What to do when you feel lonely
If one thing has let us experience loneliness, it has been the pandemic weβve lived through in the last two years. Iβve experienced this feeling way before, because I isolated myself due to anxiety disorder, so I want to give you some tips on what to do when you feel lonely.
Mindfulness
Being in the present moment and concentrating on only your breathing or an imaginary safe space can help you feel a little more at ease. Meditation in particular has research on how it positively impacts you (I posted about that HERE), but even just taking several deep breaths can elevate how your body feels. If your body feels more relaxed, so will you. Concentrating on yourself will bring you away from loneliness because it is an act of self love. The antidote is self love and interdependency with others.
Journal
Often we are lonely because we feel lost or stuck. I definitely felt my loneliest and most depressed when that was the case. That is why journaling can be so helpful. If you develop this habit you will get to know yourself better and you will notice patterns in your thinking and emotions and can work on fixing them. Journaling brought me to pretty much 80% of the things I ended up bringing up in therapy. HERE is a 90 journaling prompts freebie I recently made.
Declutter
If you donβt feel fully comfortable in your space (and Iβm not talking about the lazy kind of comfort where everything is messy), you wonβt feel comfortable in your mind. I noticed that once I did a big declutter when I started coming out of my anxiety disorder the first time at age 16. I threw away what felt like half of my stuff and the only thing I miss today are two hoodies. But the mental clarity gained helped a lot with the other parts of being there for myself mentally.
Ask for help
I will always yell this from the rooftops. If you are feeling lonely, no matter how much you wanna continue to isolate, please ask for help. It can be a friend, a therapist, or an online support group. Just find someone to talk to that can help you with this by being there for you in any capacity while you find your way back to yourself. There are so many places that will hold space for you, but you have to get out of the comfort zone to grow by asking.
Go into nature
Nature undoubtedly is healing. In my worst times I still pushed myself to leave the house and walk through the fields every now and then. Walking is meditative to the body and nature itself has a researched positive effect on us. It after all is what we live in symbiosis with (more or less). Even a 10 minute walk is better than nothing. Hell, even sitting on a balcony is better than nothing to be honest.
Be vulnerable w people
I already mentioned it. To grow into a better version of yourself you have to leave the comfort zone. The hardest thing to do for many, including me, is being vulnerable with other people. While many have no issue with trauma dumping to others or even striking a surface-level conversation about mundane topics, vulnerable topics are hard. You can practice this with people that already know you fairly well, that make you feel safe. I suggest something like the βWe Are Not Really Strangersβ card game (free online) to gamify it. Itβs easier when the other person is vulnerable too.
This is largely what to do when you feel lonely. Like I mentioned above, self love is a big part of reducing loneliness. A big part of self love is identifying and fulfilling your own needs. Thatβs why I made a little guide all about needs and interdependency that everyone can access for free. Let me send it to your inbox so I can make your life a little easier with it:
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What to do when you feel lonely by Rabea
