The pain of loneliness
Hey guys
Firstly, a big thank you to all the people who post comments and send me emails about the blogs that I write. It really is great to know that people get value out of the articles I write, especially as I tend to cover a lot of topics that are not usually included in the pick up community.
Today I am going to write about something which I know that most men (and women) have to deal with and it often causes us to have low self esteem and to even to take radical actions. I am going to talk about loneliness and how it affects us. As always I am going to be drawing on examples from my own life, those of people who I have worked with and I will try to offer some tips and advice to help you to avoid this terrible state of mind.
This evening I am feeling rather lonely myself. The reason is that I was meant to be going to a meetup, but I managed to put my back out doing the super alpha male activity of cleaning my bathroom. That’s right, as I cleaned the sink, an old football injury once again paid me a little return visit that has caused me to me to spend several days at home, covered in deep heat and texting people until they are sick of me. Not only was I lonely, I was bored out of my mind. Instead of wallowing in my pit of despair, I have necked some pain killers and made myself write this blog post. I actually feel better already.
So what is loneliness? Why do we feel it and most importantly, what can we do about it?
Wikipedia describes loneliness as “Loneliness is an unpleasant feeling in which a person experiences a strong sense of emptiness and solitude resulting from inadequate levels of social relationships. However, it is a subjective experience. Loneliness has also been described as social pain – a psychological mechanism meant to alert an individual of undesired isolation and motivate her/him to seek social connections.
I believe that when you are lonely, it is because you are not sharing some sort of connection with other like minded people. This means that it is possible to feel lonely even when you are with other people, simply because you don’t share a connection with them. When you are with people without this connection, conversation can feel forced and you are often uninterested in what other people have to say. Being with the same people all the time, or even with old social groups who you no longer have common goals with can make you feel lonely.
I like to say people “feel” lonely because most people say that actually physically “feel” it. For me it is a sinking feeling in my stomach that not only makes me lethargic, but it sets of a series of negative thoughts, usually causing me to feel bad about myself. Once the feeling of loneliness takes hold it can cause a cascade of thoughts and emotions that can often lead us to take escape route actions ranging from drugs, alcohol and doing things like contacting ex partners. We have all been there, I assure you.
The lonelier we feel, the bigger the surge of happy feeling we need to counteract it. We have all developed coping strategies for dealing with feeling lonely, however these strategies can also be the cause of why we are alone to start with. Excessive console gaming, internet use, watching TV, drinking at home and drug abuse will often isolate us from the outside world. A recent client I was working with said that he often feels lonely so he stays in and plays on his X Box. I said to him that staying in and playing X Box is contributing to his loneliness, not helping as a resource for escaping the feeling.
Client who I have worked with who report being lonely will often have some if not all of the below characteristics in common;
- They live with their parents, alone or in a houses share with people they hardly know
- They do the same things and activities every week
- They have the same friends now as when they did at school
- They want to try new things but can not get their friends to do it with them
- They spend a lot of time on the internet
- They spend a lot of time playing games consoles
- They are either unemployed or in a job that doesn’t interest or challenge them
- They fail to make plans for the evenings and weekends
- They often have put little effort into their style and grooming
- They talk a lot about negative subjects
- They watch an excessive amount of news and even research conspiracy theories
- They are often very lethargic and take little structured exercise
- Their sleeping cycle is often sporadic, staying up late at night and sleeping in till all hours
- They eat the same 5-6 meals all the time
- They lack motivation, passion and a lust for life
- They spend a lot of time thinking about the mistakes they made in the past
- They blame others/society for their issues
- They view their future as bleak
- They don’t know what the problem is, they just want to stop feeling this way
- They want to get back to being the person they used to be
- They meet very few new people and tend to avoid social situations
- They feel other people are happier than them and are more successful
- They are often ill
Do you recognise any of the above symptoms in your own life? I think that at one time or another, I have experienced everything on the list and probably a whole load more. Being lonely is a natural feeling, however instead of letting it drag you down, you can use it to motivate you into doing things differently. When you change your methods, you change your results.
Out of all the symptoms of loneliness, probably the biggest thing I hear is “if I had X, I would feel Y”. For example, if I had a girlfriend, I would be happy. If I was thinner, I would like myself. If I had money, I would be fulfilled. Trying to predict how you would feel is such an event should take place will always end in disappointment. This is for 2 reasons, firstly the thing will probably never happen (i.e. getting rich), and secondly it may raise your mood for a while but you are likely to return back to your happiness set point. This means you are screwed if you don’t achieve your goal, and screwed if you do achieve it. I recently met this rich dude who told me something really interesting. He said that there are only two great days when you are a yacht owner. The day you buy it and the day you sell it. All the time in-between is an expensive pain in the ass.
From working with a wide variety of clients who tell me they are lonely, I have noticed a very common pattern. Those people who complain of being lonely are usually those people who spend a lot of time being alone! I have tested a variety of strategies to help people overcome and cope with loneliness. I believe that loneliness is both a physical and psychological condition and both aspects can be addressed and improved. When I say physical I mean what you are doing and who with, psychological is more to do with self esteem and emotions.
The reason why you are experiencing loneliness can vary. The typical stories I hear are usually one of the following;
You have moved to a new town or city with work and don’t know anyone.
- You have noticed that your circle of friends are getting married, having kids and settling down. Leaving little time for things you used to do.
- You have split up with a long term partner.
- You are basically just bored with your current friends and life, and have become more and more reclusive.
- One more thing I want to mention is that being in pain is actually very seductive. People like having problems and suffering. You get used to the pain and make it part of your life. The thought is change is overwhelming and instead of doing so you go further into your pit of despair. I will write a whole blog post on this issue in the near future.
Ok so now we have a good idea about what loneliness is and its symptoms, it is time to start to take steps to get out of this way of feeling. The below tips are in no particular order and they have all been tried and tested by myself and my clients countless times. Some of the things won’t suit you, that is cool. Just try to adopt some of them and just see the changes they can bring. Take things slowly and build up as you go.
My final thing before I get into the steps is that prevention is better than cure. It is far better to prevent loneliness than to try and cure it. By taking preventative measures now, you can avoid feeling lonely in the future.
Take responsibility for your happiness
When I work with clients, most are quick to list people, events or circumstances that are the reason for why they are the way they are. What has happened to you in the past may not be your fault, but if you want to make real changes you need to take control of your life. You are your actions! No one is going to help you make changes until you decide to do something about it. Instead of focusing what is wrong with your life, we need to start to build resources and escape routes so you can have a happier existence.
Changing your social circles
There is an old saying that you become your peers. Who you spend time with heavily influences you and your choices in life, being either constrictive or inspirational. Look at your current social circle, are they helping or hindering you? If you want to change what you are doing then it is going to be vital that you change who you spend time with. Identify those who are holding you back and stop seeing them as much. Identify who you are want be more like and spend as much time as possible with them. Don’t compare yourself to someone who is more successful than yourself as this will cause your esteem to lower. Instead, see someone who is more successful as someone to learn from. See what behaviours they have and see what you can adopt into your own life.
Taking it 1 day at a time
I have recently been researching a lot of CBT techniques and have found them to have been extremely helpful, in both my own development and when working with clients. I now live my life in 30 minute segments. I have an A4 sheet for each day that goes from 8am through to 1am. This allows me to plan my day and to also record everything I am doing.
It is easy for time to slip away or to say you are too busy to do something. By monitoring your life in 30 minute segments, it really allows you to see your own patterns. I have been doing this now for a month and I have been extremely productive as a result. When you can actually see your progress in a written form it makes you want to improve and take on larger challenges. I have this sheet if anyone would like it. Please email me at hypnomatt@puatraining.com and put “daily planner” in the subject bar and I will fire it over. I will also try and upload it here at some point.
Taking care of your body
Loneliness and lethargy seem to go hand in hand. “I want to go out and meet people but I am too tired”. Hush now. Time to start taking care of yourself. Look at your diet, does it consist on take aways or healthy foods? Do you take pride in your appearance? Is the only exercise you do “internet related?” is so then you need to start to take a long look at your diet, appearance and lifestyle. You need to use energy to make energy, yet this is not going to be pleasant at first but you will start to see the benefits.
Planning future events
What are you doing next weekend? Do you have anything planned for evenings this week after work? If not then this is an area you need to get on. An amazing resource than I can not endorse enough is www.meetup.com. This is an amazing place to meet people who are doing activities that you want to do. Just visit the site and check it out.
“Fail to plan and plan to fail”, is a quote my business mentor once told me. You need to put time and effort into your social life and take it seriously. Planning is an essential part of avoiding being lonely. When you plan things in advance it gives you things to look forward to, which in turn raises your happiness set point (this is another thing I will write about in future).
Have photo of happy memories
When we think of the past we often think about all the things that have gone wrong. We can forget the amazing times we have had as our thought processes become more and more negative. Instead of always scanning for negative issues, we can actually start to train our brain to think more positively. I am NOT talking about tree hugging hippy crap, I am talking about a new area of research called “Positive Psychology”.
One technique of thinking more positively is to have photos on display all the time reminding you of great times of your life. I recently purchased 2 photo wall hangers (see pic) which hold 20 photos on each side. I am printing off great pictures that are tucked away hidden on my phone and hard drive and putting them where I can see them every day.
If you don’t have any pictures to print, then ask your friends if they have any of you in them. If this isn’t the case, then get a camera and get your ass to cool places and start clicking. Reading that last sentence back actually made me cringe.
The pictures don’t have to be of you, they can be of places you have been instead (some people don’t like having their picture taken). The pictures can also be of friends, both old and new. I love London and I love taking pictures on my phone. Make this a practice in your life and if possible try to make the pictures as colourful as possible. Also try to hang the pictures above eye level so you have to look up at them. The colour and position of pictures has psychological impacts, i.e. they make you feel better when looking at them.
Ban your biggest vice
A great exercise is self control and getting you our meeting new people is to ban your biggest vice or vices. My biggest vices are alcohol and using my laptop. On my birthday (24th March) I decided to stop drinking, this has had a massive impact on my life. I thought it was going to be really hard, it has in fact been really easy. Because I made such a big change it actually changed my activities and who I hang around with.
My other big vice is the internet and especially Youtube. It wasn’t a rare occurrence for me to be still watching clips at 4am instead of getting my beauty sleep. To counteract this I have banned myself from using my laptop for any reason after 8pm. This was much hard to give up than drinking, but again it has made massive changes in my life. I don’t have a TV so without my laptop it forces me to either read, go out and generally do more productive things.
What is your biggest vice that is keeping you from being with other people? Do you watch too much TV, play on X Box all night or addicted to DVDs? Time to self regulate and impose your own limits on these activities. It is bloody weird and strange at first but embrace the pain and after just a short while you will experience results.
Purpose in life
Wow, big one. OK I am not a believer that we are all here as part of a plan and we actually have much of a purpose. I actually believe that we are very insignificant and when we die the world will carry on just fine without us. I also believe that by knowing our place in the world and surrendering to the fact we actually have little control over what happens, it is rather enlightening. Saying that we do have a lot of control over our own behaviours and how we react to situations.
By creating a purpose or role within a scene, gives you a feeling of wellbeing and really elevates your happiness and gets you meeting new people with a common goal. An example of this is I have started several groups on meetup. I have started a group that delivers monthly talks on psychology, a workshop group for therapists and also a business networking group for North Londoners. These are my own little creations and without simply wouldn’t exist. Knowing that I am providing these events which give a lot of value to people is simply amazing. I have met so many people through doing these events.
Practice grateful through processes
Please be assured that I am not turning into a happy clappy hippy. However some of the processes in Positive Psychology and CBT really are effective. It is possible to start to retrain your brain by incorporating small changes in your behaviour on a daily basis. A practice I now do is when I get up I write down 3 things I am grateful for. This can range from having somewhere nice to live, to having friends, a loving family, your health, your car or whatever it is.
A lot of depression is associated with what people don’t have. If I had x I would feel y. However the more you have, the more you want and are never likely to be happy by following this mindset. By being more accepting and grateful to what you already have, it can literally start to change the way you think and interact with people.
Take up juggling
WTF I hear you cry. Why should I take up juggling? I know it sounds weird and stupid, however there is a lot of research being done on the effects of juggling and brain function. It is incredibly beneficial and can help to stimulate brain growth if practiced over a 6 month period. It makes your brain more resourceful and can help to prevent depression. It is also fun and cool to do. I am doing a lot of research into practices like juggling and will write more blog posts about it in future.
OK I am done. Well done for getting though this article, it actually turned out to be about 3 times longer than originally planned for. Remember that loneliness is something can be prevented and also worked on. Look at the above strategies and start to implement them in your own life. They are all quite simple to do and just require a bit of self discipline.
Matt Kendall (Hypnomatt)
p.s. if all the above strategies fail then you should do some energy work and open up your chakras ;)
