You will only know happiness in the future and the present if you are open to it. If you isolate yourself from the world, cursing your life, or the situation you are in, this will not improve your current situation in any way. Everything will just get worse. Don’t expect things or opportunities to fall from the sky. Be prepared for when they arrive.
Think back in your life. You were about six, seven years old. You just had just entered school, perhaps. Do you remember hearing someone (or more than one person) talk about the "love of your life", your "soul mate"? And sure, since you were a child, you have also been bombarded with fairy tales and princess stories, where the happy ending was just one: good and young girl discover the love of her life and live happily ever after. No one was happy alone.
It is part of our culture that a woman is successful only if she has a partner, children, etc. It doesn’t matter if she is happy alone, if she has college degree, has a good job, a great family and amazing friends, none of this has value if she doesn’t have someone on her side.
In children's cartoons, movies and novels, everything ends up in marriage, children and in the famous "happily ever after”. We create the false idea that we are incomplete beings and so we will spend our whole lives trying to find our other half.
With the end of a relationship, we are again "incomplete”, as if being alone was a disability that causes shame. So it’s common to avoid family parties in fear of that relative who loves to gossip ask you about the boyfriend. You’re ashamed to appear in front of your friends, neighbors and even the dog, that makes that face like he feels sorry for you. We hide ourselves, blame ourselves and suffer a lot!
Most people, not to mention all, have a bad experience from previous relationships to tell. They have stories of betrayal, of sentimental abuses, of unrequited loves that, apart from leaving some kind of blockage in the way we relate to others, makes loneliness seen as a dream-destroying monster.
Inevitably, you will come across this situation: after planning your life alongside someone else, you’ll find that there is no point in the two of you sharing the same plans, goals and feelings. It ended.
At this moment, it’s as if a retrospective of your life passes before your eyes. What have I done to myself all those years? What will I do with my life? And how to continue without that person on my side? If there is some comfort that I can give you, is this: There is no pain that doesn’t end, injury that doesn’t heal and page that cannot be turned.
Often the pain is not for the person we lost, but for the loneliness he/she caused. The point is that if we don’t have happiness alone, we won’t be able to keep up with it, because the fear of loneliness is so great that we stifle a relationship that could work out (jealousy) or, in the worst case, accept any type of relationship (violence).
If you don’t let the past go away, you will never live the present
You will always have fond memories of your ex-girlfriends/boyfriends, especially if the last breakup was not the way you planned. But you need to leave the past in its proper place. You can keep a space for the things that were important in your life, the moments of joy and happiness that you spent next to someone else, but you need to stop clinging to them as if they were your only saving board. Only then will you be able to live today, build new stories and build strength for the next day.
I am not saying that we should be alone, but that our happiness can’t depend on the other. We need to have emotional independence, which comes with a better self-esteem.
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Do you feel happy alone?
It’s at least curious to analyze how people behave while in their own company. While some value it, using time for self-knowledge, others run from it at the speed of light.
Loneliness is not necessarily a bad feeling. It all depends on your point of view. If you don’t like being alone and think this is not for you, it’s possible you won’t be happy this way.
Enjoy the moments of solitude to organize or reorganize your life, recycle feelings or even discover new ideas and emotions. Create new possibilities and live them intensely. Use your time to set new goals and clean up, deciding who gets in and who gets out of your life.
In Psychology, the moments of solitude intermediate the transition from the past to a new beginning. So choosing to be alone at some point in your life is not considered harmful. Good solitude is felt as a need to be alone. Bad solitude as the inability to be alone.
This doesn’t mean that those who have opted for a (healthy, of course) relationship are unhappy. Understand that, as said at the beginning, happiness consists in being well with yourself and not in the status of a relationship. To share your life and experiences with someone else is great, but to be happy without depending on anyone and to live life as you prefer is also great!
Making friends: the antidote for loneliness?
The antidote to loneliness can be a friend, or the possibility of making friends. A sincere, light friendship that doesn’t generate any obligation.
Friends aren’t necessarily people in your family. A friend is the person you feel comfortable talking to and the person to whom you say "I need you to stay with me now" and he stays. The problem arises when shyness becomes an impediment to initiating new friendships.
A boyfriend, husband or other family member may or may not be your friend, but I believe that being a friend, the relationship would be more complete.
Other options to overcome loneliness would be, for example, to work on self-knowledge, to understand this solitude or you can work on specific techniques of social skills.
Ever thought how to attribute your happiness to something or someone can be dangerous?
First because if that something or someone is gone, then your happiness (and why not your life?) is also gone.
And that implies two very important things:
- It decreases the innate capacity that you, as a human being, perceives happiness;
- It give too much responsibility, too heavy a burden to someone who already has their own happiness to worry about.
Also, if your happiness is in something outside of you, you will spend your whole life trying to get it without realizing that happiness is the path you walk day by day, not the destination. It’s not a place where you arrive. There’s no recipe for being happy. There’s not even necessarily a why.
Single? Yes. Alone? Never!
You've probably heard that expression, whether in a meme or the lyrics of a song. So what's important is to reflect the meaning of that phrase. Don’t take the phrase on the vulgar side. Think that being single doesn’t mean that you are necessarily alone.
There’s a simple happiness in being single, but not unaccompanied, that is, you obviously need to create affective bonds, be they family or friends, that put you on the axis, sustain you and give you strength in times of difficulty. Therefore, you must preserve and nurture the relationships you have with your family of blood or the family you have chosen, in this case, your friends.
Change focus
Rather than worrying about certain unimportant things like finding a new love from one moment to another, how about shifting focus? Find out that you have a way to be happy alone if you just let go of certain obsessions. Focus and pool your energies to develop other activities.
Make a list of goals you want to achieve during your life, draw a plan on how to do each item, and celebrate when you achieve something. I have selected a few points that I consider essential to be on your list. The point I won’t include is to find a new partner.
Be an expert on yourself
Self-knowledge is the first step to a healthy and happy life being single or unmarried. With self-criticism, it’s possible to deeply understand your qualities, the characteristics that can be enhanced, new virtues and defects that can be minimized. To know oneself every day is to be a better human being every day.
As you begin to practice self-awareness, you will soon realize how much easier it will be to deal with external factors. Dealing with work problems and building relationships with friends, family, and even lovemaking will be simpler tasks. You have to be at peace with yourself to be ready to create or maintain contact with other people.
Take care of yourself
- Family and friends: Being single is an advantage because there is more time to enjoy together with family and friends. After all, it's good to be close to those we love, right? And don’t even think of turning away from these people if you start a new relationship.
- Exercises: Find a physical activity that you enjoy and start practicing it. Exercises release endorphin into the brain, which provides a better mood. The most interesting is: if you practice exercises often, the impulse of humor is carried even on days that the exercises are not practiced. That is, the mood remains close and stable.
- Adopt an animal: besides being a companion, the pet helps to bring a routine to the daily life and even makes it possible to meet new people who share the same interest.
- Health: Time to make periodic medical appointments, because check-up is essential!
Pack your bags: plan a trip to do alone
Yes, you can do it! Nowadays it’s much easier and cheaper to travel than years ago. And you don’t even have to use the excuse that only rich people travel, because your first trip alone can be close by, even within your country or state.
Problems will always exist and will accompany you wherever you go, but being alone on a trip allows you to reflect on issues from another perspective, as if you were from a distance, just observing (and in fact, you are).
When you become more aware of yourself, you look inward and go against your preconceived ideas, and the chances of solving problems and mending broken hearts are much greater.
Make plans
To keep your dreams always alive, you can draw plans of things you would like to do in the near future or in a few years' time. Think about starting a new postgrad course, traveling the world, cruising, developing projects, planning anything that has everything to do with you and that promotes personal growth, whether professional or self-satisfaction.
I believe that a great part of the amorous frustrations begins in the devaluation of our own company. When there is the association of "self-moment" with loneliness, there is an inner conflict, causing people to feel insecure and needy. Do you want the absolute truth? It’s not from loneliness that you should be afraid, but from disliking your own company.
To enjoy your own company is to know that you are worth a lot and that "anything" is too little for you. It’s to understand that light people promote healthy relationships, and that neurotic people promote abusive relationships.
To enjoy your own company is to be ready for a real relationship with whole and willing people like yourself!