Are you feeling lonely? When I think about the entirety of this year, I am taken to many feelings. The biggest feeling I seem to simmer in is loneliness. In this very moment, it is easy to blame those around me for my loneliness, but if there is one thing I learned this year, it is that I can only control myself, my actions, my words, & my emotions. Everyone is dealing with their own uncertainty at the moment, & to expect them to cure our loneliness is to expect others to put us first. This year more than anything let us learn how to cure our own loneliness & move forward as better friends, better partners, & better people. Are we in our own way? In my youth (& on particularly bad days) I had(have) the tendency of blaming others for things that happen to me. “I don’t have plans on a Friday night”, “I wasn’t invited to an outing”, & “No one called me when I was feeling down”, were things I would commonly complain about. This year I am trying to take a different approach. With Coronavirus impacting our everyday, many of us spend a majority of our days indoors with little to no interaction with the outside world unless absolutely necessary. That excuse doesn’t account for the fact that many of us have also chosen to retract from the outside world mentally, spiritually & emotionally. When we blame others for our feelings of loneliness, we are forgetting that we can easily reach out to others but choose not to do so. We can IN FACT do the things for others that we wish they would do for us, but prefer loneliness than admitting the ball is & always has been in our court. We have the ability to reach out & face that the phone works both ways. Plans for a socially distant hike, a FaceTime lunch call, or a zoom birthday party can be started by US. We also need to come to the realization that being rejected when reaching out is ok. Trying to work yourself out of loneliness & it not going your way is still much better then giving up on our relationships with people we care about. Although sometimes painful, being rejected is something that happens to everyone when they try, but at least they try. RIGHT? I much rather live a life of trying, communicating my truths, & attempting to mend friendships than not reaching out because I was too afraid of the truth. We must save ourselvesSometimes we shield ourselves from the lessons the world is meant to show us. Sometimes we deny that we haven’t been good friends ourselves. Sometimes what we need to learn is on the other side of a “Hey, sorry I’ve been MIA. How are you?” -text. Many times the only person keeping us from growing out of loneliness is us. We are afraid of what it looks like out there in people land. The one thing that calms me is trying to remember that I’m not alone in my loneliness(THE IRONY). If I am feeling this way, I’m bound to find someone on my wavelength. Someone looking to reach out & someone looking to be reached out to. The balance is what we must work on. The work is what takes us from feeling lonely, to feeling complete, not because someone saved us, but because we took the time & put in the work to save ourselves by reaching out to others. Reach outSo I leave you with these questions today as I sit around and ask myself the same, Have you been good to yourself & others today? Have you reached out to those who you wish would reach out to you? Have you let the thought of rejection hinder your want to love & be loved? Have you placed blame on others for your feelings of loneliness? I hope my questions don’t leave you feeling stuck. I hope you use them as jumping off points to get rid of that loneliness feeling & start pushing for your new self. Things may not go back to normal ever again, but with a new found way of looking at friendship, who needs the old normal, I’m looking forward to this new & more open minded me. Heres a song i like to listen to when i need to be reminded that im ok on my own.Heres an app i use to work on myself dailyHeres a pic of miche “hiding” that always makes me smile
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AuthorIt's me some more. Join me as I navigate life & all the emotional lessons it teaches us. Archives
January 2021
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