Eliminate the Pain of Loneliness and Embrace Your World Now

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You start to really experience those awful feelings of jealousy when you focus on the fact that people are out having fun and enjoying themselves and you are home cleaning the cat box. Loneliness combined with jealousy is another precursor of depression and adds to it an element of anger. Double whammy in terms of unhappiness.

Humans are social creatures and want to have friends. We want to belong and be part of things, not left out on the sidelines looking in. Right from childhood, everyone likes to be included. Wanting a group to belong to is normal and even a necessary part of life.

You may not understand why you are lonely and the answer to the problem may be emotional baggage that you are carrying around due to a dysfunctional upbringing or past experiences. It is possible that your baggage is acting as a huge social repellent.

To determine whether this is the case, you have to look at yourself from the outside, not just focus on what is going on in your head. Remember, if you have emotional baggage it is likely that you engage in cognitive distortions, so until you correct those, you may not be able to entirely trust your social interpretations. It is better to kick in your viewing skills and see yourself as in a movie. Watch yourself as a character in the plot and observe your behaviors and how they affect others. How are others reacting to this character? How would you react to this character?

Having a social world involves others so you have to learn to see yourself from the eyes of others. You may not have learned the skill of evaluating yourself in this way. Outward focus is a developmental skill that those from dysfunctional backgrounds have often not been exposed to.

If you think about the common types of emotional baggage such as anger, negativity, lack of boundaries, attachment difficulties, and trust issues, you can start to see how these may permeate your friendships or make it hard to develop them in the first place.

Wouldn't it be more fun to have invitations galore, head up outings and/or parties, give of yourself to your community (gratification) and be a part of things that keep you stimulated and fulfilled? Having someone to gab with on the phone or text, share ideas and dreams with, and know that you are important to them, that you matter on a large scale in their life? The alternative is to sit around with 19 loads of emotional luggage weighing you down until you just want to stay in bed from the weight of it.

Here is a quick rundown on the emotional baggage that acts as a repellent and will stop your friend-making possibilities in their tracks. Same with finding a healthy love relationship. You don’t have to be perfect, everyone has flaws and real friends love you anyway. It is the major baggage listed below that will have people avoiding you and lead to unnecessary loneliness. Emotional baggage has a way of sticking around and infiltrating all parts of your life.

1. Chronic anger and negativity: Nobody likes being around angry people. It is toxic. If you find yourself chronically angry, you will probably also find that you are chronically lonely.
2. Distrustful: If you give off the vibe that you don’t trust others, you will be viewed negatively. This doesn’t mean to be naïve, it just relates to how you make others feel. When others have good intentions toward you, they can be offended by feelings of mistrust.
3. Oversensitive: There is a healthy balance that can be found between being able to take a joke and allowing others to be overcritical of you. If you are carrying baggage due to a harsh or critical upbringing, you may be confused as to what is ok and what is not. You may have trouble asserting yourself to make sure you are being treated fairly.
4. Dramatic: Dysfunctional families are famous for teaching drama. You may believe that you can only get your needs met by being dramatic. Drama may be how you live to the point that "normal" feels very humdrum to you. Drama can be very difficult for others to understand and therefore they will avoid you. They may find you embarrassing when you just thought you were getting your point across. Drama is tiring and not many people have the energy for it. Living crisis to crisis with you burns them out.
5. Lack of boundaries: Sometimes in an effort to be helpful you can overstep a boundary. Or if you haven’t learned how to set and also keep other's boundaries you may inadvertently offend or tire someone out. If you overindulge in substances, you may feel the need to make the middle of the night call to someone when you are still up partying and they have gone to bed. You may be intrusive or demanding without realizing it. Telling them what they need to do or how to run their life is not what they want to hear.
6. Neediness: This is a tough one, again a balance has to be found between getting your needs met and the glomming-on to someone with expectations that they can help you with everything. Healthy friendships are also two-way streets, it is expected that you have something to offer in the way of support.
7. Not listening: Everyone likes to talk and everyone often has things they would like to share. Be a good listener and comment appropriately on what they have said. Don’t invalidate them or one-up them in conversation. Everyone deserves time to shine. This skill does not necessarily have to do with emotional baggage but it is a biggie in having friends. It can be baggage-related if you think you have some narcissistic tendencies; narcissists are typically very poor listeners. Being anxious and thinking ahead instead of paying attention is another way baggage affects our communication skills. Be present for them.
8. Commitment: Friendships take a commitment of your time and energy. If you only call someone once a year, it will not be the closest friendship. When looking at your calendar, plan out social time and time to help out if needed. Be present and check in. Let them know they are important to you. If you have attachment or trust issues, this can be a hard concept. You may feel like everyone is going to let you down eventually, so why bother? You can't guarantee that they won't but you will know you did your best to be a good friend. After that, it's on them.
9. Disorganized with time or other matters: You are probably wondering what disorganization has to do with friendship. Being late to appointments or plans of any kind, not being able to do your share of planning or carrying out of parties, your house being such a mess you can’t bring people in, those are the sort of things that make others wary of just how much you have to offer in a friendship. Being late all the time and holding others up is a sign that you don’t respect their time. They will eliminate you from their life.
10. Being critical: You may have been brought up that pointing out weaknesses or flaws in someone or being blunt is beneficial to them. This may be how you were treated. It isn’t helpful and you usually end up hurting feelings. You can get your point across if it really needs to be heard in a kind way. Your best bet for maintaining friendships is to be supportive and helpful.
11. Picking the wrong friends: An alternative to loneliness due to others not enjoying your company is when you allow your baggage to choose your friends for you. If you suffer from low self-esteem and feelings of inferiority you may become a caretaker or codependent, two very unhealthy relationship types. You may not trust yourself or be so shy you allow others to choose you for a friend whether it’s a good fit or not. You may tolerate poor treatment and think that you cannot do better. You may be trying to fit in with people who you don’t belong with and never will and that’s a good thing. Are you trying to fit in with people who are similar to you on an intellectual and spiritual level? Being needed because someone has major issues is not the same as being loved and enjoyed for who you are.

After evaluating the above, decide if there are places for improvement in your friend-making skill set. In a world of billions of people, there is no need for you to be lonely. There is a place for you to embrace your life, thrive, and flourish. Open your mind to all the possibilities. Emotional baggage and dysfunctional patterns can be corrected and left behind. There is no need for them to follow you around forever.

Join the world, have fun, belong.