What to do if you feel lonely. I feel lonely - possible causes and solutions

Loneliness is a state in which there is a loss of connection with others, with the outside world. And of course, it is familiar to everyone. For some, to a greater extent, for others, to a lesser extent, someone is acutely and painfully experiencing loneliness, but for someone it is a colossal source of creative energy.

Loneliness can be very different. For example, the state of loneliness caused by some external factors (death of a loved one, moving to another country, job change, divorce) is called situational feelings of loneliness. After some time, having lived and accepted the loss, a person partially or completely overcomes loneliness.

The search for one's place in the world, the awareness of one's finiteness and the fact that all people are inherently alone is called existential loneliness. Most often, it occurs during natural age crises, most acutely during a midlife crisis. In this case, trying to drown out this loneliness can only aggravate the situation. It is much more useful to perceive this state as a chance to understand something in yourself, as a temporary stop to look around and see where I am going, with whom, do I need it, am I interested in what I am doing. And here the experience of loneliness can be the most important resource for rethinking, self-development and creativity.

There is another kind of loneliness - chronic loneliness- in which a person stays for a long period of time. Who falls into the "risk zone" of people with a high tendency to chronic loneliness? First of all, these are people with low self-esteem who avoid contact with other people for fear of being criticized. Shy, unsociable natures (introverts). People with a lack of social skills, or full of fears and prejudices. Often the "tendency to loneliness" is laid down in childhood. This is often associated with traumatic childhood experiences. For example, an infant whose needs have not been fully met grows up feeling that the world is hostile and dangerous. If a child has not formed a basic trust in the world, then loneliness becomes a habitual state for him.

So what about those who feel lonely, those who lack a warm, supportive environment?

1. Accept yourself

Low self-esteem, self-doubt, fear of entering into close relationships with other people - all this is a symptom that a person has no contact with himself, with his inner strength. Yes, restoring contact with yourself is a slow process that requires analysis, patience and courage. Working with a psychologist, various bodily practices, such as yoga, dance, sports, as well as any creative activity that interests you, can help you with this.

2. Improve your social skills

Expand your social circle - among hundreds of people it is easier to find a like-minded person than among a dozen. In addition, you will be more likely to acquire new habits and attitudes, which will give you the opportunity for personal growth and significantly expand the circle of people whose views and aspirations coincide with your life position. Sign up for a communication training, find a group of people for yourself with similar interests.

3. Talk about your feelings of loneliness

4. Get out of your comfort zone more often

Actively look for ways to find new contacts and new experiences. Meet on the street, go to theaters, museums, sign up for some courses. Anything that gives you the feeling of discovering previously unknown paths will do. Yes, trying something new is scary and exciting. But only in this way can you fill the inner void, get to know your inner strength and find people who are close to you in spirit. But meeting people who are not like you can also be a good experience for you!

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Stop saying that loneliness is the worst feeling on earth. This fear is absolutely 100% far-fetched, I assure you, comrade! This fear, as couch psychologists say, is in your head. Loneliness is a bitch only for those who do not know how to use it correctly, namely, to translate into solitude. The whole problem of people who are afraid to be alone is that they are dependent on other people and do not understand how to live on their own. This is the trouble with most extroverts, who are so dependent on society that they cannot make decisions if there is no information from outside. We are all dependent on society, the main thing, of course, is that we do not acquire an authoritarian mindset and do not lose our precious freedom. Today we will tell you how to never feel alone. Some dudes, after breaking up with a girl, rush around, get involved in dubious companies and sit in crowded places so as not to be alone, and this is very bad, man! It’s boring for such people, about whom this article is, to do something alone, or rather, they justify themselves like that, in fact, they depend on other people so much that they don’t even understand how you can do something on your own.

1. Go to the cinema alone

Some comrades cannot physically go to the cinema alone. Absolutely. For them, the only time you can enjoy a movie is when someone sits next to you and eats popcorn. Some comrades, for example, specially go to the cinema with just anyone, because they want to watch some kind of movie. At the same time, they do not even understand what pleasure you can get from going to the cinema alone. By the way, some comrades do not understand how you can watch movies, TV shows or cartoons at home without someone nearby!

If you are afraid of loneliness, or rather the lack of company, it's time to start going to the movies on your own. You will quickly realize that attending morning sessions in an empty hall all alone, apart from a glass of coffee, is such a chic thing that words cannot describe. Behind such a simple action lies a strong psychological change, you understand that it turns out that this is possible!

2. Shop alone

A close friend of mine does not know how to go shopping without his wife at all. They both work like normal dudes and even have their weekends busy. The dude humbly waits for them to have a total free day to go and buy some clothes. He walked around in torn sneakers, but he didn’t buy it himself, he waited for his wife to be free. He explained this by the fact that he could not independently choose something that would not look stupid. In a way, it's an addiction to the other person, it's a very ugly addiction. Usually, left alone for some reason, such comrades become lazy, flabby, because their only motivator always comes from outside. It's time for these comrades to understand that they need to learn how to shop alone. And preferably quickly. Need to buy something? Why wait for someone? You are not a girl who can, in the company of her kind, go shopping for hours and giggle?

3. Eat one and read

A lunch break for many makes sense only when colleagues are next to you. There is even the concept of "dine together." It's not that it's nice for someone to go to dinner together, this is a normal thing, but the article is not about that at all. The fact is that a person categorically cannot dine without a company, he does not even get pleasure from eating alone. To get rid of the need to have someone around when you gobble up the gobbler, eat alone often, but certainly not so often that you get the impression that you've disowned everyone. The team does not like it when the rod is against it.

To have fun, read books while you eat. It's very exciting.

4. Go Hiking or Take a Walk in the Park Alone

Of course, it is desirable that the trip was for one day, but I know guys who lived for months in trailers in the mountains in splendid isolation, like some kind of dervishes. My paranoia still does not allow me to go to the mountains or somewhere else in splendid isolation, but here is a walk through the woods outside the city - please. Many people need company in order to simply go to the park and see how the cherry blossoms, of course, that everything is not clean here. Go to the park alone. Sit on a bench, take out a book and read. Then you will realize how precious solitude is. You will not be alone, you will have a book and nature around.

5. Going to a concert or theater alone

It seems that at a concert you always have to be with someone, because it will be terribly boring. It really does seem that way. You do not have distractions in the face of a girl who can be bored and friends who will point their finger somewhere and chant something. There is only you, what is happening, music, stage and artists. Who said you are alone?

6. Traveling alone

In general, you understand that you can do most things alone and get obvious pleasure from it. What cannot be done alone is to be friends and love. To do this, unsurprisingly, you need other people. But to depend on these things - no, thank you.

Why does a person not enjoy life alone? What is loneliness? What are the types of loneliness? System-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan answers these and many other questions, and also helps to get rid of the oppressive feeling of loneliness forever.

Every person knows the feeling of loneliness, and for each it is different. This may be the loneliness of a woman or a man in anticipation of a relationship. Or the loneliness of a person who found himself in an unusual place for himself, away from his family and friends. Or there may be a constant state of loneliness, when even among people and surrounded by loved ones a person feels lonely. This is loneliness, from which neither friendship, nor marriage, nor work in a team can save.

As a rule, the feeling of loneliness is a source of discomfort for a person. He may experience longing, despair from the feeling of his uselessness, and even depression.

Why is it so? Why does a person not enjoy life alone? What is loneliness? What are the types of loneliness? System-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan answers these and many other questions, and also helps to get rid of the oppressive feeling of loneliness forever.

What is the feeling of loneliness?

A person feels lonely when he loses contact with other people. On the one hand, we cannot live without people, because we do not live alone, even if it seems so to us. We live in a society, interact with each other and survive only together. At a deep psychic level, we are all united by a single unconscious. All our troubles, but also all our joys - from other people.

On the other hand, at a certain moment of his development, a person felt his own uniqueness, separation from other people. This feeling can be expressed by the words "there is no one but me."

That is why it was from this moment that humanity embarked on the path of the “curse of loneliness”. Since then, we have been unconsciously looking for lost connections and cannot find them. A person is lonely "from a smelly diaper to a stinking shroud." And in modern world individualism, the suffering of loneliness only gets worse.

However, not everyone is aware of this deep loneliness. Most often, it is felt in certain life situations - for example, when relatives leave or in a foreign country, when familiar ties are lost. But there are people who experience the pangs of loneliness especially strongly. System-vector psychology distinguishes two main types of loneliness:

• visual loneliness;
• sound loneliness.

Loneliness is terrible, creepy and unbearable

This is how the owners define their internal state when they are alone with themselves. Bright extroverts, they see the meaning of their life in communication, love, creating emotional bonds with other people. That is why, when these connections are not there, they feel anguish especially strongly. They feel bad and hurt when they are alone. The rupture of the emotional connection is experienced by them as a strong stress.

When the visual vector is not implemented, its owner may experience numerous fears, among which there is the fear of loneliness. He is afraid that in his old age there will be no one to give him a glass of water. Driven by this fear, a visual person can agree to any relationship, just not to be in a state of loneliness.

Loneliness as a way of life

The article was written based on the materials of the training " System-Vector Psychology»

Great minds tried to understand the psychology of loneliness and their views never merged into one definite opinion, because people are unique. Each person perceives his feelings in his own way, which can be compared with someone else's, but fit to the template - no. So, some psychologists believe that loneliness is rooted in childhood and adolescence, where the perception of the world around and the understanding that there is “I” and there is someone else is formed. Some believe that childhood does not play a role, and the main reason lies in the inability of a person to live because of his failed attempts conform to the norms of life in society and he continues to live, adhering to social "facades", oppressing his true "I", which leads to emptiness. Loneliness can be viewed as the result of unjustified expectations, a discrepancy between desires and opportunities, leading to inevitable inner longing.

In the process of immersion in popular science works on psychology, it became clear that one cannot do without an understanding person who will help to understand the mass of emerging issues.

How to fully live with the feeling of loneliness, understand it and cope with it?

Marina Petrova, director of the women's club "Academy of Happiness", psychologist, trainer and author of programs for women, will tell us the answers to these questions.

“We will consider loneliness as a feeling or experience that a person experiences. Because it is obvious that you can be in complete isolation from people and not feel lonely. For people with an underdeveloped psyche, it is enough to chat with someone, drink, etc., so as not to feel lonely. And there are more adult individuals with a fairly developed psyche, for whom it is much more difficult. A more subtle sense of others, the ability to empathize, at the same time make life more intense, but the demands are also increasing: without full contact, these people feel lonely, not receiving proper full communication, ”says the psychologist. Marina Petrova.

Why do people who live in large families and are surrounded by attention still feel lonely?

Marina Petrova: Quite often relatives express their attention somehow in their own way. For example, a mother may constantly control her child, thinking that this is such a concern. I often see that criticism is some form of attention. The critic thinks that this is such a motivation (he will understand and want to improve). Therefore, attention may be different. Very valuable in the interaction of people is the intimacy that arises in contact with another person, but this is such a rarity in the modern world. In fact, even considering the need to create intimacy, since it doesn't appear on its own, it's not as hard as it sounds. In order for intimacy to arise between people, you need to experience a lot of touching and vulnerable states, but this is “not accepted”. Vulnerability for men is tantamount to weakness, which means "not a man." Women, on the other hand, do not understand what to do, because they did not have an example (almost all parents of our time pay too much attention to their work / survival, so such a trait as vulnerability greatly interferes with this natural biological process and atrophies due to its uselessness).

What are the main reasons why a person experiences loneliness?

Marina Petrova: The need for love and communication are the basic needs of any person. Without receiving them, the human psyche begins to send him signals that the functioning is impaired and this threatens his survival and it is time to get down to business. The loss of a loved one can also be the cause of loneliness.

When the contact is broken, a void appears, and until it is filled, the person will experience loneliness.

It seems that some people are born loners. Can loneliness become a comfortable state for a person?

Marina Petrova: We are all different and each of us chooses his own life path. For one, loneliness is a painful existence filled with depression and a sense of inferiority, for another it is a calm, measured life “for oneself”, an opportunity to make a successful career or engage in creativity. Loneliness is different, not only negative emotions are associated with it, but also joy and pleasure. Many people are looking for it, tired of communication and deliberately reducing the number of their contacts with others. Many periods of a person's life are necessarily associated with loneliness, and experiences during a period of loneliness depend not so much on isolation, but on a person's attitude towards himself.

In solitude we have the opportunity to choose what to do and, in many cases, these activities are quite useful and varied.

There are different approaches to the psychology of loneliness, if you understand the causes of this depressing state, can it be eliminated forever or is it already an integral part of a person’s personality?

Marina Petrova: Here I would like to talk more about human needs. A need is what I lack in order to survive. Only by filling all the needs, a person begins to feel "whole". Not receiving needs (food, safety, communication, respect, self-realization), a person, as it were, has lost something from his Self. And this is the task of the lost one to find his lost part. You can also attract other people to replenish, but still you need to understand that other people are not required to participate in the creation of our “I”, but can only be assistants to us.

Therefore, in a certain sense, loneliness is a kind of signal to a person that a part of his personality is suffering and needs to be replenished. This is if we take the negative aspect of experiencing this feeling. And if we take a positive one, then many people experience loneliness as a kind of springboard in order to rise to the fifth level of needs (the highest) - the need for self-expression.

What would you advise people who are tormented by a feeling of loneliness, abandonment, uselessness and detachment from the world?

Marina Petrova: Since we have moved away, we need to unite. Switch to other meaningful things, for example, find an interesting activity, passion, hobby, go headlong into work, or learn to build relationships with people in a new way, with intimacy and love, find new friends and a life partner.

Text: Victoria Ionichevskaya

Perhaps there is not a single person who has not experienced a feeling of loneliness throughout his life. Psychologists know that there is no antidote for this condition, which would be a list of specific actions. But there are ways to improve social interaction! Here are some recommendations from experts.

Remember: We all feel lonely sometimes.

On average, sociologists say, one in five people suffers from constant loneliness. Knowing this can bring us some comfort, because it indicates that a huge number of people are familiar with the feeling of loneliness (in its various forms and manifestations)! It can be physical separation from family and friends, emotional distance, a sense of isolation. Sometimes we think we're the only ones who care about image overweight suffering from embarrassment or financial problems. But in reality this is not true.

Know what loneliness means to you

There is a difference between company and communication: the former may involve polite small talk, while the latter may involve intimate heartfelt conversation. When we feel alone, it is likely that we hope to experience the latter. However, knowing what you need to not feel alone is key. Observe your emotions and determine the understanding of loneliness for yourself.

Accept your need for communication

People are social beings. At the same time, it is important to understand that people who experience loneliness have not done anything wrong. None of us is immune to feelings of isolation, just as we are not immune to feelings of hunger or physical pain. You must know that the desire to communicate is a real need.

Don't blame yourself

Lonely people tend to blame themselves or sometimes others for their isolation, it is important to remember that loneliness is an epidemic shaped by many forces: the spread of social media, job changes, divorces, single parent families, the promotion of loneliness and the fast pace of life... All must be acknowledged. it is to take some of the burden off yourself.

Eye contact

One small step we can take towards unification is to just look at someone. Making eye contact with a passerby can make both parties feel a little more in touch with the rest of the human race.

Joining any community

Find an organization that supports the cause you care about so you can surround yourself with people who have open hearts for the same mission.

Help for the needy

Volunteering is not only the real antidote to loneliness, it is also a means to meet others or do a good deed. It's a way to feel needed. Helping those in need is a wonderful form of closeness that is sure to lessen feelings of isolation. By the way, it is not necessary to go to the ends of the earth to do a good deed. You can help a neighbor rearrange furniture or work at a shelter for the elderly, children or animals.

Sending someone a handwritten note

A note from a friend or loved one can be a pleasant surprise in a mailbox full of newspapers and advertisements. A paper letter is a great way to cheer up both yourself and the other person. Don't know who to write to? Try giving a note to a stranger.

Don't think money will help

In our materially obsessed culture, we tend to blame loneliness on the absence of material possessions. You might even think that a financial push would pull us out of social isolation. We think the extra money will give us the resources to dine at fancy restaurants or take longer trips. We think it will make us happier, and therefore less lonely. Not so simple! Keep in mind that wealth does not negate loneliness. Boston College researchers have found that people with great wealth are not immune to anxiety, loneliness and unhappiness.

Use social media wisely

Instead of connecting us, social media can exacerbate feelings of isolation. It's not so much that social media itself is bad, but how we use it. One study explains that mindless scrolling makes us lonelier, but active planning in in social networks any offline events can significantly improve the situation.

Be kind to strangers

Try telling someone they look good. Or that he has beautiful eyes. Notice what the person himself may have overlooked. You will see a stranger smile at you. This smile will surely melt your heart.

Find a hobby

Common interests are excellent remedy connections with others. We can't guarantee that our fellow antique lovers will become our new best friends or that similar movie tastes will make us feel close to a stranger, but we can say that hobbies increase our chances of meeting like-minded people with whom we will have many general.

travel

The thought of traveling alone can be unappealing to some and enticing to others. Being alone in another country means making contacts with strangers. It's easy to imagine things going badly or believing that this person won't want to talk to you, but if you hold out your hand, almost everyone will stretch out theirs in return!

Go to a church, synagogue or mosque

Science tells us that regular visits to a religious community help prevent colds and lower blood pressure. In addition, anthropologists have found that social support among members of denominational groups is particularly cohesive.

Find a similar story

Loneliness can be caused by the death of a spouse, the loss of a job, or a personal struggle with illness. If so, consider joining a support group for people facing a similar issue. Whatever your problems, there are those among people who have experienced something similar.

Romance is not a cure!

It can be easy to think that the feeling of loneliness will disappear if you start a romantic relationship. But love and romance are not cures for loneliness! You may feel close to someone you are not in love with. And even if you are in love, you may not get access to the inner world of your partner, psychologists say.

Listen to music

It has been scientifically proven that music is good for health and makes people happy. Upbeat melodies can change our mood, let us get in touch with positive memories or inspire us! Also, there is a chance that some lyrics will make us feel less alone or even more in touch with our loneliness.

Be your best friend

Turning to your inner voice with a sense of humor and a dose of kindness is helpful at any time, but especially when you feel alone. If you learn to be your own best friend, you will become less dependent on others and gain confidence in yourself!

Appear in society

If you've been frustrated by social situations in the past, it's easy to miss an invitation to dinner or your friend's birthday. You know yourself and how you might feel in social situations. However, it can be helpful to step out of your comfort zone by simply attending an event. Besides, you never know where you will meet the best person In my life!

Look inside yourself

Cultivating a rich inner world will allow you to enjoy the inner life. The intelligent processing of thoughts, ideas, reflections, and new information is a form of intellectual and emotional pleasure that can transcend sadness into curiosity and finding meaning.