Feeling Lonely - March 6, 2016

 

Psalm 147:3  He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Proverbs 18:24 ESV       A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Deuteronomy 31:8 ESV      It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

Psalm 91:14-16 ESV      “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”

Loneliness is the feeling grows within us and permeates our heart and soul when we want to be connected with someone, and someone is not emotionally healthy enough to connect or emotionally available to meet our needs. This can also occur when we are alone and we disconnect and disassociate from the world, but it also occurs in relationships when one or both parties are unavailable for connection -- due to past wounds.

Loneliness should not be confused or interchanged with being alone. The empty feelings of being alone comes from various forms of self-abandonment, such as not attending to our feelings, judging ourselves, turning to various addictions to avoid our painful feelings, or making someone else responsible for our feelings. We will always feel alone and abandoned when we are abandoning ourselves. We will also feel lonely when we are abandoning ourselves, because when we are not connected with ourselves, we cannot connect with another. Feeling both alone and lonely can lead to a deep experience of despair.

What Creates Loneliness in a Relationship?

You may feel lonely with your partner if your heart is closed because you are protecting yourself from hurt with your anger, or withdrawal. You cannot connect when you are closed and protected.

You may feel lonely when you are trying to have control over your partner's feelings by giving yourself up. Being inauthentic in order to control how your partner feels about you does not lead to authentic connection. (this is the thing that kills most relationships - a twisted form of co-dependency that masks itself as authentic and genuine care and concern. It most often leads to harboring resentments)

You will feel lonely if you or your partner tend to intellectualize and over analyze rather than being together with open hearts. Intellectualizing can be interesting at times, but after a while it can feel disingenuous and lonely.

You may feel lonely if your partner judges you regarding your thoughts, feelings, looks or actions. Judgment creates disconnection, and disconnection can be very lonely.

You can only be lonely if you are unhappy with the person that you are alone with