone because you feel stir crazy at
home, a change in location could do the trick. Rosenberg suggests doing
something new like visiting a museum.
“Do something you’ve never done,” he advises. “Step out of your
comfort zone physically. At the very least, it will make time pass quicker, and
you might find that you actually enjoy yourself.”
Think back to your childhood.
A critical component of feeling comfortable spending time alone
is the ability to self-soothe, a coping technique learned at a very young age.
According to Rosenberg, people with the ability to self-soothe mostly likely
had a healthy early childhood, where their parents met their needs
unconditionally and in a timely way. And unfortunately, people without this kind
of upbringing may struggle more with self-soothing because it isn’t something
that can often be learned after adolescence.
“If the world around you feels trustworthy, you experience the
world as safe. But if you have an early childhood experience when your parent
could not or did not meet your nurturing and safety needs, you don’t feel
secure in your world — and as an adult you have to keep trying to bring people
into your world to soothe that feeling,” he explains.
Ask for help
Through this self-exploration process, if you find you
experience less the physical discomfort of being alone and more the consistent
feelings of loneliness, don’t hesitate to reach out for help. According to
Rosenberg, psychotherapy is one of the best ways to address chronic loneliness
that is debilitating and self-perpetuating. Talking through the parts of life
that engender those feelings is critical to discovering the many mindful
benefits that solitude can offer.
By
Lusako Mwakiluma
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