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.
