Feeling Alone Will Help Us Open Ourselves Up And Find Love

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The famous Austrian psychotherapist, representative of existential analysis Alfried Langle - about how the feeling of loneliness can help us open ourselves and find love

When I see all of you, I don't feel alone. I hope you do too. Loneliness is familiar to each of us and is usually very painful. We want to escape from it, drown it in all possible ways - the Internet, TV, movies, alcohol, work, various types of addiction. We find it unbearable to feel abandoned.

Loneliness is the experience of experiencing a lack of relationship. If you love someone, then you yearn from separation from your loved one, when you do not see him for a long time. I miss a loved one, I feel connected to him, close to him, but I cannot see him, I cannot meet him.

A similar feeling can be experienced with nostalgia, when we yearn for our native places. We can feel lonely at work if we are presented with demands that we have not yet grown up to, and at the same time no one supports us. If I know that everything depends on me alone, there may be a fear that I will turn out to be a weakling, a feeling of guilt that I will not be able to cope. It is even worse if mobbing (bullying) occurs at work. Then I will feel that I am simply given up to be torn apart, I am on the edge of society, I am no longer a part of it.

Loneliness is a big topic in old age and childhood. It's not bad if the child spends a couple of hours alone - for him it is an impetus to development. But prolonged loneliness is very traumatic for children, they stop developing their "I".

In old age, loneliness no longer interferes with development, but can cause depression, paranoia, insomnia, psychosomatic complaints and pseudodementia - when a person calms down and begins to be silent from loneliness. Previously, he had a family and, perhaps, children, he worked for decades, was among people, and now he sits at home alone.

At the same time, we can experience loneliness when we are among people: at a holiday, at school, at work, in the family. It happens that people are close, but there is not enough intimacy. We have superficial conversations, and I have a need to really talk, about me and about you. In many families, they discuss what needs to be done, who and what should buy, who should prepare food, but they are silent about relationships, about what touches and cares. Then I feel lonely and in the family.

If no one sees me in the family, especially when it comes to a child, then I am alone. Even worse, I am abandoned, because people around do not come to me, do not take interest in me, do not look at me.

The same happens in partnerships: we have been together for 20 years, but at the same time we feel completely alone. Sexual relationships function, with more or less joy, but am I in the relationship? Do they understand me, do they see me? If we don't have a heart-to-heart talk, as it was when we were in love, then we become lonely even in a good relationship.

We cannot be constantly ready for communication, open to another person. Sometimes we plunge into ourselves, are busy with our problems, feelings, think about the past, and we do not have time for another, we do not look at it. This can happen exactly when he needs communication the most. But this does not harm the relationship, if we can then talk, share our feelings. Then we find each other again. If not, these moments remain the wounds that we receive on the path of life.

A relationship always has a beginning when we first meet, but a relationship has no end. All the relationships that I had with other people (friends, lovers) have been preserved in me. If I meet my ex-girlfriend 20 years later on the street, my heart starts to beat faster - after all, there was something, and it still continues to be in me. If I experienced something good with a person, then this is a source of happiness for me in the next stage of my life. Whenever I think about it, I have a good feeling. As long as I remain connected with the person with whom I have or have had a relationship, so I will never be alone. And I can live on this basis.

If I am offended, hurt, disappointed, deceived, if I am devalued, ridiculed, then I feel pain, turning to myself. The natural reflex of a person is to turn away from what causes pain and suffering. Sometimes we drown out our feelings so much that psychosomatic disorders can arise. Migraines, stomach ulcers, asthma tell me: you don't feel something very important. You don't have to go on living this way, turn to it, feel what hurts so that you can process it - be sad, grieve, forgive - otherwise you will not be free.

If I don't feel myself or my feelings are muted, then I am alone with myself. If I do not feel my body, my breath, my mood, my well-being, my vigor, my fatigue, my motivation and my joy, my suffering and my pain, then I am not in a relationship with myself.

Worse still, I can't get along with others either. I can't feel feelings about you, feel that I like you, that I want to be with you, that I like spending time with you, I have a need to be close to you, to open up to feel you. How can all this function if I have no relationship with myself and no feelings towards myself?

I cannot truly relate to another, if I am incapable of responding, if no movement arises in me, because the feelings are too hurt, because they are too heavy feelings. Or because I never really had them, because for many years I did not get close to other people.

If my mother never took me in her arms, did not sit on her knees, did not kiss me, if my father did not have time for me, if I did not have real friends who could do this, then I have a "dull" world of feelings - the world, which could not develop, could not open up. Then my senses are poor, and then I am constantly alone.

Is there any way out? I may have feelings, but these are my feelings, not yours. I can feel close to you, but I still go back to myself and have to be myself. The other person has the same feelings, he feels the same way. He is also in himself.

If other people look at me, in my direction, then by doing so they will let me understand: “I see you. You are here."

If other people are interested in what I am doing, if they see what I have done, then they notice our boundaries and differences. They tell me: “Yes, you said it”; “That was your opinion”; "You baked this cake." I feel seen, which means that I was treated with respect. If other people take the next step and take me seriously, they listen to my words - “What you said is important. Maybe you can explain? " - then I feel that they did not just see me, but recognize my value. I can be criticized - maybe the other does not like something, but this gives me as a personality contours. If others come to me, tuned in to me, I am not alone.

Martin Buber said that "I" becomes "I" next to "You". "I" acquires structure, the ability to communicate with oneself - and then learn to communicate with others. We have a personality - a source. This source itself begins to speak in us, but for this "I" must be heard. This "I" needs "You" who will listen to him. So, through a meeting with another person, a meeting with oneself becomes possible. By meeting another, I can go to myself. And at the same time I have an inner life, the personality inside me speaks to my “I”, and through “I” speaks to “You” and thus expresses itself. If I live out of this coherence, then I become myself. And then I am no longer alone."

For the original lecture by Alfried Langle, see the site “Thesis. Humanitarian Discussions”.