Loneliness by Gary Hopkins
February, 2008
I like to take a moment to share my thoughts on this topic since I have come across a lot of decent folks that experience this on a day to day basis. Like many of you I have felt this many times over throughout my life. This can often be a devastating feeling and (I believe) can be detrimental to ones health if sustained over a long period of time. As a lot of you have seen or even experienced, these feelings can very easily become extreme and lead to anxiety and/or deep depression.
Whether you are sitting at home on any given night, while all the people that you know or admire are out socializing and having fun with one another. Or worse yet, being with that significant other and feeling like you are the only person on the planet, even when they are in the same room. Hell, most of us have been there at one time or another.
Why does this happen? What causes a perfectly good individual to feel like they are alone or separated from the rest of the world?
I believe that this feeling (or experience) comes from a lack of love and awareness in ones life. The key difference being that this "Lack" is internal and not external. One thing that I have recently become aware of in this life is that the world will mirror how you feel inside. If you feel lonely or ugly or miserable and then you go out into the world, often you will get a similar external reaction or you will actually have that external experience. I think all of us can relate to this in some way. For those of you that study manifestation techniques (such as The Law of Attraction), this will make perfect sense to you.
So, what do we do? How do we beat this feeling? The answer is simply to love yourself First, and then teach yourself to become aware of the connection that you share with everything that is, ever was or will be.
Having said that, I can already feel the resistance stirring. There are a lot of folks out there that will say "that’s easier said than done"… and for them, this is probably true. Understand that love and awareness are Choices that we make and not some unattainable lofty goal to strive towards. It is that simple. And it is easily done… if you choose to do so. But you must choose to do this. And you must fully commit yourself to being in this state of love and awareness and in turn being happy. I haven’t met anyone yet that would verbally be opposed to being happy, but how many people have you met that seem to fight it (being happy) every chance they get? For these individuals this choice will be the most difficult thing that they will accomplish in life, if they accomplish it at all.
Understanding a few key points may help you in making this choice:
~ The Internal controls the External (not the opposite as we are taught)
~ You can never truly love someone else until you love yourself first
~ Relying on external gratification (whether it be in things or in people) will only delay the growth of your internal love and awareness
~ True happiness comes from within – Once you have learned this then it will be time for you to share it with the world. Learn this lesson quickly, the world needs you.
My personal experience in my transformation out of the Lonely, was through meditation, energy work and educating myself on just some of the philosophies that exist in the holistic community today. It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen quickly. I would say over the course of a few months to a year. This is the time in which I began building a solid foundation of these thought processes.
I did have a few epiphanies along the way:
~ The first time I felt energy.
~ The first time I really connected with my higher self during meditation.
~ The first time I had an out of body experience.
~ The first time I felt connected to "all that is".
The list is actually quite extensive. But you get the gist. Your combination of experiences may be different. Instead of any one of these practices you may find something else that is more fulfilling. The time involved in making this change permanent may differ as well. Just know that the choice is yours to make.
The point is that you will probably have similar things happen to you as well. It is a natural process. Just like learning to walk, talk and run. Before long, the Extraordinary will become Ordinary and your perceptions and how you live life will change forever. This change will take you beyond your wildest dreams (literally). And most importantly, eventually, you will find yourself trying to remember the last time you actually experienced loneliness.
February, 2008
I like to take a moment to share my thoughts on this topic since I have come across a lot of decent folks that experience this on a day to day basis. Like many of you I have felt this many times over throughout my life. This can often be a devastating feeling and (I believe) can be detrimental to ones health if sustained over a long period of time. As a lot of you have seen or even experienced, these feelings can very easily become extreme and lead to anxiety and/or deep depression.
Whether you are sitting at home on any given night, while all the people that you know or admire are out socializing and having fun with one another. Or worse yet, being with that significant other and feeling like you are the only person on the planet, even when they are in the same room. Hell, most of us have been there at one time or another.
Why does this happen? What causes a perfectly good individual to feel like they are alone or separated from the rest of the world?
I believe that this feeling (or experience) comes from a lack of love and awareness in ones life. The key difference being that this "Lack" is internal and not external. One thing that I have recently become aware of in this life is that the world will mirror how you feel inside. If you feel lonely or ugly or miserable and then you go out into the world, often you will get a similar external reaction or you will actually have that external experience. I think all of us can relate to this in some way. For those of you that study manifestation techniques (such as The Law of Attraction), this will make perfect sense to you.
So, what do we do? How do we beat this feeling? The answer is simply to love yourself First, and then teach yourself to become aware of the connection that you share with everything that is, ever was or will be.
Having said that, I can already feel the resistance stirring. There are a lot of folks out there that will say "that’s easier said than done"… and for them, this is probably true. Understand that love and awareness are Choices that we make and not some unattainable lofty goal to strive towards. It is that simple. And it is easily done… if you choose to do so. But you must choose to do this. And you must fully commit yourself to being in this state of love and awareness and in turn being happy. I haven’t met anyone yet that would verbally be opposed to being happy, but how many people have you met that seem to fight it (being happy) every chance they get? For these individuals this choice will be the most difficult thing that they will accomplish in life, if they accomplish it at all.
Understanding a few key points may help you in making this choice:
~ The Internal controls the External (not the opposite as we are taught)
~ You can never truly love someone else until you love yourself first
~ Relying on external gratification (whether it be in things or in people) will only delay the growth of your internal love and awareness
~ True happiness comes from within – Once you have learned this then it will be time for you to share it with the world. Learn this lesson quickly, the world needs you.
My personal experience in my transformation out of the Lonely, was through meditation, energy work and educating myself on just some of the philosophies that exist in the holistic community today. It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen quickly. I would say over the course of a few months to a year. This is the time in which I began building a solid foundation of these thought processes.
I did have a few epiphanies along the way:
~ The first time I felt energy.
~ The first time I really connected with my higher self during meditation.
~ The first time I had an out of body experience.
~ The first time I felt connected to "all that is".
The list is actually quite extensive. But you get the gist. Your combination of experiences may be different. Instead of any one of these practices you may find something else that is more fulfilling. The time involved in making this change permanent may differ as well. Just know that the choice is yours to make.
The point is that you will probably have similar things happen to you as well. It is a natural process. Just like learning to walk, talk and run. Before long, the Extraordinary will become Ordinary and your perceptions and how you live life will change forever. This change will take you beyond your wildest dreams (literally). And most importantly, eventually, you will find yourself trying to remember the last time you actually experienced loneliness.