Humanistic Intelligence Articles
Break the Chains of Loneliness
(or love being lonely)
On a planet with over 7 billion people how can anyone be lonely? And yet so many people are becoming more and more lonely, isolated & miserable? Worse you will often find the loneliest person is in a crowd.
Are you such a person? And do you want to break the chains of your loneliness? If yes the first step is to understand loneliness is a chemical you have created and become addicted to. That is why I say only the lonely love being lonely
Recently a delegate came up to me and said she was lonely. See was attending my 1 year Mentoring Education workshop called “Dance With Your Soul” (see www.peopleatheart.com if you want to know what this is about?)
I was thinking how could a pretty young woman like her be lonely (as it did not make any sense to me)? So my response was automatic...
“You have got to be kidding” I said, laughing and smiling. “No really!” Giving me that I am serious.... look! But still dubious and kept smiling and said, “OK, what do you have to do to be lonely?” and continued with a gentle irony, “can you teach me this important life skill?”
I could see I had confused her. Did she understand? Good. This is one of my ways. Sometimes I will play with a person’s beliefs and gently provoke them and keep on provoking them until they change. It is a style I learnt from Frank Farley, author of “Provocative Therapy”
So while she stood in front of me in a trance like state called confusion (just as I wanted her) I said “Ok let me ask another way” (I was starting to warm up) “What would I have to do to be lonely like you?” It was the same question, just asked in a different way... “I don’t know?” she said. I raised my eyebrows (as if to say oh really??) and then going deeper into thought, she said “I don’t do anything? I get up, I go to work and I come back home?”
Now if you listen to people they give you all the answers you need to help them. In this situation the critical thing she said was “I don’t do anything”. So I probed deeper and asked “What do you do when you get home?” “Nothing” she said. Nothing? I said “Yes nothing” she replied. I smiled and said, “You have to do something. Do you by any chance sit in your empty flat and think to yourself what a sad and lonely life you have? And as you continue to think about how sad and lonely your life is do you get more and more depressed? And if you are invited to a party (where you can meet new people) do you think wow what a brilliant time I will have? Or do you make sad pictures in your head of no one talking to you and see yourself all alone or in a crowd feeling lonely? So you make yourself feel even worse and end up thinking no one is going to like me so what is the point of going”
She looked at me as if to say how did you know?
I smiled even more and said “And does that help??”
“No”, she said, getting more impatient because I was not empathising with her....
“I could go out and meet people”, she said, “but I am scared of doing that”.
“Scared of something you have not even done yet?” I questioned
“NO... you don’t understand”, she said, getting even more annoyed with me. “I tried joining a friendship club but they were very selfish and I had a bad experience with them”.
I am not surprised, I thought. What kinds of people join a friendship club, probably sad and lonely people? So you end up with a group of lonely people who have a particular skill in creating loneliness, making a club where they make everyone else even more lonely. This proves the world has gone mad I thought!
“Oh”, I said, “So you had one bad experience and you have looked into your future and decided whatever you do to meet new people you are going to have a bad experience – is that right?”
“No” she said!
“Well obviously you do as you keep sitting in your flat moaning about how lonely you are...You see”, I said, “You are addicted to feeling lonely that’s why you are lonely”
If you want to break the chains of loneliness you have to first break the patterns by which you have been living and change how you feel about yourself (your personal chemistry) so you find a better way to live. Because if how you are living or however you feel (your personal chemistry) is not getting you to where you want to go in life, then it is about time you change what you are doing and how you feel. Or take the consequence of continuing to get what you have been getting out of life
It is this simple. Lonely people are lonely because they feel bad about themselves. They make sad feelings. They dwell on unhappiness. They make sad pictures in their heads about nobody liking them and they talk to themselves (their internal voice) in a really critical voice. They see all the negatives in the world and they make feeling bad about themselves into permanently bad feeling. So that when they meet people, they spread this bad feeling and make people around them feel bad for no reason.
Do you know anyone like this? You know people who, the moment they walk into a room, send bad vibes around them? It is not nice being with them because they have sucked in all the good energy and replaced it with bad energy? This is because, how they feel about themselves (their emotions) translates to other people without them having to say anything. Just like when a musical cord is struck in an orchestra the sound quickly travels and resonates with other musical instruments.
Basically bad emotions spread bad emotions. Just as I was saying to a good friend the other day, your thoughts, feelings and emotions can be as toxic as any harmful chemicals you can put into your body. So when you constantly focus on feeling bad (or on all the sad aspects of your life) all you do is create a chemical feeling of feeling bad that saturates your neurology and makes this bad feeling a permanent part of your living experience. This is why it is so difficult to break the chains of loneliness and why only the lonely love being lonely. Because at some level, they have created a chemical called loneliness and have become addicted to it
And yet quite the opposite is true when you brighten up your internal world. When you talk to yourself in a good way and when you feel good about yourself, for no good reason, but just feeling good. This vibrates and sends out wonderful signals
You see good thoughts, feelings & emotions create a laboratory of wonderful chemicals that saturate your neurology and make you feel good and make other people around you feel good too! Good emotions translate good emotions to everyone around you.
So coming back to my delegate, the first thing I did was change her internal perspective and make her feel good. I got her to make bright pictures and talk nicely to herself and feel good for no good reason but just feeling good. And pretty soon I was able to wash away the feeling bad chemicals she had saturated her body with feeling good chemicals so that you could quite literally see her “Shine From Within” like a beautiful crystal chandelier that is fully lit. And as she glowed and glowed I made her go out of her flat and meet people. And do you know what? As she brightened up her internal world she found people liked being around her. And pretty soon she started making new friends and today her world is changed.
She has realised your birthright is to feel good about you because feeling good about you was the original imprint you were born with.
Just do this, go up to a baby and smile and make lovely sounds and just hold out your finger. You will see the baby grab hold of your finger and smile and laugh back and as they do they will flash their bright, smiling, eyes back at you. I know... I have had all my four children do this to me.
You break the chains of loneliness by making people feel good. And this starts with you. And when you do you unleash the magic that is held within every part of your DNA. You unleash the alchemist that is within you...
Momen's Acid Test
Are you aware of yourself?
- How you feel – do you feel up or down?
- How you talk to yourself – do you talk positively or negatively?
- How you make pictures in your head – do you make good pictures or bad pictures?
- How you make movies in your head – do you imagine good experiences or bad experiences?
Then imagine you are a chandelier:
- If you answers are mainly positive – you are like a chandelier that shines bright. You are literally shining from within. This is what attracts people to you... Keep shining from within and find ways to make this better and better and you will find this attracts more and more people
- If your answers are mainly negative – you are like a chandelier that is switched off or turned down and shines only dimly. You will find people do not see you. They walk by you.
Momen's Law
People feel good with people who feel good. So just feel good. Turn on your internal chandelier and shine from within!
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