Lucasolo
New member
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2019
- Messages
- 2
- Reaction score
- 0
Hello fellow travellers!
I just found this forum, and I’m very glad I did. I’ve struggled with loneliness a lot over the years, and always found it difficult and uncomfortable to be on my own for very long. I do have good friends, and I’ve been in several long-term relationships, but I find myself ‘flying solo’ again at the moment. I’m almost 45, and it this point in my life I’m more interested in dealing with the reasons I have always found it painful to be alone. Deep inside I’ve always known that the real challenge is learning how to be ok with being alone, rather than trying to find or create the right situation or combination of relationships to take away the discomfort I experience when I’m on my own.
Ultimately (I believe) we have to find our happiness within ourselves - it can never come from others. I remember reading the story of Alexander Selkirk - the Scottish castaway who the Robinson Crusoe story was based on. He found himself shipwrecked on a tropical island alone for four years. After he was rescued he recounted how the first year or so was hellish and felt like total despair, but eventually something inside of him changed and the latter few years he felt content, and even blissful most the time. That story always stuck with me, as it showed me that it really is possible for someone to be completely happy without love and validation from others. Now don’t get me wrong - I’mn not saying that I’m going the become and ascetic, abandon my relationships and go live in a cave - I’m not - but I do feel I need to learn to find happiness within myself.
Over the course of my life I’ve struggled with a number of addictions - booze, drugs, food - and eventually managed to overcome all of them. But I’ve come to see that it’s the desperate yearning for love and validation from others that is the deepest addiction - it is the addiction’s addiction. So I was glad to find this forum and I look forward to participating. I wonder have others here come to value solitude and working on being happy alone rather than trying to fill the ‘hole in your soul’ with relationships?
Hugs,
Lucas
I just found this forum, and I’m very glad I did. I’ve struggled with loneliness a lot over the years, and always found it difficult and uncomfortable to be on my own for very long. I do have good friends, and I’ve been in several long-term relationships, but I find myself ‘flying solo’ again at the moment. I’m almost 45, and it this point in my life I’m more interested in dealing with the reasons I have always found it painful to be alone. Deep inside I’ve always known that the real challenge is learning how to be ok with being alone, rather than trying to find or create the right situation or combination of relationships to take away the discomfort I experience when I’m on my own.
Ultimately (I believe) we have to find our happiness within ourselves - it can never come from others. I remember reading the story of Alexander Selkirk - the Scottish castaway who the Robinson Crusoe story was based on. He found himself shipwrecked on a tropical island alone for four years. After he was rescued he recounted how the first year or so was hellish and felt like total despair, but eventually something inside of him changed and the latter few years he felt content, and even blissful most the time. That story always stuck with me, as it showed me that it really is possible for someone to be completely happy without love and validation from others. Now don’t get me wrong - I’mn not saying that I’m going the become and ascetic, abandon my relationships and go live in a cave - I’m not - but I do feel I need to learn to find happiness within myself.
Over the course of my life I’ve struggled with a number of addictions - booze, drugs, food - and eventually managed to overcome all of them. But I’ve come to see that it’s the desperate yearning for love and validation from others that is the deepest addiction - it is the addiction’s addiction. So I was glad to find this forum and I look forward to participating. I wonder have others here come to value solitude and working on being happy alone rather than trying to fill the ‘hole in your soul’ with relationships?
Hugs,
Lucas