Loneliness is that state of voluntary or involuntary lack of companionship that is often associated with discomfort. According to the Finnish writer Mika Waltari, it is the heritage of adulthood. Children really need an adult to accompany them as they grow up. This means having someone watching you, observing you, interested in getting to know you in order to meet your physical and emotional needs. In adulthood, if you do not take care of yourself with the same interest, you will not be able to take care of your own life in a healthy way. Then discomfort and feelings of loneliness will predominate, a common cause in psychology consultations.
Loneliness in the relationship with oneself
Just as loneliness is experienced when there is a lack of contact with other people, it also appears when there is a lack of connection to aspects of oneself, perhaps to that which provokes fear.
The more contact with oneself is avoided, the more tension and suffering is generated. It is common to hear “I am afraid to be alone”, this is the fear of finding oneself. Being at ease with oneself makes it possible to overcome the fear of solitude, which is the ideal space to know oneself in depth. The French moralist Marquis de Vauvenarques says that “solitude is to the spirit what diet is to the body”.
The feeling of loneliness, even in someone who is accompanied, provokes an internal discomfort linked to the type of relationship with oneself. This relationship is often full of demands that cannot be satisfied, which leads to looking at oneself in a recriminatory and intolerant way, which implies having a bad feeling within oneself. The fact of becoming aware that one cannot be perfect helps to accept oneself, with weaknesses and defects.
When the look is severe, it can damage the confidence in the good in oneself. This, in consequence, increases suspicion of others, with the consequent isolation.
Taking advantage of loneliness to get to know oneself
To know oneself requires honesty, humility and courage. It is a matter of becoming aware of one’s own miseries, mistakes and everything about oneself that displeases or limits. At the beginning this process can be painful to face and assume the truth that we had internalized. It makes us freer people and allows us to look at others with empathy and understanding.
Solitude provides the setting to get to know oneself better. Healthy independence happens when you do not need someone to support you, when you know how to live with loneliness. It is then that the pleasure of sharing life with other people will really come.
Loneliness in dependent people
Dependent people cannot stand loneliness and their goal is to be loved, to have someone pay attention to them. These people have an inner emptiness, a bottomless pit they want to fill and always feel that something is missing.
Dependent people usually doubt that they are valuable and worthy of being loved. They are terrified of the idea of knowing themselves and reject the possibility of seeing aspects of themselves that they do not like, possibly also depriving themselves of appreciating the capabilities they may have.
Living loneliness in a positive way
Loneliness offers an opportunity to get to know oneself better and to improve one’s relationship with others and with oneself. According to the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche “a man’s worth is measured by the loneliness he can endure”: living loneliness as a positive experience means being satisfied with oneself, enjoying one’s own company and trying to understand one’s inner world.
Although the basic human tendency leads us to seek companionship as a way of ensuring the survival of the species, it is necessary to experience states of loneliness in order to establish quality relationships with others.
Ultimately, the feeling of loneliness causes discomfort and even anxiety, and is linked to the lack of connection with rejected aspects of oneself. But the state of loneliness is a good opportunity to assume and face the truth that lies within.