Day 19: Loneliness is an opportunity

Loneliness provides us with the perfect opportunity to discover who we are.  Often we seek happiness, love and joy in other people but how can we find these if we can't find love, happiness and joy in ourselves?  

It can be exhausting searching hard to find that person or those people who will love us but maybe the search needs to stop.  Sometimes being alone can trigger a feeling of a huge void or an emptiness which can often be filled by surrounding oneself with family, friends, a career, computer games or if the pain of being alone is severe enough it can even be filled or blocked out with excessive alcohol, drugs, obsessive work, obsessive exercise, shopping and all manner of time filling exercises.  Loneliness can in this mindset feel like a huge burden.

Given the opportunity to be present in loneliness, it is this void or emptiness that can bring contentment and all the things we have been seeking in others.  When we are at peace with our loneliness, we are not actually ever lonely.

Questions to ponder:
* What is it you are searching for in other people?  The answer to that is what we need to look to nurture in ourselves.
* Be an impartial observer of your actions.  Are there times you are avoiding loneliness by filling your time with other activities, interactions, obsessions?