Loneliness

Loneliness is often a word that is overlooked.  In my experience, people will self-diagnose themselves as being depressed when what they are is lonely.  Depression is a clinical mental health mood disorder that should not be taken likely yet the word is used very flippantly and many do not realize what they are actually saying when they say they have it.  Loneliness is different.

What does loneliness feel like?  Some would say even in a room full of people they feel totally alone.  Others might say they don’t have anyone in which they can trust their deep feelings.  Yet others might say it feels like no one really cares.  With the onslaught of social media connections, you might wonder why anyone would feel lonely.  Social media is exactly that “social”.  There is very limited “personal” in “social media”.  Participants share what they want to share and can garner hundreds if not thousands of friends/followers.  Although they may have hundreds of friends and/or followers, none of those people may be someone they feel can be trusted.  Perhaps you can relate to this.

Loneliness can also occur within families and relationships.  Let’s first talk about relationships.  We are busy people.  So busy that we do not find time to really connect beyond a superficial level.  Have you been at home with your partner and spent practically the whole day and not said more than 100 words to each other?  Sometimes couples/friends hang out or share space and time and never truly connect with each other.  Conversations are minimal.  One or the other seems to be preoccupied with his/her technology.  Still others may be unavailable for and to you but very available for others.  This might also include spending limited time with you and not effectively communicating with you about events in your everyday lives.  Yet if asked, they would say your relationship is ‘great’. 

Families may be used to seeing you as “the strong one”.  This seems to be where they have parked you and any demonstration of emotion or less than what they deem “strong” prompts a comment something like this “Don’t worry you are always the strong one”.  As a result, we feel like they are not interested or won’t understand or being emotional is equivalent to weakness and we shut down which compounds the loneliness. 

There may be others in your life in which everything is always about them.  They don’t call to check on you – unless they want to talk about themselves.  They may ask how you are doing and listen to you for a couple of minutes but then the conversation seems to always switch to them.  Sound like anyone you know? 

Having other emotions and feeling lonely does not make you weak.  It makes you human!  You have the right to be heard.  Contact us at Release Counseling and Consulting, we are eager to “hear from you”.

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Time....tick tock

31,536,000 – 525,600 – 8760 – 365 – 52 – 12

If I were to give you 31,536,000 of something valuable, would you be excited?  Would you think you would have plenty?  Would you think you could casually discard some of it because there was more where that came from?  Would you openly share it thinking there was more than enough to cover you? 

Now, what if I told you I would give you 1 of something valuable…would your perspective of how much you had be drastically altered?  Would you want to cherish the 1 thing and not take it for granted?  Would you want to share it?

31,536,000 or 1??????

Thirty one million, five hundred thirty six thousand seconds are in 1 year (approximately).   When looking at the former, it seems like more than enough but when we alter the interpretation of the time to 1 it drastically changes.  Would you agree?  All of a sudden 1 year does not seem like quite so much after all.  If sold on the stock market, time would hardly be considered a blue chip stock – one known to be stable with a history of consistent returns.

So often we take time for granted.  We act as if our allotment has been shorted an hour or two or three.  It can seem like we never have enough time to accomplish what we set out to do.  Interestingly enough, time is one thing that is equally distributed to everyone across all age groups, sexes, abilities and socioeconomic statuses.  Every day we all receive the exact same amount of time.  It is what we choose to do with it that separates those deemed “successful” from those who are not.  We blame ‘time’ for our disappointments and shortcomings.  We say “I did not have enough time”, “I ran out of time” or “Time got away from me” as if it were a puppy that ran away.  Sadly, we cannot hand out posters asking for recovery and return of “time”.  The truth is that everyone manages their time in accordance with what is important to him/her.

What is done with your daily dose of time is up to you.  Will you let someone ‘steal’ it from you?  One way to control your daily dose is by making sure you don’t waste it or spend it on the wrong thing or dare I say the wrong person.  Are you focusing on the past or things that you have no control over?  Are you expending energy on things that are not going to yield a positive return in your life nor get you closer to your dreams?  Are you casually existing on the sidelines making excuses for nonchalant or unmotivated behavior by watching others live their lives?  Consider how much time is wasted watching others do things we would like to do ourselves.  What is stopping you?  Is it that you feel you don’t have time….contrarily, you have plenty of time.  It probably took you about 2.5 seconds to say or think “I don’t have time”.  This leaves you over 31 million seconds left.  What are you going to do with them?

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