Overcome Loneliness and Make Fulfilling Connections

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Overcome Loneliness and
Make Fulfilling Connections

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To overcome loneliness, the first step is to look at what loneliness really means. The dictionary defines loneliness as the state of being solitary, and without companions, but I believe that this is an incomplete definition. Being alone can provide a state of blissful wellbeing and refreshing solitude, or it can be something we deeply fear and go to any extent to avoid.

Generally when we look at loneliness as a condition that needs to be overcome, it reaches far deeper than simply an experience of being alone. For most of us, loneliness is a feeling of being cut-off, isolated, and unhappily disconnected and alone, and this can be experienced even when we are in a crowd.

In seeking to overcome loneliness, we need to understand that we do not feel lonely simply as a result of having inadequate amounts of social interaction, although that can be part of the problem. Feeling lonely and isolated comes from the lack of experiencing real and fulfilling connections with ourselves and others.

Like with most things in life, happiness and being able to overcome loneliness is an inside job. It is by working at changing the fears, beliefs, patterns of behavior, and barriers that we have within ourselves, that we can begin to create change in our experience of life and relationships.

The very most important relationship that we will ever have, and one that acts as the model for all our other relationships, is the one that we have with ourselves. If you fear being alone, and desperately seek any type of social situation or company as a way to avoid being by yourself, this is the first area that you need to be willing to confront in your quest to overcome loneliness.

As Wayne W. Dyer says, ‘You cannot be lonely if you like the person you're alone with.’ Learning to enjoy your own company, and to appreciate all the wonderful qualities you possess, can go a long way towards being able to create happiness in the times when you are alone, and mutually fulfilling and genuine interactions with others.

While it is vitally important to create a strong and healthy self love, we are not designed to exist in isolation. We are social beings, and one of the most important functions of our existence is to give and receive love, and share energy, ideas, and information.

Coming to accept and like yourself and being able to enjoy spending quality time alone gives you something to offer in your relationships with others. If you are seeking companionship or love out of a feeling of lack, rather than out of a sense of wellbeing and desire to share, other people are less likely to be drawn to spending time with you.

When you can reach a place that you feel content and satisfied with your own company, and that you are already providing what you need for your own wellbeing, you can approach interaction with others without a sense of neediness or desperation. You also have the confidence that since you enjoy your own company, others are likely to enjoy it too, and since you are being a good friend to yourself, you can share some of that appreciation and enjoyment with others.

To overcome loneliness at the level of creating connections with others, it is necessary to be willing to take action and get out and about. You need to put yourself into more situations where you have a chance to interact with others in the kind of environments where healthy interactions have a chance of taking place.

If you work from home, and spend your leisure time watching DVDs, playing computer games, and endlessly surfing the Net, it is very unlikely that you are experiencing a full and fulfilling social life. Frequenting bars and nightclubs is also unlikely to provide many opportunities for creating meaningful connections.

If you want to overcome loneliness or lack of fulfilling social connections, you need to figure out where you can hang out with people that you have something in common with, and then actually go and do it. Reading a hundred articles on how to overcome loneliness is not going to make a bit of difference in your life, unless you actually start applying some of what you have read.

There are a multitude of ways that you can meet people, and joining groups, clubs, or classes where there is a shared interest to connect over is one of the best ways of putting more social interaction into your life.

Another fantastic way to overcome loneliness is to volunteer, and to go and be a friend in a practical hands-on way to someone that needs it. Visiting people in nursing homes or kids in orphanages or hospitals might be a way of connecting and reaching out that appeals to you.

Alternatively, perhaps you would feel great about helping at the local nature reserve, library, or community services center. Whatever you choose, when you take the focus off what you are going to get, and focus on what you can give, you tend to get back far more than you ever expected, and feel a lot less pressure.

To overcome loneliness, make friends with yourself first, and then get out, be around others, and just concentrate on being a friend rather than worrying about whether or not people will like you. If you like yourself, and you like them, there is a very good chance others will like you back.

In life, and in relationships, we tend to get what we give, so overcome loneliness once and for all by committing to giving love, caring, and genuine friendship to yourself and others.