The Courage to be Alone

Loneliness is something most of us dread. It can seem even worse during the holiday season, especially if we are dealing with loss and the need to create a new future for ourselves. However, even loneliness has its positive aspects.

Loneliness can be painful, but, as with other things, it is our attitude toward loneliness that matters most. We can take a negative attitude, in which case we may either run from being alone, filling life with “busy-ness” or we can choose to wallow in it, immersed in self-pity.

We can also take a positive attitude, recognize it as an essential experience of every human being and use it creatively as a resource for knowing the self, and discovering our center and focus in life. Loneliness then becomes “alone time,” which is very different from loneliness.

It is only when we can stand alone, when we can admit our separate-ness, that we can make full use of our individual resources to set about finding our meaningful connections with others. We can take the time we need to set aside the desperation that fear of being alone can cause.

When the love and understanding with which we reach out to others is based upon a true sense of the self, an awareness that we have discovered in confrontation with our loneliness, then it is based on reality instead of on false expectations. It is much easier to deal with, or handle, the truth than it is to deal with the disappointment of false expectations.

We alone can change ourselves. We alone can make the decision for growth. Each of us, alone, is the central point of reference in our lives. And this alone-ness actually gives us courage and resiliency to face what comes.

Knowing these things may be a lonely experience, but out of it can come a greater strength and confidence in your ability to meet life – and provide inner security and boldness that fear cannot manipulate or destroy.