Does Aloneness Equal Loneliness?

When I was younger, I wanted someone to love me and accept me for who I was. It was a tough racket as it was hard to find someone on the same page as I was. As I got older, I began to realize that what I truly wanted was just to feel love, and that love had to come from the universal love force. So, it was true that I was looking for love in all the wrong places. Once I realized this, I began to enjoy my own company, and being alone was something I began to appreciate even more.

Many people will scoff at the sentence below, maybe even get angry as this is not something we’ve often heard in our society:

We are not social beings who do not do well alone.

This is something I recently heard from a prominent spiritual teacher and I tend to agree. Oh no, don’t get me wrong; I’m not advocating not having friends, family relationships, lovers, or any kind of relationship. Nor am I suggesting isolation, especially for seniors who are shut-ins and need company. The fact is, we can feel joy and fulfillment when alone, and this can mean living alone, single, and being alone for extended periods of time. Spending time alone doing things we enjoy can bring joy and fulfillment. It is a wonderful thing when we can experience aloneness with peace and contentment that can become a permanent state of being.

In the First Nations culture, I have gone out fasting, aka, vision questing. There, each one of us is left in the woods alone with no human contact for a number of days. We are not to have any phones, iPad, books, or anything that would provide any kind of entertainment. We just sit in solitude in silence with our traditional medicines and hand drum if we have one. This is to commune with nature, pray, and receive messages from the spirits. I found this practice expansive and enlightening, a great way to a higher state of consciousness.

Loneliness is a worldwide epidemic in epic proportions. We are led to believe that we are social beings who do not do well alone. Nonsense! I can tell you with every confidence that this is just not true. I know so many people who live alone and would not want it any other way. If we are not okay alone, it is because we are not okay with being with ourselves. Likewise, we can feel lonely with those we do not connect, or when we do not get enough time alone with ourselves.

Relationships are important to me too, absolutely, and I enjoy my alone time just the same. I’m single and live alone and love it. My source of peace and joy comes from within. This is something I’ve learned over the years.

We often hear that having a romantic partner is important for our well-being and happiness. Don’t get me wrong, if you have a partner and you are happy… beautiful. Many of us do not have it and there is nothing wrong with that. I find the reason people are lonely is that they feel disconnected from themselves. This belief that we are lonely if we are alone is one of the biggest lies we have been told from cradle to grave, and it has hurt a lot of people. If not being alone is so important and essential for our well-being, why do so many people still feel lonely in relationships?

Why has loneliness gotten to be a problem of insurmountable proportions in our society if we don’t have someone to keep us from being alone? Because being alone is NOT the problem. The problem is a state of mind that comes from deep conditioning.

Aloneness gives us the opportunity to do important work on ourselves. It allows us to face all parts of ourselves, light and dark, and to come to enjoy our own company. The beautiful thing about this is that it is not a fleeting moment as we get from outside sources, although fleeting moments are beautiful as well. Aloneness is a positive and loving state of being.

When I heard this quote that we are not social beings who do not do well alone, I felt this spiritual teacher had nailed it. Great beings live in caves for months, and people live in the woods for extended periods and have the greatest of times by themselves, this person said.

We have been so deeply programmed to believe we are not well alone that loneliness has become an issue that has caused pain, sadness, and depression, and people are killing themselves over it! This is a huge problem that needs to change.

When we can connect with ourselves and know that we are spiritual beings who are the universal force all in one, we can feel contentment, joy, and peace every day of our lives. I fully believe this. It is not fleeting or temporary because it is unconditional love that is a state of being.

When we can get there, then our relationships with ourselves and others can brim with more joy and fulfillment.