Existential aloneness

[Emmalevine]

Originally Posted by Mr Interesting

What has helped me most in the past the most is doing whatever I'm doing to the best of my abilities and why shoudn't that apply to loneliness?

Tolle actually said the same in one of his books... whatever you're doing, do it fully, be there completely with it. I'm mostly alone myself but have a different slant on loneliness because of the above. I especially like going to places where no one is and love being the only person there. I go as deep into that as I can, the freedoms it affords, the shackles it might demand.

It definitely is a inside looking out thing where we get within our loneliness and get to know that world with all our hearts. And like most things, even having friends, it's easy to not see the wood for the trees.

There's a lot to be said for going deeply into any activity, emotion or experience. Then you become at one with it. There's no separation between you and life. I can see how that would ease the lonely, separate feeling that occurs when people are stuck in their heads.

[Emmalevine]

I've read all the posts but too tired to respond to them all fully. It's a difficult time for me. Thanks again everyone.

[Nameless]

Learning to love myself is one of the hardest things I'm still struggling with, but I've come a long way in a pretty short amount of time.

It is just something that we are programmed not to do. At least for me, I was raised to believe I had to put everyone else's feelings first, because to do otherwise was being selfish.

Once you start trying to put your feelings, your needs, what you want first, well you have to go through all the knee jerk reactions of that - and I found I was telling myself all kinds of things about myself that I never consciously was aware of, so that I wouldn't put myself first.

Cheers to joining the selfish club!

What really helped me get started was, in my morning mantra, that thing I do as I am starting my day (sometimes I do it while I am driving to work, but it is a fairly lonely road I drive on LOL) and when I am done with it, I have added things to it, and one of them is, I tell myself I love myself. It felt really weird the first few times, but then it just felt natural, and then is went from there. It really brought things up for me that I needed to release, that I was holding on to, but I didn't know I was until I tried to get into that loving myself space.

And had you asked me a few years back if I loved myself, I would have answered of course I do, but did I really? From a distance, I think I did....