Loneliness vs. Solitude

“Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone” -

...........Paul Tillich

One of my all-time greatest fears has always been being alone. When I was in school, I always had a large group of friends and in college, I lived in the dorm for four years so that there were always people around. But as I have grown older, I have learned the difference between loneliness and solitude. I have also learned that the difference between the two is mostly between our ears.

When we are lonely, we have the tendency to fill our lives with “noise”. We seek out people to spend time with, even people that we don’t particularly care for. When we are alone, we turn on the radio or television or talk on the telephone. And why do we do this? I’ve found that it’s mostly because we are afraid to spend time with ourselves.

If we spend quiet time alone, we may have to face some of our thoughts and feelings. When we surround ourselves with “noise” we drown out our inner voice allowing us to ignore ourselves. And the biggest reason we don’t want to listen to ourselves is a lack of self-esteem. We don’t feel that our thoughts and feelings are valid enough to pay attention to. We don’t particularly like that disappointing and inadequate person whose voice we hear in those alone times.

We need to pay attention to those thoughts and feelings in order to begin ridding ourselves of the fear of being alone. By taking the time to increase our self-esteem, by beginning to validate our own thoughts and feelings, the loneliness begins to diminish. There are thousands of books on the subject of raising self-esteem, but it doesn’t really matter which method you choose, as long as you being the process. (To read about some of the things that I tried, see my article called Don’t Under-estimate Me!)

Another reason to get to know yourself is that no matter where you go - there you are! If you truly enjoy your own company, there will never be a reason to be lonely again. Learn what you like to do in your quiet time. Read? Paint? Write? Clean? Meditate? One thing I did was make a list of things that I could do when I was lonely. The list included things like cleaning out the closet in the spare bedroom, going for a walk, and organizing my CD’s. These things may sound mundane and unimportant but the real benefit of doing things like that is that when we finished, we feel a sense of accomplishment in what we have done. And with that sense of accomplishment, we feel better about ourselves.

As we increase our self-esteem, getting to know ourselves and feeling more comfortable with ourselves, the need for all that “noise” starts to decrease. The state of “aloneness” is the same whether we are suffering loneliness or enjoying solitude. The only difference is in our attitude toward ourselves. We actually being looking forward to spending time alone, in solitude, because we know that we are in the best company there is!