Tag: lonely

"Often, it’s not about becoming a new person, but becoming the person you were meant to be, and already are, but don’t know how to be.”  ~ Heath Buckmaster

Lately when I am up in the middle of the night pondering (some might say ruminating) on the sea changes moving through my life, I remember that if I can’t change my mind, I can’t change anything else.

It’s ironic because often during the daylight hours, I am the instigator of change, the one leading the charge to shift the strategic initiatives of Good Clean Love, or the one haplessly leading a bevy of subcontractors in a new home construction.

We have all been abandoned in our lives. Whether it was through our parents’ divorce, death of a parent, or a previous spouse leaving us, as human beings we are all familiar with the feeling. Sometimes we don’t know where to go or what to do. We feel the earth has been pulled out from under us and we are dangling in space without an anchor.

The sadness and fear can be so overwhelming that we are at risk of falling into a depression. Some say that it is our perceptions of a situation that create the feeling of abandonment. If a parent dies in a car wreck they did not crash intentionally, it was an accident, but the emotions immediately interprets the incident as abandonment.

Perhaps one of the only things more painful than enduring a divorce is living through a broken marriage. Divorce is a time of transition—an emotionally shattering process that is the only path to a happier, more hopeful future.

Can you minimize the psychic wallop you’re feeling? If you understand the source of the hurt, you can make simple changes that can ease the agony. How many of these pain triggers do you have—how many does your spouse have?

Carpooling, champion games, making dinner, grocery shopping, tending to Sunday rituals… the day in and day out tasks of keeping a home and a family together. It can be tough when family life begins to unravel whether due to separation and divorce, kids leaving the nest or a loved one passing.

Each milestone can either become another hint of loneliness or a chance to begin to individualize again after years of familial responsibilities.

Carpooling, champion games, making dinner, grocery shopping, tending to Sunday rituals… the day in and day out tasks of keeping a home and a family together. It can be tough when family life begins to unravel whether due to separation and divorce, kids leaving the nest or a loved one passing.

Each milestone can either become another hint of loneliness or a chance to begin to individualize again after years of familial responsibilities. Here are four ways to embrace your alone time so that you don’t fear lonliness… it won’t last.

The holidays often create a lot of shoulds that can heighten stress and facilitate sadness and depression if one doesn’t live up to the expectations that have been created for this time of the year: "You should spend time with your family." "You should be attending a lot of holiday festivities." "You should be happy and engaging because, after all, it is the holidays!" These shoulds also create the assumption that it’s a bad thing to be alone. But what if you are lonely? Perhaps your husband or wife is in the military and can't be home. Maybe they have a job here that forces them to work on the holidays. Is it possible to enjoy the holidays, feel good about yourself, and not buy into society’s expectations? Yes, because it’s the conclusion you draw about loneliness that could be the problem.

Everyone feels lonely at times, but loneliness can worsen on holidays, such as Christmas, when people enjoy celebrating in the company of others. Maybe you are single. Maybe you have no family or none close, or you are alienated from them. Maybe you have few or no friends or have recently lost a loved one. Maybe your spouse is overseas in the military. Perhaps you are ill and cannot get out of the house.

What can you do? Of course, with today's technology you can connect with friends and loved ones through a variety of options, such as phone, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter or Skype. You can think of acquaintances who might want to celebrate with you, even in some small way, but perhaps you have been afraid to call. Why let your initial fear stop you?