How to Deal With Loneliness in a Healthy Way

Everyone gets lonely at one point or another in their lives. Loneliness is a normal emotion we feel when we disconnect ourselves from others either emotionally or physically. Truth be told, even though loneliness is a normal emotion, it is no easy to live with it. Loneliness can be a trigger for other mental health issues such as depression. To combat this emotion, it is very important that we learn how to deal with it as learning to deal with it can greatly help us live our normal lives.

What’s More Attached to Loneliness?

Learning how to deal with loneliness is not as simple as it may sound, but there is much that can be done to make you feel safe with it and help you get through it. Having a busy life or having a lot of people in your life doesn’t stop you from feeling lonely. Loneliness can’t be filled by anyone in your life; it can only be filled by you.

Loneliness calls for us to connect with our hearts, to connect with our souls, it calls for us to learn to love ourselves, to learn to value ourselves, to learn to appreciate ourselves and to become our own best friends. It is a call from our inner minds telling us that we’re not giving ourselves enough attention and that we’re not spending enough time with ourselves as we should.

Embracing your loneliness to see what it wants you to see and learn will not only help you to stop searching for your happiness and peace in others or in the situation that surrounds you, but it will help you find everlasting inner peace that stays with you irrespective of wherever you find yourself, wherever you go or any situation you find yourself in.

I’ve gone through this journey and I can, it has made me fall in love with myself, it has helped me become more comfortable with myself and above all, the feeling of loneliness has made me realize how much I mean to myself and how much of a blessing I am to my generation. It’s true that you still need human connection, yes we all need human connection, but the most important connection is the one we have with ourselves, with our inner self.

Does Loneliness Lead to Depression?

Loneliness can be attributed to internal human factors such as low self-esteem. People who lack confidence in themselves and do not believe in themselves often feel that they do not deserve regard and attention from other people. This can lead them to depression and having suicidal thoughts. They feel they are worthless and push themselves into depression.

“Émile Durkheim” described loneliness, specifically as the inability or unwillingness to live for others. In adults, loneliness was described as a major precipitant of depression and alcoholism.

So yes, loneliness can lead to depression in that the thoughts of loneliness can make you do things just to feel okay. Loneliness can make push you into depression and make you start having suicidal thoughts towards yourself. Hence, the need to learn how to embrace loneliness and how to deal with it.

Embracing and Dealing with Loneliness

• Embrace The Feeling Of Being Alone With Calmness

Embrace your loneliness, appreciate and love it. You know when you tell yourself you do not want to think about something, that’s when you think about it the most. Instead of trying to distract yourself from this loneliness, embrace it. When loneliness comes in, take a walk, meditate on it, be calm and let the feeling sink in. Distracting yourself from it will make you start believing it’s a bad feeling even though it’s not. By embracing it with calmness, you’ll learn to enjoy the feeling.

• Stop thinking about it

When you start thinking too much about this emotion, you will start to have weird thoughts and feelings about yourself. Over-indulging yourself in loneliness will make you lose more confidence in yourself and you’ll fail to realize the good sides of this emotion. Instead of over-thinking about this feeling, accept it and be ready to live with it. Take it off your mind and live your normal life doing things you love.

• Start doing things you love doing

A lot of people do not know what opportunity loneliness brings. Being lonely allows you to do the things you’ve been longing to do while enjoying your own company. You get to know yourself the more when you are alone, you get to learn new things around you, you get to go on that trip you’ve been wanting to go to, you get to read books and concentrate on your life, you also get to eat things you want. Loneliness creates an avenue for self-awareness and it makes you spend more time with yourself than you’d normally do.

• Turn it to an avenue for self-growth

Learn to channel your loneliness into an avenue for self-growth. Focus on the things that will make you become a better person and things that will make you grow as an individual. Is there something you’re lacking as an individual? Loneliness gives you the avenue to work on those things. Is there something new you’ve been hoping to learn, now is the time to learn them. Turn that loneliness of yours into a passion that makes you want to grow. Use it for your growth.

• Learn to love yourself

Start to love yourself, let your loneliness be an opportunity for you to grow your self-love. During these periods, learn to embrace yourself, learn to appreciate yourself, learn to accept yourself for who you are, learn to stop criticizing yourself, learn to stop looking down on yourself, learn to spend time with yourself, learn to elevate yourself, learn to choose yourself first, learn how to make your happiness your top priority, learn how to calm yourself when things are not right and above all, learn to love yourself.

Loneliness is just an emotion, it shouldn’t make you feel like you’re not loved nor appreciated. Learn to change your perspective on loneliness. Learn to use loneliness to your advantage because there are many advantages attached to loneliness. Embrace loneliness, be happy with it and learn to live it because it will make you realize your worth as a person and it will make you grow into a much better individual.