Latest / Wanzology / Alone vs Feeling Lonely
Transcript
- Howdy-Doodie. Howdy, howdy, howdy, howdy-doodie!! What's going on y'all? I hope that your day is going well. I hope that your existence on this planet is somewhat pleasurable right now 'cause times are very, very challenging. In case you haven't had the chance to look at the news. Or pay attention to what is going on around you, which I can totally understand if you don't want to do that, because man, if you get too close, if you get too deep, it can be, uh, kind of intimidating and downright scary. Welcome to another episode of WANZOLOGY I am your host, The Wanz and I am in it again. It being like a down cycle, like a little bit of a depression. I've spent the better part of a few hours trying to understand why. Why am I here? Why am I in this particular position? Why do I feel ‘this sort of way’, and this sort of way is lonely. Now, I understand that people can feel lonely all the time. People can feel alone all the time, and the reality is neither one of those things right now for me are true. Granted, I'm alone, meaning I choose to be by myself. I'm alone, which is fine. Lonely, I have determined, is a dependency because in order not to feel lonely, someone needs someone else. So when someone else is not around, there's that longing, there's that ‘I wish’, fill in the blank. There's that, “Why am I?”, and you'd start turning it back in internally, becoming responsible or feeling responsible for something that you did not create, a decision that you did not make. I didn't decide to be lonely. I just felt that way. What's the difference between alone and lonely? Most people tell me when they feel alone or lonely. They talk in pretty much the same terms. Like those things are the same or extremely closely related, which they're not. I can't remember the actor's name, she was famous for saying, “I want to be alone.” When you want to get away from people, places, things, situations, you choose to. Whether that be taking refuge in your car or going on a walk by yourself or meditating or something like that, it’s a choice that you make. I don't know anyone who chooses to be lonely. I've never met anyone who says, “I want to put myself in a position where I'm not around anyone, even though I wish someone was around, and they're not.” Loneliness is the perception that you're lacking something. Nobody wants to be around me, and you feel lonely. Everybody always seems to have somebody else, right? That's not restricted to a romantic relationship or a deep friendship. It just seems like a lot of people have good friends that they hang with, or acquaintances that they like to be around and so on and so forth along those lines, and when they're missing and you don't have those, it feels or can feel ‘some sort of way’. Upon close examination of the last, oh, I don't know, three and a half hours for me. I have come to the conclusion I needed to separate what I'm doing to myself inside that dangerous four inches between my ears and what I'm not doing. What I'm not doing is feeling grateful. There's a lot of gratitude in not feeling lonely. One must be, I'm just speaking for myself here, I feel like one must be aware completely and totally aware of what state they are in, and I mean emotional state. I'm in the position of being completely unsure of what my future holds. I've been outta work for over two years, longest period of time I've ever been out of work, I am having to depend upon and have confidence in my individual abilities, which usually is easy, simple, intuitive. But when it's not easy or intuitive, I start to worry about not being good enough. It's a very, very dangerous place for me, and I don't mind talking about it because I'm processing it as I'm speaking. I know it's dangerous, and I know I put myself here, I put myself lots of places mentally, not that I choose to be here, but I realize that I am here. So the reality of being where I am is also the opportunity to not be here. I have to do something. So that's why I'm processing this. Have you ever been in the position where you just feel ‘some sort of way’, quote unquote, you don't know why, but you know that's how you feel. How do you, uh, how do you get out of it? Some people exercise, some people read, some people do volunteer work, some people will just choose to go to sleep. I mean, I remember there have been many a night I don't care what time it is, I'm going to bed 'cause I want it to be tomorrow. Today is hopeless. So, the sooner it's tomorrow, the better I'll feel, or the opportunity to feel better seems attractive. But there are those times once you realize where you are, that it becomes interestingly challenging to get out of it. Now normally, for me, it would be music. I would go do music. I would work on a song, I'm seeing slow progress as I'm learning how to play guitar, or working on one of like 25 or 30 songs that I have to work on, but when the motivation is not there and I find myself sitting on the couch wondering what the hell is going on, and why do I feel like ‘this’? That's when I had to stop. I had to stop and start figuring it out. When have I felt like this before? Why did I feel like this before? Have I talked to someone before about how I felt like this? What did they say? What did I say to myself? What are the things that I did and what are the things that I didn't do? All questions that I've gone through before starting this episode, and my conclusion is pretty simple. The realization that you are lonely usually, for me anyway, is coupled with a sense of hopelessness, and in that hopelessness, everything is outside. “It's not gonna be sunny, it's gonna rain.”, “Nobody wants to be around me…”, “Nobody wants this...”. It's always something with somebody and you are the butt of that equation. You ever felt like that? You ever felt like nobody wants to be around me, I'm ‘this’, I'm ‘that’ so everyone avoids me because I'm ‘this’ or I'm ‘that’? “I'm not smart enough.”, “I'm not cute enough.”, “I'm not strong enough.”, “I'm not…”, fill in the blank. If you've ever felt that way, couple that with being by yourself. That's loneliness. And it's dependent on someone else or something else, and if you don't have that someone or something, there you are in that pit, in that feeling ‘some sort of way’. Now that versus being alone, “I want to be alone.”, I don't want to be around people right now, it just seems that being alone is a choice that you make and it has a finite range of time. While feeling lonely, feels very open-ended because you have no idea when it's going to end, when is that feeling going to stop? You don't know. And when you don't know something, the odds of you being in some state of fear is huge. What are you afraid of, hmm? You're afraid of no one wanting to be around you, even though you want to be around other people, or maybe a specific person who knows everybody's different. All I know is that the conclusions that I've come to are self-based. I put myself in that feeling because I didn't look at my own evidence. I have two wonderful sons and I know to my core that they love me. I have 10 grandchildren from, you know, blended families and whatnot, and I know that they love me. I'm a Grammy and Diamond Award-winning singer, so I know I'm capable and I'm talented, I own my own car, I own a lot of things, I'm not very deep in debt. I mean, I remember when I was completely and totally underwater, this is not that. There are things that I have, and when I look at the things that I have, they don't balance with the feeling. I think that the hope of being out of the feeling of loneliness is driven completely and totally by making sure you understand what you have versus what you want. You may want to be around certain people. You may want to be in a certain place. You may want to be doing something else, and because you're not, you feel lonely. And usually loneliness, at least for me, has to do with being around other people. As I sit here, I'm like, “Wow, if I wanted to be around other people so that, why don't I just go to the grocery store and hang out? Just, you know, grab a cart, walk around, because it's not like nobody else will be there. And I don't know any of those people, that would be putting myself in the mix. I'd be around other people, and even if I got a couple of things that I thought I might need at home, there's a purpose.”, or I could take myself out and do some physical exercise, or I could sit down and do a meditation, or I could journal. I can do lots of things to not be where I am and what I've chosen to do is talk about it because for me, talking about it helps me process it and if you talk to someone that you trust, the odds are very great that they will be honest with you. Now, the choice of believing what they say is on you. If you don't believe them, that’s your fault. But if it's a true friend who cares more about you than your feelings, consider what they say is true. Being alone is one thing. Being lonely is a completely other animal, and when you find yourself dependent on someone else to stoke the fires of your happiness, or to make things quote unquote ‘better’, you need to find your best of best friends, and you need to talk about anything other than being lonely. Why? Because someone else doesn't have to know who you're feeling lonely, I t's an inside job. Hearing something from the outside that you would like to hear, like empathy and compassion and humor, and mainly honesty, great, great healer, honesty. Honesty is like gravity, it works and you can't deny that it works. So if you're feeling alone, congratulations. There are people who are so afraid of being alone. They will never put themselves in a position to be or to choose to be alone. But if you're lonely, how do you recognize that you're lonely because you're looking for something, someone to change how you feel. You wouldn't feel this way if you were ‘somewhere’. You wouldn't feel this way if ‘someone’ was around. You wouldn't feel this way ‘if’, and this is the important part, if ‘something’ happens outside of your skin, that’s how you know if you’re looking for feeling better on the inside, the answers are not going to come from the outside, that's just a fact. So go forward with a little thought, with a little purpose and recognize if you are lonely. And if you're lonely, find that thing that seems to be fueling the loneliness. 'cause I guarantee you, once you see it, you can't unsee it and you'll know what to do. You know yourself better than anyone else. And like I said, there are choices, positive choices that one can make. You don't know if they're going to work until you actually do something constructive, positive, uplifting. If you know something that makes you happy, go do that. You deserve it. Thanks for listening. I'm not sure what's gonna happen. I know that I'm not alone and neither are you. I know that this too shall pass, and I know you will believe that too because you didn't get here by accident. You used to be back ‘there’, and now you're up ‘here’ just like me, and we're all in this together, and as my mama used say, “Do something good for yourself, then go do it for someone else.”, and I'll see you in the next episode. Peace.