Loneliness is an Essential Part of Growth - Whether We Like It or Not

Loneliness improves concentration and cognitive functions and is actually conducive to self-development, identity consolidation and heightened creativity. Love the poetry of Mary Oliver? She was not exactly a social butterfly but I swear her time spent in the fields with the butterflies and God’s creatures sparked her creativity and has healed my heart with her beautiful writings on many a day when her words were the thing that got me up and going.

The Handbook of Solitude emphasizes that loneliness can help us gain insight into ourselves, have therapeutic benefits and can help us deal with political and social pressures. They report that those who experience loneliness are able to form better and more lasting relationships than those who have not. AND...loneliness can immunize us against future social isolation.

Maybe we are not experiencing an epidemic of loneliness so much as we are experiencing monophobia - a fear of loneliness. Maybe we are incompetently treating what ails us with increasing and intensifying contact with others. Maybe our problem is less about loneliness and more about our inability to cope with alone time.

Consider this: If you are not your own best company, what do you want/need to change about you? If you chase after everyone, how are you nurturing the small cadre of people who have demonstrated how much they want to be in your company?

If we can let go of fear of loneliness, we can perhaps pay more attention. Are there people in our life who we need to let go of? Maybe the relationship has run its course. Or maybe, upon reflection, the mutual relationship was perhaps not as solid as you thought? Remember that some folks have more to take and less to give. Sometimes that person is us. But we absolutely do not have to feel obligated to live in one-sided relationships. And each of us gets to decide what that means to us, depending on our own temperament, maturity, and capacity for wisdom.

Now, the exception clause. Sometimes people you love are suffering and unable to pick up the phone and call or respond to your reach outs. This is not personal and no offense or judgment needs to be expressed. Our work is to decide, after long and hard consideration, prayer and soul searching, if this is the end of a relationship or a time to hang in with your friend. It can go either way. But if this friend has been a good friend in the past, maybe this is the time when we extend them the grace they have so often extended us. After all, no one has a friend for a while without having to extend grace. In situations like this, we try not to be a stalker and we work hard to manage our own feelings of loss. We find ways to reach out that are not too burdensome to our friend. We do the best we can. They do the best they can.

Just remember: there are worse things than loneliness.

Love one another.

A new year offers us the opportunity to reflect and consider our future selves. Inevitably, we all have different perspectives on resolutions and such. After the year our world has just experienced, it might be hard to muster unbridled enthusiasm and optimism for 2021. Good.

We don’t need it. The endless possibilities; the big dreams; these are not the things that build character and resilience. In the future, it is far more likely that the suffering of 2020 will stimulate creativity and spiritual awakenings the likes of which art camp and retreats could never accomplish.

Suffering is an essential part of growth - whether we like it or not. I am not suggesting we seek out suffering - that’s masochism. But I do hope this allows us to think of our suffering as something we walk through, not run from.

Do you have regrets? A boatload of remorse? Ok. Tempted to blame others? That’s normal. Trying to pretend that you DON’T feel these painful things? Sounds about right.

If 2021 is going to provide us with growth and maturity and wisdom, there is one crucial question we must ask ourselves: What pain are we avoiding? T. S. Eliot said, “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”

But some humans learn that bearing reality is actually a super power.

Believe in the integrity and value of the jagged path. We don’t always do the right thing on our way to rightness. Cheryl Strayed

Let’s pray….

Jesus said this one time to a group of people. Read these verses and imagine him saying this exact same thing to you:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30 NIV