Loneliness may have to do with a feeling as if something is missing. A loss of connection, a loss of relationship, a loss of well-being, or a loss of what could or should have been.
New Years Eve may bring up a loneliness for several people, and may be related to anxiety or discouragement regarding:
- Personal failures or setbacks over the course of the year
- Uncertainty about how to be around the people currently in your life
- The relationships you think you should have but don’t
- Comparisons to others who may be having “more fun” or “a better time” than you
- Not being invited or included in the way that you think you should be
- Not feeling a sense of connection to anyone
- Anxiety about what it means for you (on this particular day of the year) to not be in the place you want in your life right now
Loneliness can happen to people who are surrounded by family during the holidays, to married couples, to engaged couples, to divorced people, to single people, to people who are with the people they want to be with, and to people who have a wide range of established connections and meaningful relationships.
Just like pain, loneliness doesn’t discriminate across ethnicity, class, gender, age, or social economic status.
There is always someone who is lonely!
Suggestions:
- If anxious indecision is part of your pain, accept whatever it is you have chosen to do (who you are with and how you will spend your time) to bring in the New Year
- Find a way to acknowledge loneliness, even if the only thing you are doing is reading this blog post
- Bear in mind that loneliness is not a reflection of personal failure on your behalf
- Spend the holiday in such a way that is the most meaningful to you despite your loneliness
- If there is someone you could reach out to or make a connection with- consider doing it
- Remember that this too, shall pass