Loneliness – is one of the major mental illnesses affecting not only elderly people but even youngsters. You could be living in a big city. You can have enough and more relatives and friends … yet if you feel that nobody understands me in the way I want to be understood and accepted then you are experiencing loneliness. You are missing something all the time… there is an absence you feel all the time. Loneliness can do more damage than we can imagine.
Loneliness will be a major problem in all countries in the times to come. It is considered a chronic disease and its impact on health are equal to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Women are more likely to experience loneliness than men. More than 60 percent of married couples are experiencing loneliness.
Major reasons for loneliness:
-Break up of a relationship, or death of a close person.
-Betrayal by your friends leads to loneliness.
-Aging creates loneliness.
-Unresolved desires create loneliness.
-Communication gap with family members. They don’t get you.
-Success can make you lonely. Even failures can make you lonely.
-Possessiveness is thinking that this object or being is mine alone. There is no freedom for them to function. This creates insecurity & loneliness.
-The mental gap between the relationship you have now and the relationship you want in the future, between the work you do now and the work you want to do in the future, the physical health you have now and the health you want to have in the future, the material well-being you have now and what you want to have in future, all these mental gaps multiplies loneliness.
Spiritual maturity or Self-sufficiency is the solution to fight loneliness. When you look at yesterday’s choices with today’s maturity, then your choices seem faulty. Do not allow the events of the past which are gone, to ruin the present which is perfect. We do not let go to make ourselves impoverished, but we let go for gaining peace and happiness.
If you are feeling lonely it is the extent of possessiveness that you have developed. Your mind and intellect must be the seat of happiness. Put your well-being above everything else. Let go of whatever and whoever it may be. By letting go of the hurt you will let in bliss.
A Human being is intricately crafted. Every individual is the master’s creation, and you are spoiling it by bringing loneliness and boredom. No one is happy being bored. It’s not a natural state. You have created it. You must work on this.
Two ways to harness your mind to fight loneliness:
-Find happiness in simple experiences of life.
-Experience happiness without a reason.
These two things can work like magic. When you are not bored you can’t experience loneliness.
Text by S A Sreedharan
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