Article written by Safia
October 8, 2021
Most of the time, we tend to think of loneliness as a negative phase that we all go through, at least once in our life. For some people, they might feel it on a daily basis. We’ve always been given tips about the way we should handle loneliness. We often represent it like a disease that needs to be cured because it makes us uncomfortable, sad and empty.
But what we fail to realize is that loneliness can be positive. It can be changed, only if we want to. The goal is to use it properly, because yes indeed, there is hope through loneliness!
So, what if today we tell you that loneliness rhymes with self-happiness? In this article, SoBeReborn’s redaction is going to give you the secrets to adopting positive loneliness!
Résumé en Français : Cette article parlera de conseils pour que vous appprenez à faire face à la solitude. Nous allons vous prouver que malgré qu'elle soit encore considérer par de nombreuses personnes comme une chose négative, la solitude peut s'avérer être positive. Nous commençerons par vous donner une définition de celle-ci à travers le cas d'un enfant uniqu, puis nous terminerons par vous donner trois de nos conseils : La solitude permet de faire une réflection sur soi pour mieux se focaliser sur ses objectifs. Avoir une mentalité de guérrier ou de guerrière car les héros doivent faire face aux obstacles seul et ils finissent toujours par gagner. Enfin, passer du tant avec sois-même vous permettera d'apprendre à vous aimer.
What is loneliness ?
According to John Cacioppo and Louise Hawkley’s article, “Loneliness is defined as a distressing feeling that accompanies the perception that one’s social needs are not being met by the quantity or especially the quality of one’s social relationships”. In other words, we all expect to feel complete whenever we are surrounded by people, friends, lovers or family members. But once they are gone, we feel « lonely ». We feel as if a part of us was missing. Let’s take the example of an only child. When this child is at school, he feels surrounded by his friends, so the feeling of loneliness is not present. But once he comes back home, no matter if his parents give him so much love and attention, he will still feel lonely. Why? Because he has no siblings, he could talk to nor relate to, so his friends are a way to compensate for this emptiness. Let’s suppose that once he grew up, this only child doesn’t even have step sisters nor step brothers. This grown-up man starts to buy a lot of material things, thinking that it could compensate for this missing part. He still doesn’t feel complete, and the feeling of loneliness is still there. He tried everything but nothing is working out.
So, how should he find a way to cope up with loneliness? By loving himself and learning to grow up alone. The road is lonely. That doesn’t mean it will be negative, but on the contrary it will be positive, because we are going to use it wisely.
Loneliness is a journey dedicated to finding your self-happiness
As we previously saw with the case of the only child, loving yourself and learning to live alone is the key to overcoming loneliness. Even if we hate it, everyone on earth will have to face up loneliness at least once in their life. Instead of spending a lot of money on material things that we think will help us remove this lonely feeling, we must face up loneliness and turn it into a positive experience. Here’s are our tips :
1. Remind yourself that this is a way to self-reflect on your goals and your future.
Spending time on your own can be very therapeutic because it enables you to make your priorities first and focus on what you would like to achieve on your own. We need our alone time to create our success. A king or a queen uses loneliness as a great tool to build his or her empire because he or she self-reflects a lot and enjoys spending time on his or her own to focus on better ideas. So, to all my Kings and Queens, let’s start doing it!
2. Warrior’s mentality: A must-have!
Are you a fan of superman, wonderwoman or batman or have you always admired their strength? Great! Now it’s your time to embody one of them for your own purpose! A warrior is the result of the number of obstacles he or she had to face up on their own. Loneliness is very present into a warrior’s life. In other words, sometimes we think we can’t overcome obstacles on our own, but really, we can! All we need is strength. In that case, you must train your mind to have the warrior mindset. No matter what kind of obstacles you have faced, you are facing right now or that you will have to face up, this kind of mindset will lead you to overcome everything that is thrown out on your way!
3. Learn to love yourself!
Spending time alone will help you to understand what you need to change or improve about yourself. If you feel insecure, you need to make yourself happy. In this case, each time that you are feeling down, we advise you to look at yourself in the mirror and give yourself the pep talk (= cheering yourself up by speaking positively about yourself). We recommend you to speak out loud 5 compliments when you wake up in the morning, 5 compliments during the afternoon wherever you are, and 5 compliments before you go to sleep. If you are not feeling comfortable with speaking out loud, you can simply think about it mentally, write down the list of compliments on a book or on your phone. If you need further details about how to love yourself, you can check out Martha's article, she is explaining how to become more self-confident!
With the misconception of loneliness, it has been hard for people to think positively about it. This is the reason why we believe that these tips will help you to find self-happiness and to see the positive side of loneliness.
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Sources: Louise C. Hawkley, Ph.D., John T. Cacioppo, Ph.D., Loneliness Matters: A Theoretical and Empirical Review of Consequences and Mechanisms, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Volume 40, Issue 2, October 2010, Pages 218–227, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-010-9210-8
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