Loneliness and Christmas

Christmas can be a very lonely time. A time we just say “I feel lonely” or “I'm lonely”.

The good news is that by some education, searching our past, the act of feeling through and some reaching out at the appropriate time, we can reduce or eliminate loneliness. The lonely adult life has it's roots in our childhood. We all know that as adults, it is possible to be in a large crowd feeling lonely or be in solitude and feel very content.

What circumstances in childhood make us feel lonely? 1. A lonely, hurtful childhood 2. Neglect or abuse when we were children. 3. Our feelings were not heard or accepted when we were children 4. Being emotionally unavailable to our children leaves them feeling lonely 5. Teenagers who are abandoned by parents who are trying to work through their own pain and who think we should take care of ourselves. 6. When we are subject to rigid sets of rules by parents, to avoid engagement. Any of these look familiar? Be honest. This is not about dissing our parents, it's about our personal experience.

Children cannot feel their loneliness without help, so they may push down or suppress these hurtful emotions. As adults, our unconscious self directs us to feel over and over what is so familiar from our past – we can get stuck reenacting our childhood. It is possible to arrange our present life to keep ourselves so lonely. We may create imaginary friends, sexually fantasize, read romance novels, act out or withdraw deep inside. We may find ourselves subject to media that uses the “achey-breaky” notions to sell/promote products and services, like lonely songs. We may erect a wall to make it difficult for others to get close or we may flood our friends with our need, driving them away. We may play music loudly (good for reducing pain – this is not a recommendation) and incessantly or blame others for our loneliness. Even the travel industry may have capitalized with the lonely planet!!

So what to do about being lonely? Parents can take responsibility to spend meaningful time with their children. We can reconnect with old friends using many means, including Facebook. We could get involved in a club with like minded people.

It is very important to understand that feelings of loneliness are our natural emotional healing power trying to get our attention – so be encouraged, your amazing natural emotional systems are just communicating with you! We need to understand that lonely people have the roots of their feelings in childhood. Journal writing about our feelings and past would be very beneficial to help connect our present emotions and past events; this will help us to effectively feel through and integrate the loneliness into the tapestry of our life experience.

It is helpful to know that as a society we have discounted the feelings of loneliness in childhood, yet by following these few simple and difficult guidelines, we can achieve more independence yet closer relationships, along with a positive freedom within. How did we feel when we were removed from oiur mothers at birth? The way to move beyond even intense feelings of loneliness is to feel them – causing them to dissipate. We will not be overwhelmed by these feelings – our emotional system is our colleague - as long as we are not in a large group setting which uses blasting us open to our big feelings as its modus operandi.

A lonely quote - “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.” Mother Teresa

Depression and the Shortest Day of the Year (posted late!!)

Dec21 – Feeling depressed? Because of the short day? Or the world did not end?

It is important to define depression – 1) an act of depressing or a state of being depressed; 2) a state of feeling sad; 3) a mood disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty with thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal thoughts or an attempt to commit suicide, a reduction in functional activity, amount, quality, or force depression of autonomic function.

What causes depression? The causes may be physical – such as short day length (SAD) or body chemistry. Another cause of depression is the repression or suppression of our emotions. The stages of depression would be as follows. When we are children growing up in our respective homes, it is very common for several things to happen. 1) we do not have the opportunity to express ourselves and be heard or acknowledged 2) our needs (a HUGE list) are not met so we feel worthless 3) we get hurt, another long list! These events may occur many times.

As we become adults, the feelings of worthlessness and hurt follow us. People deal with these feelings in varied ways – they stuff them (numbness, deadness and flatness), they use substances (alcohol, drugs, food, you get the picture). See my emotional guide for a more complete list. Understanding the way we suffered to cause the depression is critical – we need to go back in our minds to those hurtful times, and feel through those held feelings. As children we could not handle the emotions but as adults we can take responsibility and do the courageous work of facing and working through our feelings.

Suicide and keeping busy to avoid dealing with our feelings are both avoidance techniques for doing what seems so counter intuitive – going into our painful feelings in order to get over them. These pools of long held emotion can be dissipated by the act of feeling them. This is our natural emotional healing power – the emotional equivalent of physical healing! We may need a list of feelings to help us connect with what we are really feeling.

Depression can be mild, feeling blue, or it can be major depression. Medication may be required for a time. Please consult a doctor immediately if you are severely depressed.

Post partum depression may be linked to our own unpleasant experiences at child birth. We are born fully developed emotionally so even these early experiences can affect us. Being separated from our mothers at birth may be very traumatic for new borns. The stages of life of our children may be triggers for our own held emotion. The skill of feeling through can help us with this issue.

Getting along at Christmas time

       I heard it said that the best topic to write about is people's personal demons. But what is a demon? Is it that little internal nudge that makes you do what you don't want or stops you from doing what you should? Maybe it's that anger or drinking problem? Whatever pet peeve it is, it causes you to do something or feel negative. Well, guess what? There's a solution.

       Many of these issues have their genesis in our emotional pools or reserves, which we gained in childhood. This is an extensive though not unfathomable study, one which many could benefit from. An example would be an unmet need from childhood, like attention from one's parents, which causes us to get angry as adults when we are ignored in some way - could be someone who cuts us off in traffic or texts while talking to us. Whatever the trigger, our negative response comes from the pool of emotion we gained as kids when our folks did not pay attention to us - this may be true or may have been our perception.

       But what can we do about it? Feel through the emotion from your childhood and the negative emotional response we are having in adulthood will subside. Wow!! Easy to say but hard to do. We may need the help of a therapist to help us make the connections between our adult issues and the childhood experiences that are at the root of these disconnected behaviors.

       Janice Berger has been doing this work for over 25 years and has helped many people to emotional  wellness. She has authored an excellent book on the topic which I found very insightful.

Introduction to Emotional Wellness

Hey Fellow Travelers,

In the course of our daily lives we are privileged to see the immense complexity of an amazing world, as well as the results of unresolved issues in the form of bad behavior, for lack of a better term, in people. What are we to make of this? What steps can we take to make life/relationships work better?

After 25 years as a counselor, Janice Berger has unveiled some startling observations about how we can improve our emotional lives - the drivers for drunkenness, drug abuse, gambling, bullying and a bunch of activities that make life less than what it could be. Want to improve your life and the world's outcomes?
Take a look and take a journey. A journey of understanding, a journey requiring great courage, a journey to a better future.

Tim