Hilary Valdez (Photo by Hilary Valdez/Stripes Guam)
“Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.” -Richard J. Foster
Are you suffering from the “mores” a.k.a. the “I need more of this, I need more of that, more, more!”? And if you don’t get it then your mindset switches to “poor me, poor me, sniff, sniff”?
Lately, I have been observing quite a few people feeling anxious, sad, and disgruntled with daily life. As the French say: You have to find your “rasion de’etre” or reason for being. Life is a busy place, and when you’re suffering emotionally or physically, people don’t see it, so your observations assumes people are indifferent; and to a degree they are. But no one can experience your experience, your reality or consciousness. Your pain is yours to own. But with pain, comes a degree of loneliness.
Loneliness is an unavoidable part of being human and is part of the human experience. Sure, you have a family, a partner, friends and yet there are parts of our inner life that people cannot completely enter. Aloneness is not the same as being lonely. Being alone can become solitude. My older single male friends find that being alone gives them time for reflection, creativity, self-discovery and personal growth. Between my divorces, I found this to be true, but married men live longer than single men.
In my periods of “poor me, poor me,” I felt loneliness and analyzed why my relationships had ended. During these moments of solitude, I examined the need for meaningful relationships while giving myself the inner space to learn and become myself. Maybe I kept my real inner world hidden from others. Sure, I was lonely, but I wasn’t in an isolation mindset, it was a time to look at my consciousness. In periods of my aloneness, wandering around in circles, became an opportunity for deeper self-awareness: this is good mental fitness.
Dealing with traumatic events as a therapist, interpersonal loneliness was common and distressing, this concerns the loss or absence of significant relationships, friends, family, companions, or a loving partner. It is the loneliness most people ordinarily mean when they say, “I feel lonely.” As humans, all of us feel at some point, to some degree, emotional loneliness. This is the absence of a meaningful emotional connection. You are surrounded by people, yet still feel that nobody truly understands, accepts, or reaches you or you them, emotionally. Just walk through Shinjuku station at rush hour and look at all the busy faces.
In times of critical stress, isolation, alienation, and loneliness becomes troubling. A person feels separated from other people, society, personal surroundings, or even one’s own true self. There’s a difference between loneliness and solitude. Solitude can be chosen rather than imposed. Someone can be socially surrounded yet feel lonely; another person can choose to live in solitude and feel psychologically whole. Psychologist Dr. Carl Rogers emphasized that “human beings need relationships in which they can be. Merely being physically surrounded by people does not necessarily eliminate loneliness.”
Dr. Clark Moustakas, another psychologist, views loneliness as a transformative experience. “Loneliness can be a source of growth. Confronting loneliness can lead toward greater self-awareness, creativity, authenticity, and eventually deeper relationships with others. The goal is not to eliminate loneliness but to transform your relationship with it,” Moustakas said.
For psychologist Dr. Rogers, one of the most healing experiences in psychotherapy is being deeply understood by another person. The therapist tries to enter the client’s experiential world through empathy, to understand what the client’s life feels like from the inside. This has an important implication for loneliness: Loneliness is not simply the absence of people; it can be the absence of meaningful psychological contact. We can be lonely not because no one is around us, but because no one and sometimes not even ourselves, has access to who we really are.
“An intimate relationship does not banish loneliness. Only when we are comfortable with who we are can we truly function independently in a healthy way, can we truly function within a relationship. Two halves do not make a whole when it comes to a healthy relationship: it takes two wholes,” according to writer Patricia L. Fry.
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Hilary Valdez is a freelancer living in Tokyo, Japan. He is an experienced Mental Health professional and Resiliency Trainer. Valdez is a former Marine and has worked with the military most of his career and most recently worked at Camp Zama as a Master Resiliency Trainer. Valdez now has a private practice and publishes books on social and psychological issues. His books are available on Amazon and for Kindle. Learn more about Valdez and contact him at his website or email. Follow his YouTube channel Hilary’s Quick Talk for more insights.
