Does it make sense to avoid loneliness?

“Is it really impossible to get rid of loneliness?”

Olga, 39 years

“Over time, I began to notice: loneliness has a vile nature. It is impossible to agree with him. It appears nearby, I feel it with the back of my head, I am afraid of it and hate it. I have already tried the typical beginner strategy of surrendering to life. She ran away from him into an active life, spent so much energy!

I moved to a big city, found an exciting job, made cool and interesting acquaintances … It turned out that loneliness moved with me and settled here. As soon as I relax a little, I feel: it is near, it blows cold, it scares me to eerily. There are more and more contacts in networks, there is less and less time for a break, I communicate with someone, hang out somewhere, am busy with something. All the time. No time to even sleep. Interesting life…

I think I lied to him, but no. It is worth stopping for a moment, and it immediately turns out to be nearby: it scares you with the “weekend syndrome”, exhausts you with the prospect of cold emptiness, longing for something else – you can substitute anything here: another job, city, country, and so on.

Scary. Fear makes you start a new devastating circle of vanity. Time is running. And now you already fall into the category of those who have been struggling with loneliness for a long time. Now I’m not fussing anymore, I’m looking – no need to laugh! — big, but pure love. This seems to be a very good remedy. Find the person who will be the solution to the problem. And I find the Other, and I throw myself into relationships in order to dissolve and fly together, in complete unity.

Love. To be complete is not enough for the Other — I also want from him the same force of desire for me, the same force of need in me, as my own. “Only a lover has the right to be called a man!” – it turns out that before me this recipe for real life was already known and even described so precisely, so correctly … Then everything somehow changes. Frustration or satiety, it doesn’t matter.

Unity disappears – no matter who asked for freedom first, but in this unfortunate moment, loneliness again breathed into the back of the head. Even if the relationship has not yet ended, it is already behind you, cold, terrifying. It makes you cling to relationships, humiliate yourself, do things that you don’t want to remember later. That’s not what I wanted. I decide that I did not guess with the object of love. How many novels do you need to go through to understand that it’s not about the partner?

Other escape routes also turn out to be traps. For example, to help others, selflessly and persistently, without asking their consent. Or work hard. Same effect – it waits. It jumps out from around the corner, waiting when you are weak, tired, offended, angry, when you don’t like yourself or get sick. You hate your loneliness, suspecting it of intent to ruin your whole life. (Usually I address these words to someone specific: to a close man, and even more often to my mother – “You ruined my whole life!” Or “… ruined it”).

Then a new hobby appears. Life turns into a series of jumps from novel to novel. I’m always on the lookout – is this already an addiction? I’m not free, I need someone by all means! I get charmed so easily. I have learned to be very convincing in the opening, I enchant and conquer myself, although I know from the edge of my consciousness how everything will end. I understand that time alone will not heal. After all, spectacular debuts require health and youth.

Now, I seem to be becoming wiser, realizing that being alone is very human. I will leave this world alone, even if there are – God forbid – people who love me nearby. But while I am alive, an almost childish question remains: is it possible not to suffer so much, is it really not possible to free oneself from loneliness?

“Everyone can leave me, but I will not leave myself”

Svetlana Krivtsova

Let’s try for a moment to admit that loneliness is not our enemy. Then the attitude towards him will also change: not to be afraid of this feeling, but to find out what loneliness wants to tell us about. Putting the question in this way, in a new way, you can find the answer.

For many people, it boils down to the simple truth: “I don’t have a relationship with myself.” There is no real interest, no intimacy, no trust, no self-knowledge, finally. “Somehow I went to visit myself – I didn’t find anyone at home.”

Many of us are afraid of meeting ourselves without witnesses, when there is nowhere to hurry, there is no need to put ourselves at the disposal of a cause or people. You can look for a long time the reasons for how it happened that we do not consider ourselves worthy of interest. Or, on the contrary, in our arrogance we do not allow the possibility of mistakes and flaws, and therefore we do not look at ourselves or allow ourselves to be pitied.

Each of us has our own story. But the truth is that an adult must take care of his relationship with himself. To be able to do this is to be an adult.

The first attempts will not be easy. Trying to establish a truly good relationship with yourself, do not demand everything from yourself at once. Start with small steps. Take yourself seriously. Yes, yes, really seriously, as to the most important person in life.

Gradually, you will learn to endure yourself. You have to learn to protect your own boundaries, to notice and stop attempts to exaggerate everything and draw too far-reaching conclusions. But all this will no longer be a boring painful suffering from loneliness. You will fill the void with yourself.

Ask yourself: what do I know about myself? Am I interested in myself at all? What is my style of thinking? Work style? Character? How do I communicate with other people? My habits: how am I different from other people of my age, how am I similar? Do I finally know my true weight? Do I remember my age? Or there are areas where I do not want to look, let alone see the truth: for example, age or character. Where are my blind spots? What am I afraid of?

Note: your task is only to enumerate, without going deep. And to leave a place – the list will be lengthened.

Try to understand: do you feel close to yourself? If you are alone with yourself for a while in peace and quiet, will any feeling come? Which? It can be quiet warmth, it doesn’t have to be hot. But warm. It often comes with tears, because in sorrow we are very close to ourselves.

If you haven’t been on good terms with yourself for so long, you can’t do without tears. There is so much to mourn, so much to regret, to feel sorry for yourself, finally. And cry until there is warmth that bridges the gap with itself. Think – do you know what else makes your heart warm?

Note: there are many situations in life when you become a tool in the hands of others, you allow yourself to be used. Every time after that, take pity on yourself so that you can feel whole again.

Give yourself gifts: if you know yourself well, it turns out that this is not a ruinous business, the heart rejoices in smallness. Do it with inner consent so that the pleasure becomes deeper. For example, you can stop to expose your face to the summer sun.

Accustom yourself to immaterial gifts, not shoes or bags. Without a tender relationship with ourselves, we become slaves of passions. Taking care of ourselves, we protect the soul from destructive novels. “My whole life is an affair with my own soul,” wrote Tsvetaeva.

Consider the words: “Everyone can leave me, but I will not leave myself. Life may be cruel to me, but I will never be cruel to myself. I will spend time and energy to ensure that my decisions are noticed by me, so that my actions deserve my approval. I will be my friend even if I have no more friends.

When the time comes and my mother leaves, I will learn to be a good mother myself. And then I won’t need to force someone else to take care of myself. So I will move in this direction, going with myself through the joys and difficulties of life, and even be able to invite myself to visit me from time to time. Oh what an evening it will be! The stream of life spilling over the body, a blessed opportunity to be alone to communicate with a good person.

Note: no need to focus on others, look around. At least once a day, do what is still difficult for you, listen to yourself, look into yourself.

Note: save this text; in a difficult moment, when thoughts are rushing about, it would be good to get it and read it like a mantra or prayer. As a reminder of the most important thing.