A Walk Away From Loneliness

What is loneliness?

It is not merely being alone? It is ignoring people. Nobody in their lives understands them. Day after day they exist with no opportunity to share their secret feeling with any human being. They belong to no group of friends and feel a part of no human enterprise. Lonely people think often about their losses: friends now gone who cannot be replaced; the emptiness of their hearts, their yearning for intimacy. When lonely people are married, closeness is lacking. They may suffer from acute loneliness. Most of us would not want the meager, unsatisfying, distant relationships lonely people have. Anxieties control interpersonal behaviour of the lonely to the point where he/she refuses to form friendships. The chronically lonely individual has little else but twisted relationships with everyone, including himself or herself.

Having previously suffered rejection in a primary relationship, the lonely bury the painful memories and act on a radical misbelief that rejection is intolerable. They are so afraid and play it safe to the extent that they avoid trying to have significant connections with others? Unfortunately this means they never get to experience real connection or acceptance and end up never knowing what they fear – rejection. Loneliness is usually the result of what psychologist call avoidance behaviour. Lonely people avoid initiating friendships. By avoidance they are protecting themselves from an experience they believe, falsely, they could not stand. They avoid reaching out to others so they can never feel the warmth of acceptance. They never combat or have their childish misbeliefs corrected by later experience and more valid adult interpretations.

The truth about rejection, which most people acquire from experience, is this: Rejection is not pleasant, but it is not terrible either and it can’t kill me. Rejection is not a rare experience. Most people experience it in one form or another. They handle it, they survive-and so can you. As lonely people work on developing social skills and quit avoiding anxiety, they can replace radical misbeliefs by telling themselves over and over the truths that rejection can be tolerated.

Rejection does not mean you have undesirable quality or you are ugly or too serious or fat or too this and that… The truth lies in a totally different interpretation of those experiences you have been taking as rejection. You don’t have to enjoy rejection; nobody does. But you must get your notions about rejection into proportion. With your now grown up (or growing up) mind, permeated with the spirit of truth, you can look at rejection in a brand-new and freeing light. Friend-making involves overriding your long habit of staying in a corner to honour and caress your anxiety, telling yourself the truth and taking action designed to change the quality and number of your relationships.

Which of the following would you answer yes to?

•       I'm lonely much of the time.

•       I don’t have enough friends.

•       I’d like to call someone, but I don’t know anybody to call.

•       I have friends, but no one who is really close.

•       No one seems to care what happens to me.

•       There are times when I wish I had more friends

Loneliness could be your word for describing any of the situations on the list. Let’s say that your loneliness results from having very few friends with whom you hardly ever get together. In such a predicament, you make a big, easy, vulnerable target as the enemy can prey on your faulty belief. Nobody pursues me, so I know nobody wants me. I must be dull, unattractive, boring and ugly. Something must be terribly wrong with me, so there’s no point in trying to win friends.

Think back to when you formed your current erroneous beliefs about rejection and your own social stimulus values. You were working within the severe limitations of your little child’s mind. 

You fabricated some of your theories to explain pain generated in certain primary relationships. Replace that self-talk with the fact that the love of God, from which true worth must be derived, assigns you infinite value, eternal significance, and deep interest. Not only in yourself but in the beauty of creation especially other humans. Reverse not only what goes on in your mind but what you do as well. Rather than assuming that people will reach out to you if you are only interesting enough, you will need to initiate and reach out to others.

Be clear about what rejection means. It doesn’t mean you’re worthless, only that you and this one person appears to be incompatible at the moment; only that today, that other person believes he or she doesn’t need you. Don’t have a hang over on that information; move on! The past and present misbelief keeping you lonely must be challenged with the truth, especially the truth of God’s Word, if you are going to change your social behaviour.

Mrs. Omolola Omoteso-Famuyiwa is a minister who is passionate about sharing God's words for the healing of others.