Emptiness

If you feel lonely, chances are it’s your own fault. Loneliness is caused by an emptiness within. You can be lonely in a crowd, in a noisy party. Your aloneness originates in your heart. It is a feeling that is born of an idea, a thought, a belief that things are not right for you.

You might feel alienated and rejected by a friend, a lover or someone at work. You may find yourself in a strange, far off land and your heartaches for your loved ones back home. When you’re lonely, you feel trapped inside your own body. You want to do something, bring about a change but you just cannot seem to move. Emotional paralysis has set in. It prevents you from taking action to free yourself from the suffocation of loneliness.

Or, at least, so it seems. The lonely person is drowning in his own sour feelings. It is as if nothing is right anymore in his world. As if he is helpless to help himself. Loneliness tends to cut you off from others. It is as if it stands tall and blocks your way out of its domination of you.

So many lonely people find it difficult to make the effort to break free of their loneliness precisely because of this emotional paralysis that embeds itself in the heart. It tends to sink itself deeper and deeper as it produces ever more intense sadness.

If you want to break out of your loneliness, you need to mobilize as many personal positives as you can. You need to call upon the inner strength that you surely have within you. Don’t doubt that you are strong. All of us have strengths that surface only in moments of crisis when we are in most need. We have reserves of strengths that lie untapped because we have no use for them.

It is truly amazing what we humans can survive when called upon by necessity to do so. It’s truly wondrous how we can overcome even the most intense pain when we make up our minds to do so. The human spirit is capable of soaring higher than we can imagine when challenged. Loneliness is one of those challenges. It can be countered by going out of oneself and reaching out to others. Loneliness keeps you away from others. It has you in its tight grip and holds you close to its bosom.

Lonely people are turned in on themselves. They tend to remain focused on themselves and find it hard to reach out. It is, however, precisely the ability to reach out to others wherein lies the key to liberation. Feel lonely? Want to be freed from your loneliness? Then use your will power (lots of it if need be) and force yourself to go out and find someone to help. Look for a person with a bigger, more painful problem than you. Turn away from yourself. Lose yourself in others. Focus on someone, anyone less fortunate and more suffering than you. Get involved with others. Feel their pain and, miraculously, yours will dissipate. It sounds incredible, but it’s true. Try it. –Bob Garon, Manila Times

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If you have problems about drugs, alcohol and behavior/attitude call my office at 820-6107 or 825-1771 or e-mail me at gvcbuenca@vasia.com or write me at P.O. Box 2099 MCPO, Makati City.