My dear Loneliness!

I join Claudia Kielmann’s blog parade “Einsam muss nicht sein: deine Tipps gegen Einsamkeit” (No need to be lonely: your tips against loneliness). Because you, Loneliness, are a well-known – but most of the time slandered – part of my life.

I only found out your name during a coaching session of my Executive MBA working group. We drew a poster of ourselves and our situation. When it was my turn, everyone of the group interpreted what I drew on the poster. The coach said: “I see a great Loneliness.” I was baffled. How could she tell?

Yes, she hit the mark. You were always there. Not so often at the moment. But a lot when I was a child, and during certain stages of my life, in certain situations, when I was with certain people.

Dear Loneliness, you are my old companion. I have tried to hide you for many years. Let me finally introduce you.

Events you love

Looking back, I can now clearly see, when you like to show up. You love those moments when I

• can’t connect to a person
• don’t feel understood
• have no one to talk to
• don’t share common interests and thoughts
• don’t feel valued
• can’t be myself
• feel rejected
• feel isolated
• feel excluded.

Stages of my life when you stayed with me

In these stages and situations of my life, you have moved in and made yourself at home 😊:

• when I was bullied and isolated at school
• when I lacked emotional support at home
• when I moved to a new city (e.g. Beijing, Taipei, Barcelona, Frankfurt) without having close friends there
• when I worked as a self-employed designer and as an entrepreneur without having a community of likeminded persons
• when I felt so sick during my pregnancy that I could only lie in bed
• when I lacked moral support during birth and the first years of my motherhood
• during the psychotic episodes of my brother

What you taught me

I suffered, but now I understand what you wanted me to learn. You taught me – the hard way – to

1. be independent
2. look for opportunities to meet people
3. stand up for me
4. work on my relationship building skills
5. work on my communications skills
6. look after myself
7. do things I love on my own, such as going to watch a movie, going for a walk, to a concert, in a restaurant, travelling, doing creative stuff etc.
8. accept you better
9. accept myself better
10. trust myself to eventually find a way to need less of your company

Dear Loneliness, I know now that each time you come, you want me to know that something isn’t going well for me. That I need to take care of myself better and try to find connections and do things I love. And I succeed most of the time. But how about people who can’t change their situations so easily? How can we, as a society support them?

What I wish

I wish that

• loneliness wasn’t such a tabu
• people would talk about their loneliness like talking about their tiredness

Dear reader!

Does loneliness sometimes visit you? Or is loneliness a constant companion of your life? Or are you one of the heroes who help others to feel less lonely?

Leave me a comment 👇 and join Claudia Kielmann’s blog parade “Einsam muss nicht sein: deine Tipps gegen Einsamkeit” (No need to be lonely: your tips against loneliness)!

Acknowledgement

I thank Kerstin, my coach, for giving Loneliness a name!