Loneliness can spiral down to other negative emotions because when you feel lonely, you are thinking about not having anyone in your life that wants to be with you, who you share similar interests, that care about you. You begin to think about what is missing in your life, instead of focusing on the things that you are grateful for in your life! This sends you into a negative mindset which then causes the brain to release chemicals that makes you feel despair, emptiness, and low self esteem. 

Loneliness can spiral down to other negative emotions because when you feel lonely, you are thinking about not having anyone in your life that wants to be with you, who you share similar interests, that care about you. You begin to think about what is missing in your life, instead of focusing on the things that you are grateful for in your life! This sends you into a negative mindset which then causes the brain to release chemicals that makes you feel despair, emptiness, and low self esteem. “Maybe people don’t want to be with me because I am not worth being around”, is the conclusion that you arrive to based on the current evidence. This as a result makes you feel even worse, and could possibly lead to behaviors that help us to escape feeling bad.

We begin to find comfort in fatty, sugary foods, especially sweets, alcohol, drugs, sex, television, social media, or anything that allows us to escape the pain of our own life, our own loneliness. This can lead to a lot of issues including health problems like obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, autoimmune disorders and other stress related issues!

You can be alone without feeling lonely by choosing to focus practicing gratitude- things that are positive in your life! This is a self awareness activity that can help you to change the channel of your mind from one that is negative and destructive, to one that is positive and empowering! By focusing on the good things going on in your life, no matter how small you think it may be, you are able to shift your mind to good things, and thoughts of more good things will follow. “Well I do have a friend that likes to go hiking, and I do need to walk more, so maybe we can go hiking together”! Your hold attitude will shift to a hopeful, empowering mindset.

 You can cultivate independence without feeling lonely or isolated by doing things that you enjoy doing, and choose engaging in the activity by yourself this will allow you to determine whether you truly enjoy doing that activity. If you engage in an activity by yourself, that you once did with others and find that you no longer enjoy the activity then you have now discovered something new about yourself you discover that you didn’t not really enjoy the activity but you enjoy the company of someone else. You can also cultivate independence without feeling lonely or isolated by Choosing to engage in activities that you love regardless of whether anyone joins you or not so if you love going to the movies and none of your friends your spouse or loved ones want to go see the movie you should still go!

Dr. Joseph Murphy states that, “the formalistic world is not causative”! Our internal mindset can create whether we feel happiness, joy, and hope, or misery, loneliness, and depression. So by making a conscious choice of engaging in an activity that you truly like or love by yourself, is an act of self love, and will elevate your self esteem because you choose to do it, independently of anyone else, nor without the company of another soul, in order to feel happy, valuable, or simply loved. The emotion of Loneliness says that I have no one, but the cultivation of independence says I always have someone that is an amazing human being who loves me unconditionally, myself.

Yes, because being by yourself can be great, but we learn, and grow from interaction with others. We get new ideas, insights, and valuable knowledge from others because it gives us a different interpretation, a different perspective from our own, which helps us to become more evolved as a human. Even if we do not agree, it still is enhances our mind to think a different thought, and different thoughts changes the brain because we have a different experience, and maybe even an earth shattering mind blowing transformation, because we received that new thought!

 You can make the most of your alone time by spending time working on your mindset. Meditation, visualization, affirmations, deep breathing exercise, and prayer are all beneficial ways of making effective use of your alone time to become familiar with your best self- the self that you want to become, your greatest self. If you are imagining yourself as the greatest expression of yourself, or as the person that you’ve always wanted to become, then your mind will start shaping your thoughts to start aligning as that person. You will begin tapping into your subconscious mind, and automatically propelled to take certain actions that are in alignment with your highest self. People will start showing up that will help you reach your goals. Spending time alone is also a great time to get clear.

 If you feel lonely despite being surrounded by friends and family, it is usually due to your mind being focused on what is not going well for you, or what is missing in your life. This indicates that you are so wrapped into yourself in a negative way, that you are missing all of love that is around you. In order to escape the loneliness that you feel despite being surrounded by others, you must think about engaging with your family and friends. Find out what is going on with them. Maybe they are feeling lonely too, or maybe they are struggling with something and you may be the right person who can help them, because you have experienced it yourself.

This will break the cycle of your thinking about being lonely and what is missing in your life, and place your mind of helping someone else, by listening, being empathetic, and even showing love. These emotions will shift your attitude from loneliness and despair, to a sense of connectedness and joy, for your act of love helped someone else, your opinion was valuable, and meaningful. It is hard to have two thoughts and emotions at the same time, so choose the positive one, and gratitude is always the gateway to a positive emotion. When you spend time thinking about those things that are good in your life, those things that you are appreciative of, you cannot help but shift to a joyous positive mindset because your focus has changed from negative to positive, and whatever you focus on expan