Why do we feel lonely?

“My strength was my strength 

Until it became my weakness!”

We are often told to be strong, be brave, not to cry. Being strong is over-emphasised and glorified. As if we were made to be super-heroes flaunting our 32 teeth all the time. This thing – this one thing, has caused more harm than good in this world. It has created depression, loneliness, frustration, fearfulness, anxieties and what not!  

With ‘being strong’ given such strong emphasis, anyone who doesn’t feel up for it, feels down naturally! Who told us that we were meant to be strong machines? Whoever created us, gave us many emotions to experience and express. And all for a reason. Your greatest learnings, your experiences, don’t just come from flaunting your sparkling white teeth and demonstrating your strength. You learn the most when you are vulnerable. 

Plus, it is difficult to find friends when we wear the crown of being so strong. We would have projected so much of strength to the world, that now we find it uneasy to be normal and show them that we need help too. We created a pedestal for us to stand on, as the strong person, who can be and always will be there for everyone else. Now, how do we step down from it? It does look like a step-down too. And we have created an alienation for ourselves by projecting ourselves that way. But the sooner one steps down from it, the better it is. It is a double-edged sword if we don’t. One, it creates an undue pressure on oneself to live up to it – being lonely at the top. Second, it creates an unrealistic expectation on people who look up to us that they have to be that way too. Thus, we create more broken super-heroes around us, than normal beings of strength and vulnerability. 

Many today, don’t seek help from family, friends or professionals because they feel they’ll be considered weak if they do. Loneliness comes from our inability to seek help. When we project ourselves too strong and too self-sufficient, the world also thinks we don’t need any help and hence, won’t be there to help us. Think about it, even a mother knows a child is hungry when the child indicates it. Then how do we expect the world to be understanding and helpful without us saying a word about the challenges we are facing?

It is truly ‘impossible to feel lonely in this world unless utterly by choice’. (Source: Open Up)

 We feel lonely because we refuse to open up. There are two primary reasons for it:

– either because we fear being judged or 

– because we don’t want to be a burden. 

We assume that by opening up and asking for help we will definitely be judged or be a burden and cause inconvenience to others. These are limiting beliefs. Maybe a small portion of people might do that. But a vast majority of humans like to help and add value to others’ lives too, just like you and me. By not giving anyone a chance to be there for us, we are ridding them of the opportunity and joy of adding value to our lives. All human relations are symbiotic. Which means we are inter-dependent on each other. Even the most independent of us, has taken help from someone, somewhere, sometime, to be what we are today. It is not possible that any human grows entirely and solely based on their strength alone. 

 Even during a storm, it is the strongest of trees that get uprooted first. The grass that’s flexible, bends, surrenders and hence, stands again. 

 People who feel overwhelmed, consider asking for help. It will greatly ease your burden. None of us are in it alone. We always have someone in this world who is there for us. You’ll find them only when you look for them. Be it with family, or at work, or anywhere, if you feel you have too much to do, it is not someone else’s fault that they aren’t helping you. It is your fault that you haven’t asked for it. If you have asked and haven’t received, then perhaps you are asking it wrong or asking the wrong person (both of which call for a different blog altogether). For now, the most important message that you need to tell yourself is, “It’s okay to be not okay”. Once you understand and accept that, you’ll be more willing to reach out for help. 

What your feelings truly reflect

My anger towards you is merely a reflection of the anger that I have within.

My dislike towards you is merely a reflection of the dislike I have for myself.

My objection towards you is merely a reflection of the resistance I have within.

My jealousy about you is a reflection of the inadequacy I feel within. 

My ego against you is a reflection of the broken confidence within.

The love that I feel for you is a reflection of the love I have within.

And the happiness that I feel in yours, is also a reflection of the happiness I have within.

That’s why there were days when you didn’t smile,

and yet I could only feel love towards you.

And there were days when you moved mountains for me,

but I didn’t even want to say a ‘thank you’.

I was foolish to think it was about you or because of you!

But I hate to admit that my life has been, is and always will be about me! 

Neither you, nor the world that I see, is how it actually is – but just how I wish to see!

Simply knowing or understanding this truth isn’t going to make a difference to me!

But the day I imbibe it, my soul will be liberated from me!

 

Why do we dramatise our lives…

Why do you think these days we have an increasing need to dramatize our life and the problems and post them like heroic stories on social media?
Is it the need to establish ourselves as heroes? Or is it the need to gain attention?
Why do we have this need to establish ourselves as heroes?
Is it to feel good about ourselves? To reassure our egos that we are doing well?
What if we don’t dramatize the problems? What difference would it make to our lives?
What if we don’t try to grab every opportunity (or problem) to project ourselves as over-rated heroes of our own stories?
Do we need to inflate ourselves to that degree to get through life?

Just wondering how did our parents get through without the over dramatization and without these heroic projections?
They remained grounded I suppose. That meant, the highs and lows of life could touch them – but not break them – since they never thought it made them into some super hero as well.
While we, on the other hand, make huge things of ourselves, so we get caught up in every problem that comes up and want to either play the dramatized victim or the emphasised hero. We try really hard to project someone else as the villain or try even harder to project ourselves as the heroes. And we place ourselves in a rather fragile bubble of greatness. So, anyone who comes close to challenging our heroism or heroic deed is a sinner to be banned and banished from our lives. Else, there’s this perennial fear that they might break us.

In the past, without all these extreme projections, people got along with each other despite issues. Now, in spite of all good things, we can’t seem to stand each other, because each story can have only one hero – the megastar – and we can’t dream of sharing that space with anyone else – hence, we have to make villains of the rest – so we can make the hero of ourselves or someone who we absolutely love. This is not to say that we should stop appreciating ourselves or our beloved ones. By all means we should, but without dramatizing and blowing things out of proportions. If we absolutely love ourselves or someone close to us – can we still continue loving the rest of the world? Or will that excess love towards one person stop us from connecting with the rest of them, or even worse, hate them from not being similar?

And that’s the flip side of making ourselves or our loved ones heroes – we are unable to appreciate others. We feel if we appreciate someone else, we may not be considered good enough. So, we stick to appreciating ourselves. We don’t want to be inspired and appreciative of all the others since we are THE HEROES according to us. Like the old story of the lion and the hunter – unless the lion learns to tell it’s story, the stories will always glorify the hunters.

The other flip side is – we are tending to be super secretive – and act as if we are burdened by the world’s biggest problems that we can’t openly talk about. You’ll find a quite a few this way – who keep walking with pumpkin faces, and you ask them, “What’s wrong?” And they reply rather glumly, “Nothing!” (With an expression that shows “EVERYTHING is wrong!”). And they add on to say, “I don’t want to talk about it!” Why be so secretive? Because the stories aren’t that big, we realise. Rather than tell the story to others and let them realise how trivial are the things that we are holding on, we want to be secretive and make people assume we have these big monstrous, unthinkable, unimaginable and un-talk-able problems that we are having to dealing with.

Are we by any chance thinking that dramatizing our stories and sharing them will inspire others to get through their life stories too? Well, if you see, the actual real heroes have never really publicised their trials or spoken big about themselves. They were humble and grateful. They tell a story without making themselves as the big hero – and more importantly, without making any person or any situation the big villain too. They talk about everything with a great sense of neutrality . No extreme love or hatred to anyone or anything . Those are the ones that actually inspire us. The dramatized stories might only teach people how to inflate their egos momentarily, if at all, and not much else.

Or are we generally addicted to dramas because that’s what gains popularity in reality shows, movies, tele-series? What is it about dramas that attracts us to that degree? Yes, we face rejections, we face failure, we face loss, we face isolation and so on. But that’s true of any life – not just you and me but humans in general. Life’s purpose is about moving ahead and finding our learnings.

Instead of living in pretentious bubbles of greatness, how about living in solid houses of reality & gratitude? Bubbles are fragile. We run the risk of it being broken and hence, we tend to be more guarded. We spend half our time trying to protect it. Or, because it is fragile, anyone can break it easily so we tend to get angry, upset or frustrated with people for breaking our bubbles.

I am sure our grandfathers had a lot tougher times than us. They had to walk for kilometres to get to a school. Our grandmothers had to really struggle to cook food. Nothing was easy for them. Compared to that.- a vast majority of our lives are a lot easier than those of our ancestors, thanks to technology and thanks to evolution. Rather than being grateful for our blessings, we choose to make heroic stunts out of everyday challengesand make ourselves look like ‘larger than life’ figures. It’s time to move towards gratitude without complaining or gloating about how we got here. We can’t be counting our problems and talking of ’sacrifices’! Everything we did, we chose to do! Either because doing it was important for us or the other person was important to us or we were ridden by fear. After doing it, we can’t now call them sacrifices. They are all choices. And there’s nothing wrong with being normal human beings. We don’t all have to be heroes and victims. Stuff happens in life and we learn to move on. That’s just how life works. No life is lesser or more. We need to choose between being a melodramatic hero versus a regular, happy individual who is capable of spreading happiness to others around too. We don’t need to keep proving ourselves to some make-believe human measures. We don’t need to move mountains to contribute to the world we live in. Just smile and make the day lighter for ourselves and others, and consider that a day well-spent.

Narmada Rao

Psychologist, NLP Trainer & Author

www.masteryourself.in

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