I have given much thought, contemplation and experience into this topic over the past two years of recovery.
When I was married and living with three kids, a Parrot and a Dog, I felt the deepest loneliness. This feeling was unidentified then and left me feeling confused and spun me off the rails in search of fulfilment. I spent the next several years filling this void with drugs, men, and endless parties filled with people.
The loneliness never subsided it grew, every morning I would wake up in a deeper pit of utter aloneness. The sense of disconnection from everyone in the world, the world and myself included. I felt like I didn't belong anywhere and that I was an alien amongst all these humans. I really struggled with this sense of loneliness.
Coming into the rooms spun me into a whole new process of loneliness and being alone. For the first time I felt like I connected with people and was around a group of people that finally understood me. It was a wonderful feeling and I wanted more and more of it. In the early days of recovery I was with some one 24/7. Filling my loneliness void with all this new found acceptance and affection. I was about to overdose on it.
The Virgo in me cannot handle constant interactions with people, I need my space and alone time. Yet alone time was very bad for my thought processes, so I was caught in a bit of a confusing cycle. Can't be with people all the time yet cannot spend any time alone. I see this constantly in the rooms and outside the rooms as well. People afraid to be alone, yet dislike the people they hang around with.
I found my solution skimming the surface of the 12 steps, just waiting to be picked up by the ready and willing. Making friends with A higher Power. To discover and determine what your own higher power is, is the first step to building a relationship with an energy that will keep you company and out of your head when your alone, yet keep you confident when your with others.
For me my higher power cannot be the rooms any more because that puts other people in control of that power. My higher power is tapped when I am taking care of myself and doing things that I personally enjoy doing. It took some self discovery to find out what those things are, but now that I know I can tap that power when I am feeling lonely.
As I write this I am again amazed at how advice for my own personal issues of the moment come through the words of the daily meditation book written years ago by several people. How it works is simply to big for me to understand and I will leave that one to the powers that be. I have been feeling lonely and seeking out unhealthy avenues to fill that loneliness lately, only to feel more lonely. I forgot this lesson I have already learned.
The last two days of rain, work has slowed a bit and I have been able to hit the spa and the gym and fill up on the love of my higher power. I have been able to spend some quality time with my daughter and that has filled up my heart with a love deep. I have been able to lunch with a dear friend and have connected with another dear friend as well, which always balances me out and provides me with outside perspectives to my life.
I was walking through the park the other day, enjoying my time alone. It suddenly occurred to me as tears sprung to my eyes, how filled I was and how in love I was. In love with my life, my self, the world as a whole and the gorgeous blooming cherry tree standing before me. Being alone is where I feel the least lonely now. It was only through getting to know, like and love myself that I was able to fill the void of loneliness.
Today I am bringing balance back to the loneliness that was creeping into my heart from working long hours and not taking care of myself. I am happy again and heading off to the gym for a nice run while I wait for work to decide if this is gonna be a rain day or not! Have a good one folks!!
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