Understanding loneliness — The real practical solution

Introduction

If you're experiencing loneliness, you're arguably in great company here, because I myself have 'been there, done that, and got the T-shirt', all in pretty grand style!

During my schooldays and on into my early adulthood I myself felt to be one of the loneliest people on the planet. This came to a head in 1972, when I fled from my career job in biological research in order to handle an emotional crisis that appeared to be connected with that loneliness, but was clearly more than just that.

As I recount in My own self-actualization process or 'path' — Part 1, back in 1972 I narrowly missed getting regarded as 'having a nervous breakdown' and being shunted against my will into the grips of the local mental health service, with all the dreadful harm that that would most likely have caused me (bearing in mind my lack of understanding then of my true healing needs).

The stroke of great fortune at that time, which had initiated for me a genuine direction towards eventually resolving all my emotional and lifestyle issues was my having got into the first 'fundamentals' course in the country of Re-evaluation Counselling.

You can read on the above-linked page how the latter emotional healing method had at least given me some crucial insights about my issues and got me pointing in (sort-of) the right direction, but it had some serious issues of its own, and in any case was insufficiently effective to be my long-term answer, so that after some years I parted company with it, and remained in something of a limbo until other events directed me into an increasingly focused and broadly-based approach to resolving my issues.

And so, nowadays I'm not at all feeling lonely — at least, in the way that's generally meant — and cannot experience that loneliness any more.

So, does that mean I've drugged myself to the eyeballs or regularly meditated to anaesthetize myself emotionally, as so many people misguidedly do? — Or, do I have a tremendous 'relationship' with an ideal partner? — Or, am I frenetically socializing all the time? — Or am I in some other way succeeding in always having company?

— Nope, it's none of those! No drugs, no meditation, and indeed less company and less 'regular' friends and more solitude than I ever had in my youth and early adulthood when loneliness was such a big deal for me!

Note this well. All those aforementioned options that I hadn't taken up are things people do when they're still being driven by loneliness, to try to HIDE said loneliness, not to free themselves of it! Even the supposedly happiest and most devoted couple in the world is carrying a deep loneliness and fear of being alone — otherwise they wouldn't stunt their lives in living out such restrictive attached relationships; their 'happiness' is to a considerable extent a state of emotional oblivion and restricted awareness rather than anything truly worthwhile.

— Well, okay, that's probably an over-sweeping statement because each person's situation is different, but I say it to make an important general point — that in order to understand how really to clear ourselves of loneliness (i.e., so that we'd never feel materially lonely ever again), the vast majority of us need to do a considerable about-turn in our perception of the nature of our loneliness or supposed lack of it, and indeed of loneliness as experienced by anyone.

Understanding what loneliness really is

First of all, let's cultivate the most helpful and indeed rational basic mindset!
As you will surely already have noticed near the top of this page, I have a pair of guiding axioms, used on many pages on this site, to point you in that direction:

I recommend that you frequently come back to this, each time making sure that you fully understand it, until that view on every aspect of your life experience and indeed 'reality' is a clear part of your everyday perceptions and so genuinely needs no further reminders from those particular words. That helps pave the way to a proper understanding of all sorts of issues that are currently widely and bizarrely misunderstood.

Note that it does NOT mean that it's wrong or bad to change anything that's causing pain and disharmony in your life or the world, but the practical point is that if you're wanting to change something you need to do it for the right (i.e., most healthy) reasons and on the basis of a proper understanding, not on what you simply believe or feel or have been told is 'true' or 'false' or 'right' or 'wrong'.

Let's start by zapping a widespread confusion, because this needs to be firmly set aside right at the start if we're to start grasping the true situation.

Loneliness is NOT solitude or being alone. Indeed, solitude is great and healthy for us, and there's nothing at all intrinsically lonely about it (or indeed about anything in the physical 'reality'). A really well-functioning person enjoys and actually benefits from quite a lot of solitude in their life. I'm not talking of solitude anything like all the time, for that would indeed be stressful and unhealthy, but certainly for a considerable proportion of their life that would be seen as hideously unbearable by the vast majority of people, so locked they are into their own unacknowledged loneliness issues, from which they're constantly seeking to hide.

Loneliness, then, is a longing or craving for company or absence of solitude, but it isn't solitude itself. It's also felt by many people when among others, and indeed even (or particularly!) in crowd situations. Indeed, some of my own strongest loneliness experience was in, or at least triggered by, social events and being in crowds. In all such cases a potent 'virtual solitude' is experienced, through not feeling much or indeed any connection with the other people — typically, perceiving that they're not on my wavelength.

The latter situation tends to be exacerbated by the sociable majority regarding the outsider's loneliness as representing something wrong with him, and seek to get him to connect with them in the same way they connect with each other — which makes him feel all the more lonely because the 'sheep' majority cannot understand that an important part of his problem is a result of something important that they lack and cannot see that they lack and he's actually got.

The latter situation is experienced most strongly, vividly and painfully by what I've come to call 'no-soul' people — particularly those with what I call a 'sniff-it-out' specialist configuration (of whom I myself am one). However, because those people have the greatest sensitivity and deepest and most extensive awareness and capacity for rational thought, they also have the greatest available potential and ability, given some helpful pointers, to understand their situation and how to resolve any issue that's troubling them.

So, let's chalk that up as one external factor in some people's loneliness — feeling isolated by the unawareness of the socializing 'sheep' majority. For many other people there would be other causes of social isolation triggering loneliness experiences, though from a healing perspective the differences aren't all that important.

That, then, as well as straightforward physical solitude, can be a trigger of the loneliness experience.

We then need to ask, What is it that's being triggered, that causes me to feel lonely?

In broad terms, the answer appears to be, painful emotions relating to separation or/and isolation that are unawarely stored somewhere in your awareness, or which you're connected to from other unseen (non-physical) sources.

These cause solitude or social isolation experiences to 'remind me too much of' the unawarely stored or connected painful emotion material, and so you either feel it directly (most characteristic of no-soul people and others with little soul programming), or feel driven to act in ways that prevent you from subjectively experiencing those feelings — that is, to find or maintain companionship regardless of whether all that companionship (i.e., also lack of solitude) is really doing you any good, so hiding the underlying issue.

It's actually quite widely understood among the more aware minority of people that the loneliness experience is a result of normally hidden stored painful emotion getting triggered by certain external situations, so that the real answer to loneliness has to lie NOT in trying to avoid the triggering situations but in healing the stored painful emotions. As you'll see, I had to extend that understanding a bit in order to have really effective methods for clearing such issues.

A deeper side of loneliness — occlusion of our deepest aspects

It's greatly helpful from a healing perspective to recognise the most fundamental aspect of loneliness, which I've actually not touched upon above. We need to be aware of just why we tend to get so stressed and upset and indeed sometimes traumatized by separation from other people, because that isn't our natural, healthy state at all! If we were functioning really well, we'd be happy with our own company, but only a tiny proportion of people are so.

The problem here is the inner separation of conscious 'mind' from one's deepest aspects. This isn't at all a real separation, but a subjective one based in communication blockages through the continuum of consciousness between dualistic, conceptual 'mind' and non-dual, non-conceptual fundamental consciousness.

Thanks to interferences, both direct and indirect (through soul programming) from the troublesome non-physical influence that I call the garbage, most of us have been programmed or trained in various ways to feel isolated from the harmony and security of our own deepest aspects, and to look outside ourselves in more or less futile attempts to find that harmony and inner security.

Hence we see not only people all the time having 'relationships' with each other but also their trying to find that harmony through religion or spiritual traditions, where always in some way or other, the source of ultimate inner harmony and security is sought outside ourselves, for example, in a deity, a separated-off 'higher self', or indeed, much more subtly, in illusory realities created by ongoing meditation.

Understanding that gives you an important key to how to become immune to loneliness, at source.

A different sort of 'loneliness' — 'dysfunctional majority' stress

This is what you're left with after you've cleared the source(s) of what people generally would recognise as loneliness.

People who are no-soul or at least getting on well with their self-actualization process and have apparently cleared more or less all of their obvious loneliness-causing emotional issues typically still experience a certain ongoing level of stress because they're becoming increasingly aware of themselves as being very aware and relatively well-functioning individuals largely isolated from other similarly well-functioning people dotted around here and there in a vast population of bizarrely irrational and dysfunctional people.

One great problem for such open and aware individuals is that if they try to get together with other such individuals, almost certainly they would be blocking their self-actualization process through getting stuck into an attachment in order to get some comforting of their stress at seeming so isolated by the dysfunction and, frankly, sheer stupidity of the vast majority — and indeed it would actually cause additional stress long-term. What the hell does one do about that?

There's actually no solution to that, in the sense of changing the situation so that one doesn't have that isolation situation. However, that's a constructive challenge to continue your self-actualization process and translate that into increasingly rational living, whereby you simply make light work of all that unsatisfactory mess that is the world's current population at large.

Yes, we simply have to accept that we live in a far-from-ideal world with regard to the rest of 'humanity' (who are functioning as a 'sub-humanity'!), but that's the lie of the land. So we allow ourselves to enjoy our encounters with people in everyday life, tailoring our level of engagement with them according to our assessment of their level of awareness and general good and rational mental function, and not spending much time or go into any great depth with anyone who you can see isn't really on your wavelength.

It's still enjoyable exchanging a few superficial pleasantries with somebody in a really light-hearted and playful manner and moving on unruffled and still light-hearted. Things are as they are (remember that?), and we just draw a line under the encounter or exchange each time and move on with a knowing twinkle in the eye.

On the relatively rare occasions when we encounter somebody who's 'got it', the sensible thing is to allow oneself to make the most of it in an aware and rational way during the encounter, but not to try to set up any sort of 'relationship'.

However, there can be the odd situation where circumstances have brought you together with somebody who's 'got it', say, in your workplace or working together on some other project. When people get to know each other really well through that sort of regular working together, it could sometimes make sense to make an arrangement to share some other project, which could even include starting a family.

That's where very rigorous use of Helpfulness Testing would be particularly important to ensure that one really was making the most helpful and healthy choices. As always, we need to keep clearly in mind the difference between 'wants' and cravings on the one hand (all needing dissolving) and actual needs on the other.

This stress caused by the vast majority of people being to a large extent incompatible with you is most readily put into a much less troublesome context by joyfully making the most of solitude when you get a chance — getting out alone into wild places and especially going out hiking — but doing it all awarely, so you don't go taking on silly 'sheep' activities such as ones involving 'bagging' mountain summits or other features and ticking them off on a list (e.g., 'Munro-bagging' in the Scottish Highlands or 'letterboxing' on Dartmoor in Southern England).

You ascend mountains, yes, but while the silly ones touch a summit object such as a cairn and at once start their descent because they've now 'bagged' the summit, you would make the most of your being up there, finding wonderful viewpoints and exploring a bit, and wouldn't give a monkey's as to whether that mountain was on some official list or other.

Instead, a great thing to enrich your outdoor experience would be learning to identify the wild animals, birds, insects and all manner of plant life that you encounter out there in the wilds. Also, your getting out into the wilds like that is liable to bring you more encounters with compatible people — though I have to caution that my experience is still that the majority even of serious hikers are still insufferable yacking 'sheep' and not worth spending much time or talking in any depth with!

Please also see:

• No-soul and 'specialist' no-soul people — their great significance

• Solutions for some special 'difficult' issues for no-soul people

You feel loneliness despite having had an apparently happy and loving upbringing…

Actually I've already hinted at an explanation for that. On the face of it, if you've genuinely had a happy and loving upbringing right from your birth, with no significant emotional traumas, you shouldn't be carrying any significant amount of painful emotion to be triggered by any situation, but in the 'real world' there's more to it than the almost universal majority realizes (or indeed, in most case, wants to know about).

In the course of my clearing emotional material that the troublesome unseen influence that I call the garbage was using to stage disruptive attacks on me*, a time soon came when I had indications that I'd already cleared out all my stored emotional stress / trauma material — yet the garbage was still able to attack me with such material, even quite severely. So, if indeed it was correct that stored painful emotions from early in my life had already been cleared, what was being used once that had gone?

That was when, through a process of inner inquiry and careful examination of observations to see what 'adds up' and makes proper sense of all those observations, I had cause to add additional unseen sources to my working model of what was really going on. I'd assumed for much of my life that the strength of the emotional material that I'd appeared to be carrying was far too much to have been caused by anything that had happened to me in this lifetime (presumably correct), and that I was being affected by large quantities of such material that had carried over from unhealed emotional traumas in one or more previous lifetimes.

As far as I could ascertain, the latter was true, except for one point: those previous lifetimes couldn't have been my own, because I was a no-soul incarnation and so couldn't be carrying any issues from previous incarnations of mine!

My further investigation over a few years led to my postulating two main 'non-me' sources of emotional stress / trauma material that was affecting me in particular situations, giving a list of four main sources that would be affecting the more 'open' and aware people (those with relatively little or indeed no soul programming), each with its own prognosis for healing by use of a genuinely appropriate method (e.g., NO 'spiritual' or religion-based 'healing' here!):

• One's own unhealed stored emotional stresses / traumas from the current lifetime; this would generally include some element of birth trauma, even from a straightforward, uneventful birth — easiest / quickest to clear;

• Ditto from one's past lives (not applicable to no-soul people) — almost as easy / quick to clear if the right method(s) are used, but less so with other methods;

• Parasitic lost souls attached to one, complete with each one's accumulations of trauma over many lifetimes — very difficult or virtually impossible to clear by various methods, including Re-evaluation Counselling, but relatively straightforward to clear with the right methods, though can take a fair amount of time, depending on size of the load;

• Primary archetypes, to which a fair number of people (especially no-soul) have garbage-contrived connections — It appears that it's probably not possible to remove or dissolve the connections themselves, BUT the really important thing would be to dissolve one's attachment to those connections. That would minimize or even eliminate ordinary, everyday distortion of one's life experience by those archetypes, but currently it wouldn't prevent specific experiences from triggering conscious exposure to relevant primary archetypes and triggering transient strong emotional effects.
  

In practice, however, knowing all that isn't particularly necessary for healing purposes — at least, with the methods I present on this site, because these methods dissolve the mechanisms of the blocks and interferences, whatever the apparent nature of the latter. In terms of understanding, it's best policy to assume that you at least might have any of the four aforementioned emotional trauma sources affecting you, so there's no need to concern yourself about which is the source of something you're experiencing.

Primary archetype material is different (and looks and feels very different) from the rest, and you'd come to recognise that if you have connections to it. In that case the name of the game is to clear all attachment to those connections, so that they affect you minimally except when you, or some external circumstance, directs your focus into them. Then, once you recognise them clearly it's much easier to get your attention out of that crud and get on with something worthwhile (and much more enjoyable!) instead.

Now for the Sound and Secure Solution…

A little 'thought experiment' for you

Let's get straight into business. Here's something for you to try as soon as you have anything from ten minutes to half-an-hour handy to start clarifying your own situation and laying down some degree of foundation for using the relevant methods given on this site for clearing the issues that underlie any loneliness you're carrying.

You'll need one to a few sheets of paper and something to jot down some notes periodically. It's best if you have nobody immediately around you, though it's still worth doing anyway if that isn't possible to arrange. It's also a good idea to have a handkerchief or some tissues close by.

• Be seated on a comfortable upright chair at a desk or suitable table, with your back in a healthily relaxed upright state — loosely straight, but with minimal concavity and no convexity of the middle / lower back.

• Imagine yourself in a typical situation in which you think you wouldn't feel lonely, and indeed in which you think you'd feel most removed from loneliness (i.e., the latter if you have in mind a choice of situations). Make a mental snapshot of that situation, and now keep it in front of you as an all-around panoramic view as you carry out your 'thought experiment'.

• In your mind's eye, put a self-locking cupboard of unlimited internal capacity on the right-hand side of that view. You're going to stow some things in there, but you have a key, so you can retrieve anything from there that you don't mean to dispose of at this time. This is only a thought experiment, after all, albeit potentially a rather powerful one!

• Consider carefully what it is in that scene that makes you feel so far removed from loneliness. It may be more than one factor. Probably the presence of people in general or/and some particular people or/and a partner would be one factor, but not necessarily — and there may be other factors.
  

  Take your time to consider all possible factors there that seem to you to be anti-loneliness, and, if there are several, write down a list of them, so that you can remind yourself of them later, after this experiment. If there are more than one factor, see if you can identify which is the most significant one.

• Now, remembering that this is just a little experiment, and at this time you're not trying to achieve anything, open that cupboard there on the right, and mentally gather up every single trace of that most significant anti-loneliness factor, and gently, purposefully, deposit it all in the cupboard, which immediately locks itself, flashing up a 'success' message that cryptically exclaims Never again!

• At that point you'll most likely have all sorts of troubled thoughts and feelings arising, but the need here isn't to be bothered by them, because you know that this is just a little 'What If' experiment to show you some important and extremely helpful things. What you need to do now is to be constructively, proactively, peaceful observer and no longer victim or puppet of those thoughts and feelings, which now, would you believe it, have become your joyful messengers.

  Observe carefully, and note down the various troubled or troublesome thoughts, and, separately, any positive, happy, constructive or creative thoughts that have come up too. Make separate lists of them. Be sure to include in your 'minus-side' list any angry or critical thoughts about this insufferable Philip Goddard guy and his stupid methods (or similar thoughts).

  If you get such thoughts and don't include them in the list, you'll very likely have an internal hindrance to the effectiveness of your use of this thought experiment or any other methods of mine.

• When you've noted all that down, if you'd identified other anti-loneliness factors, take your time to do exactly the same with each of them successively, depositing each in the cupboard and noting down associated thoughts / impressions, till you've emptied that view around you of ALL the anti-loneliness factors that you'd identified. If you notice any further factors you'd not identified before, give each of them the same treatment, each time adding to your lists any new thoughts / feelings that come up each time.

• Now, look at your list of positive / happy / joyful thoughts (if any), and add one item to it if you haven't already put it there — Wow! I'm a free agent! *. It's fine if that's the only notionally positive or happy thing you write down there. Note down any further troubled or painful thoughts / feelings and any positive / 'happy' ones in their respective lists as they come up.

  * The wording is important here. Just Wow! I'm free! isn't sufficient. The extra word adds a clear implication that you're going to get doing things with that freedom — not just enjoying feeling 'free' and very likely continuing to live much as you were doing before! You live on your own? Then stop thinking I'm single (implying living some sort of impoverished life) and think of yourself as a 'free agent' instead, and see what difference it makes to your self-perception!

  The only caveat here is that the term 'free agent' isn't meant to be specifically or even at all about 'relationships' with people but about ALL life possibilities. It would be up to your own good sense to make healthy and life-affirming choices as you live as a 'free agent', and not to keep making the tired old mistakes of the past! Ongoing use of the methodology presented on this site makes that increasingly possible for you.

  If reading that out causes you to cry or laugh or experience any other type of emotional release, that's fine, but keep your attention as far as reasonably possible on continuing the experiment rather than allowing yourself to get bogged down in emotional feelings that arise. Think of this as a practical information-gathering task rather than a catharsis session.

• Having done that, still being careful observer of all thoughts and impressions that are stirred up by what you're about to do, you now, in a firm, confident voice, but not over-loud, read out aloud the contents of that 'success' message that appeared on the cupboard door each time you put away one of those supposed 'anti-loneliness' factors.

  Again, add any new troubled, negative or painful or positive / 'happy' thoughts / impressions to their respective lists. Repeat this one to a few times till no further significant 'plus' or 'minus' thoughts / impressions come up.

• Finally, with the list of positive / 'happy' thoughts in front of you, look around you in that scene from which you've removed all those supposed anti-loneliness factors, and, again in a firm and weighty but not over-loud voice read out that exclamation I'd instructed you to write into your positive / 'happy' list, directing the meaning of that exclamation right into the middle of that scene, so that it spreads out powerfully in every direction. Note down any further thoughts / impressions that are stirred up by that, and repeat this once to a few times.

• If you feel you really must at this time, unlock and open that cupboard on the right and, if, on consideration, you really mean to, restore each 'ball-and-chain' (i.e., 'anti-loneliness' factor) that you'd stowed away in there. Note that, if you do that, when you close that cupboard door again, as it self-locks it now cryptically proclaims Again, and again, and again, and….

  Now, in that same confident voice that you'd used for the 'Wow…' exclamation, similarly say out aloud that new cupboard-door message, projecting it into the whole view, restored to how it was before you'd stowed anything away. Again note down the thoughts and impressions stirred up by that, and repeat one to a few times.

As the above is just a little experiment, it isn't about self-indoctrination (none of my methods are!), but is about challenging particular emotional attachments of yours to enable you to observe and record important previously hidden data that at last give you a handle on clearing yourself of the underlying cause of any loneliness that you've experienced or could experience in the future (and a whole lot of other issues too!).

In other words, this is a potent means of getting into proper focused and fully constructive self-scrutiny as the basis for genuinely effective self-healing and self-actualization, an essential part of which is the clearance of emotional issues.

By now you may be very aware indeed of why I recommended having a handkerchief or tissues handy for this little but powerful experiment. It's a good idea to let yourself cry, tremble or laugh as such natural emotional releases come up, but I counsel against spending much time on that sort of release, because the amount of material requiring release would take a very long time to release fully just through those natural release processes. So, after allowing the odd brief bits of emotional release, it's best to get your attention right out of that and get on with really practical everyday things to get your awareness regrounded.

Keep the lists for use if / when you choose to use my methods for clearing those issues. Those lists will ease the task of identifying illusory realities that are stowed away in the back of your mind, which you need to dissolve so that they no longer distort your life experience.

If you noted down other loneliness-free situations, it could be worthwhile repeating the above experiment on the most different of those at some point (but not on the same day as your working on the primary one!). You'd probably do that more cursorily, just to see if that brings up any additional thoughts / impressions you can usefully add to your lists.

As you'd no doubt be well aware after reading through the above 'thought experiment' description, and especially after carrying it out fully, that 'experiment' is considerably more than an experiment, even though it definitely is an experiment. Even a person who's determined not to change in any material way wouldn't come out fully unchanged if they carried out that full procedure — because they would at last have been forced to look at their outlook and life view from a different, more objective viewpoint.

Indeed, I've little doubt that some people who are more immediately open to personal change would have the good sense to take the bull by the horns and not even consider ever opening that cupboard at the end and restoring anything from it — instead treating that 'experiment' as a direct springboard to get them joyfully moving in using my whole methodology to turn their lives around.

Now, your practical healing measures!

The need, then, is to get using methods for progressively dissolving all that you're carrying of various mostly hidden illusory realities (using The Work and Grounding Point) and stored / connected emotional stress / trauma material (using Self-Power Walking), and also progressively immunizing yourself against emotional button-pushing (using Feedback-Loop Zapper).

Additionally, for those to be really effective, your use of them needs to be part of a broader range of the methods given on this site for bringing about an ongoing self-actualization process. Also, the broader process would be progressively weakening and dissolving the various blockages between one's deepest aspects and one's conscious 'mind', and thus progressively opening up that inner harmony and security that ensures that you're always feeling secure and in harmony with your own company, whether or not you're with anyone else. Then 'loneliness', at least as normally understood, simply has no further meaning within your life.

Your first step now, however, is a visit to Philip Goddard's self-actualization methodology — Introduction, which not only gives a very concise general introduction to my methodology but also gives a list of all the pages that are presenting the methods. If you haven't previously been using my methods, the Crisis emergency self-help — Life upturn the SMART way page would normally be your best starting point.

Please don't be put off by the 'Crisis' bit in that title. It makes no difference whether or not you consider or feel yourself to be in or near a crisis state. That's the page that concisely sets out the really effective mindset and strategy for turning your situation right around, complete with all the further links and pointers you'd need at that stage to get started using the relevant methods. By taking on board the strategy set out there, you'd be one of the real smart people, making a healthy breakaway from the 'sheep' who are forever wanting to follow and be helped by others! I wish you a great time in starting to turn your own life around!

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