Giving a twist to Loneliness
No matter how bad it feels, actually, it’s a place to learn how to be your own chill.
Everything was going fine, all the relationships were fine, no worries, no tears to shed, enjoying companies with a lot of friends. Life was just ageing like a fine wine.
But, it all started with the wave. The wave made the world feel chaotic, the world as in inner resulting in the outer. No peace, no light, just the darkness was overwhelming and taking over all the lives. Then, it started. Many lost their loved ones, many lost themselves during the process, there were a lot of moments to shed tears for, heart-wrenching, heart-breaking all the thoughts you could pour into it yet it would be less to convey the feelings and will be less to share those days and memories. The worst part among those was when a lot of people lost themselves in the process, yet, are still struggling to find and fit themselves as the world wants them to.
They are unable to be and act normal in the age of the new normal! This is when started a new era for loneliness, according to my perspective.
Loneliness, as defined by various dictionaries and websites, “As a state of solitude or being alone.” But, if we analyze the term alone and try to find what’s behind the curtain we come to see that, “Loneliness is actually a state of mind.”
People who are lonely often crave human contact, but their state of mind makes it more difficult to form connections with other people. According to the article published by verywellmind, it says, “Loneliness, according to many experts, is not necessarily about being alone. Instead, if you feel alone and isolated, then that is how loneliness plays into your state of mind.” There are various factors that plays role in the state forming Loneliness. Just being hurt, or losing someone near to you are not the only factors.
Let us see some of the factors that play the part triggering Loneliness.
- Low self-esteem:
Someone who lacks inner-confidence, or even just the confidence to walk right up and talk can create up inner thoughts in such a way that can end up having no one for them to talk to and then comes the feeling of loneliness dancing all the way around! - Someone who only prefers conversations via text rather than face-to-face:
In this age of technology, it has provided a lot of ways for a person to have communication with others. The most used form of communication is via text. People who love talking via texts might or might not prefer having conversations using other forms like meeting up and talking. A person like me, who loves and feels comfortable talking via text, will feel slightly uncomfortable while talking in person to person. This is because of the development of a comfort zone with texts. There are a lot of people like me out in the world, who thinks that, if a person texts, I text and talk, and when I text, the other person must respond. But, if the other person doesn’t then, it depends upon what kind of friendship does the person have with each other for continuing the conversations further. And if there is no one to text to, the loneliness takes over. - Personality factors:
All the introverts out there, including me! Oh yes, it’s time for talking about it. Most ( let’s say almost) introverts, might be less likely to cultivate and seek social connections, which can contribute to feelings of isolation and loneliness.
If we start pointing out all the triggers, even the one who doesn’t have such feelings can start doubting their thoughts! For the triggers, let’s stop the points lists’ right here.
The main point that I wanted to state via these points were that Loneliness just comes and goes. One must need to find their trigger points to enjoy their loneliness. Loneliness isn’t a bad thing. It’s actually a place to learn how to be your own chill. It’s a time whereas an individual, we need to focus on working on ourselves. Yes, we might get bored of doing all the things on our own knowing that we do have friends to whom we can go and listen or at least sit by side.
But, it’s fine, if one has none to go to because now we will be giving a twist to the loneliness.
Now, till this point, you might be aware of what is loneliness, what are your trigger points, why and what makes you go into the state of loneliness? If not, pause a moment and think about it.
Now, how can a person turn something like Loneliness into something fun or something progressive?
Every day it kinda becomes monotonous when we repeat the same behaviours. Since our brain needs something new every day to function well. When one goes into the state of loneliness, one doesn’t feel like doing anything or feels like nothing, feels empty and unmotivated. That actually kind of sucks. Because born as human beings, we deserve to be happy, active and enjoy every freaking second of our life. We don’t deserve to be sad, lost and being unpleasant to our own company. That’s literally unfair!
So, now we will be going through steps that will help you to track, catch the triggers and take yourself out from the trap of loneliness.
- Catch your state of emotions:
No one can understand your emotions better than you. You know when you jump with joy and you know when you don’t even fake a smile. Track your emotions either via writing them down or just by using some apps. What will this first step do?
It will help you to recognize your emotions which will help to know what and why your emotions fluctuated. - Find your trigger:
Once you locate your emotions and keep them on track. Now, it’s time to find your trigger point. Why did your emotions fluctuate?
Maybe you were trying to reach out to someone and they didn’t respond. Maybe you don’t have anything to do and you are kind of feeling bored. Maybe you are in a room full of people and you don’t like them talking and you are feeling out of the world? etc. There are a lot of things that might act as your trigger points. So, locate them and note them down as in the same manner, you tracked your emotions. - Finding ways to solve them:
Now, you have your state of emotions located, found your triggers. It’s time for solving them.
Yes, let me give you a reality check beforehand. Everything at the beginning seems to be a bit messy and hard, you might lose your faith and hope. When you start on solving, during the process, you might be irritated and feel like giving up, destroying everything that you have done till now in that phase. But, if you are still with the process, knowing your WHY for choosing this process, and sticking till the end, finally you will see the results. Yes, after finding the solution, you might again start making excuses and try to run away from things. But, at that moment, anyhow try to make yourself remember that, “ It’s fine. I have done it. I can do it again, and I can make it happen!”
So, let’s continue on finding the solutions for your loneliness. So, solution means a way of minimizing the effect of loneliness, diverting oneself from the problem and finally getting rid of the problem. As I already said, no one understands better than you understand yourself. So, now it’s time to experiment with different things just to know what fits you the best.
Let me list out the things that I do when I realize or sense, “ Oh no, the phase is coming..”
- I listen to songs by my favourite artists and sing along with it.
Ah yes, “ Don’t listen to sad and low vibes music. It will again take you to the zone and make you feel sad, hurt and bad. Choose some upbeat songs.”
Some of My personal favourites are Live while we’re young- One direction, Uptown Funk- Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars, Shivers- Ed Sherran, Dynamite- BTS, and many more. - I practise playing a musical instrument.
Recently, when I found myself being out of the zone a lot, I decided to buy one for myself. It really helps me divert myself from thinking and going deep into something that’s unhealthy to me. So, I pick up my instrument and learn to play it. Yes, the sounds produced from it is still horrible, but, I don’t demotivate myself because of it and am learning to play fluently. - I read books. I love reading books.
So, I have stacked a lot of books in my room, so that, I don’t run out of books. Whenever I feel like not doing the above two things, I pick my book, my water bottle and I find a place to read and I go into the zone and enjoy my time. And, let me honestly tell you, when I am into the book, it feels like the world around me is silent and peaceful. It really feels good.
If you want to read books, choose out what kind of genre you prefer, buy one from that genre and read. If you like it buy more from them, else choose another genre. - I go on a food hunt. I am a big foodie.
Another favourite thing that I love doing. Either I buy the ingredients and make the dish by myself, or I go for trying out different flavours of food. Since you need to let your tastebuds develop a strong sense of different flavours. - I complete my assignments.
Yes, it sounds so uncool. But, I make myself complete my assignments, so, I can enjoy the accomplishing moment. This makes me stay on track academically, and help me feel light later on. And as a student, you know how good it feels to complete your assignments and feel relaxed.
These are some of the things that stay on the top-list todos when I feel like I am about to go into a state of loneliness.
Let me tell you one thing, brutal truth that you already know but you are way too afraid to accept it. You know you are going into that zone, you know why you are going, yes sometimes it’s hard to accept the truth and the reasons for you going or sightly sliding into the zone, but you know your reasons and triggers. You watch a lot of videos, read a lot of books, you know what to do and you even know what needs to be done.
So, stop giving excuses every time. Stop acting like keeping your feelings in check and yourself on priority is a crime or a selfish act. Because, at the end of the day, when you don’t keep yourself a priority you are the one who gets hurt without the other party knowing they are the reason or the triggers, ruins a day that could have been wonderful and ruin the moment that could have been memorable.
Excuses are not the solution to the problems. Find your own solutions, enjoy your own company, learn to be happy about small things, talk to yourself, go for walk, buy something nice for yourself.
Treat yourself as you would treat someone you loved.
Somewhere inside of you already knows the answers to all the problems, learn to see them and work on yourselves. Because no one is going to teach you how to do that.
Don’t make your weakness weaken you instead use it as your weapon for your progress and improvement.
Author’s note:
I hope you enjoyed reading it and I believe that you will start working toward improving yourselves taking it as a resolution for the year 2022.
I would like to apologize if any points mentioned above offended you. Since it’s the way I think and views things. I hope you would appreciate seeing things differently without taking it personally!
I believe that you can do greater things in life.
Take care,
Stay Safe,
Keep reading,
Keep on shining!
