Learning To Be With Loneliness
07_18_2021
Learning to Be Comfortable with Loneliness
I am at ease acknowledging that it has taken me a long time to become comfortable being with feelings of loneliness. David Whyte offers us a rich poem in which he shares some of the feelings that visit us when we allow ourselves to experience being alone. The poem I’m referring to is titled “The House of Belonging.” The poem is too lengthy to include, but here’s a link if you would like to read it before continuing: https://onbeing.org/poetry/the-house-of-belonging/
Whyte’s poem is a rich gem, offering readers different facets waiting to capture our attention. Today as I read his poem again I was drawn to the stanza that speaks to “building your new home with a room to experience your loneliness.” As I ponder this stanza, I’m struck first by the insinuation that it is up to us to build our own home. We can take that phrase literally, meaning the physical home in which we reside. It can also refer to our inner life, the home in which we seldom invite others to join us.
It can also refer to how we build or frame the external world that surrounds us. What do we let draw our attention? Do we put energy into weeding out the distractions; finding ways to quiet the angry turbulent thoughts that can find their way into our psyches?
If I stay with the physicality aspect of creating a “room to experience my loneliness,” I first think about how important it is to me to pay attention to aesthetics. It took me awhile to realize that my mood is closely tied to how I create or bring beauty into the spaces in which I spend time. If my own experience serves as an example, I think what these spaces look like changes over time.
About ten years ago, I was forced to redo my bathroom as the result of frozen pipes that burst during a New England deep freeze. Having one new room can set off a chain reaction, and for the next 8-10 years, tackling one room a year, I re-wallpapered or painted each room in my home. I was ready to create a space that served as an extension of my own evolution. In retrospect, I was gobsmacked by the impact of the simplicity and freshness of one new room. I wanted that simplicity and openness reflected in the rest of my home.
If one is willing to do much of the work of redecorating a room, whether it be painting or wallpapering, there are ways to do this work on a limited budget. The same kind of work can be created in our inner lives. In the same way that we desire comfortable furnishings and pleasant images in the physical spaces that we occupy, we can work to add these features within our inner lives.
Initially, after my divorce, I was fearful of being alone in my home. I had some level of fear of not having someone else around, but I was able to mitigate those feelings eventually by installing timers on lights. It’s not very welcoming to come home to a dark house, especially in the winter months. But coming home to a house with warm, welcoming lights feels so much more embracing.
It takes time, practice, and patience to become more at ease to explore feelings of loneliness. There are some practical packing tips that one can follow to undertake this journey. As noted above, I started by doing the work to create physical spaces in which I looked forward to enjoying spending time. I like a sense of order, so I avoid collecting clutter, and weekly “cleaning-lite” efforts satisfy my level of need for cleanliness.
I think this inner exploration of loneliness is well-served if it contains a library of valuable resources that serve as lifelines for navigating the twists and turns that can show up in these unexplored caverns. Initially, I found it helpful to concentrate on the difference between solitude and loneliness. We have so much noise in our lives that we have internalized a message that suggests spending time alone is not a good thing.
As a well-established introvert, I need and cherish quiet time on my own. I need time to process my thoughts and experiences on a daily basis. I also need time to explore and be in touch with the thoughts and feelings that are emerging within me. I need time to figure out how I want to respond to options that are presenting themselves.
An important step in this process of experiencing our own loneliness is to make sure that we don’t label these times as saying something negative to us or about us. Learning to label how I am feeling has been an invaluable aid to me. If I am feeling lonely, and I can say those words to myself without judgment, the statement seems to allow me to go deeper into exploring what is behind those feelings.
Sometimes there are feelings of sadness associated with feeling lonely. Exploring those feelings, particularly what led to them, can lead to some healing reflections. I remember something that I struggled with repeatedly as a child: I never wanted good times to end. I am not sure if that is a universal childhood feeling, or if it is germane to my experience of being a child.
Now as an adult, I am more able to look back at good times with others, and while I may mourn the endings of some of those relationships, I can more easily accept the existence of impermanence in our lives. A number of my closest women friendships tapered off once they were married and began having children. They were simply less available to share the same kind of experiences we were able to enjoy when they were single.
Learning to look at some of what we might describe as losses in our lives WITHOUT blame or losing sight of the fond memories is helpful in balancing the sense of losses we may feel when we allow ourselves to be alone.
I believe it is David Whyte to whom this quote is attributed: “One of the elemental dynamics of self-compassion is to understand our deep reluctance to be left to ourselves.”
I also recommend that we bring common sense tools to the spaces in which we experience our aloneness. We need to be able to take care of ourselves on these journeys when they occur. There’s nothing scary about having a good cry as long as it has a beginning and an end. It is usually helpful to experience the sadness, feel it, and then let it go.
I pay attention to the narrative that I find myself creating when I am feeling lonely. We have all been bombarded with messages that “we all need to be coupled, partnered, and surrounded by the likes of a Normal Rockwell extended family.” Think about it: with these demons operating unchecked in our hearts and mind we can quickly find ourselves sinking into a funk.
When I am aware that is happening to me, I turn to the resources that I have stacked nearby. Finding an entertaining movie to watch, or a good book to read, or even getting out for a walk or running a quick errand can break the spell. I generally find that doing something physical helps break the spell.
I also remind myself to look at all of the blessings and gifts that life has bestowed on me. I think of others who have not had such blessings. And I am able to remind myself that my most lonely, despairing moments have been when I was living with people who were unable to connect emotionally.
Feeling lonely is also a reminder to me to be deeply present when I have the good fortune to spend time with people that I love and care about. Whyte talks about what he learned when he was working as a naturalist and spending most of his time focused on observing. I find this quote of his particularly helpful: “I began to realize that my identity depended not upon any beliefs I had, inherited beliefs or manufactured beliefs, but my identity actually depended on how much attention I was paying to things that were other than myself — and that as you deepen this intentionality and this attention, you started to broaden and deepen your own sense of presence.”
