According to news reports loneliness is becoming a world wide epidemic. We have the technology in our purses and pockets to enable us to communicate with people on the other side of the globe, and yet we are feeling lonelier than ever.
Last week I wrote – During all the years I didn’t like myself, the years when I lived an insulated life spending much more time alone than with other people, it was easy to believe slights were intentional because that supported the negative feelings I had about myself. I thought others were mean to me because deep inside I felt I deserved it, because I believed there was something about me that was horribly wrong.
Are you creating the loving connections you want to have in your life? Or do you feel separate and alone? And if so, why? Do you believe that people are mean to you, don’t like you, don’t understand you? The way we think about ourselves informs the way we think about others, and about the way we think others think about us. Yup, I know – go back and read it again.
If you weren’t thinking negative thoughts about yourself you wouldn’t assume that others were thinking them too. And if, deep down inside, you felt good about yourself it wouldn’t matter to you if they did think, or even say, negative things.
What do you think of you? Have you asked yourself that question and waited long enough to hear the answer? Or are you scared to even ask?
What if you make this the day you begin to love yourself?
When we don’t like ourselves we assume that other people don’t like us either. When we can’t love ourselves we believe we are unlovable. When we criticize ourselves we also judge others. Judgment is simply an overflow of self-loathing. We fill ourselves to the brim with our own self-judgment and whatever we can’t contain spills over into our thoughts, feelings and eventually actions toward others. Do you see how this ties in with isolation and loneliness? Self-loathing convinces you that you are not likable which makes you feel separate from others and judging others makes you feel separate from them as well. How can you create connections with people from whom you feel separate?
We are living in times of hyper polarity. Too many of us think things (and people) are all good or all bad. That reasoning is unreasonable and it is destroying our ability to build community. Humans don’t work that way. We can’t. You can’t. You cannot continue to believe you are all wrong and unworthy simply because there are certain things about yourself you might like to change. You can’t continue to villainize others for displaying human failings. And you certainly can’t keep focusing on what’s wrong and expect to co-create a loving relationship.
Right now, take a moment and affirm to yourself:
I am lovable and worthy and perfectly imperfect.