How To Battle Loneliness During The Pandemic + Winter Blues?

WE ARE SOCIAL ANIMALS

Experiences cultivate connections and feelings of belongingness.

We seek companionship after we meet all of our basic needs (food, shelter, security, safety). But with the pandemic almost celebrating its one year anniversary, it is hard to find companionship for a lot of people right now.

Creating epic experiences is not easy to do nowadays either. We are stuck at home more during the cold season.

So what does a person do to battle loneliness?

1. REFLECT — alone doesn’t need to mean lonely. Alone time is a great time to really dive into asking yourself questions that will help you learn more about yourself and what you really want in life. Getting to know yourself more will help with your personal growth and personal development.
2. START A NEW HOBBY — find a new way to entertain yourself (not tv or video games). List down all the things that you wanted to try on a piece of paper (brain dump). Then pick one that is appropriate for the season and the state of the world (pandemic proof). Put that on your calendar and do it. We need to get in the flow — a state where we lose all of our worries for a while. A flow state, also known as being in the zone, is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity (watch the movie Soul).
3. CULTIVATE MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIPS — now is the time to connect with someone you work with, you volunteer with, your significant other, your friend, your family (people in your bubble) and go deeper. Engage in healthy socially distant social interactions to cultivate relationships. Zoom groups are beneficial than not interacting with other people at all. You are not alone with “feeling alone”. Reach out to that friend — a phone call, a text, a video call. Thank goodness we have technology to keep us all connected. Make use of it to connect with people.
4. PLAN AN EXPERIENCE — the pandemic will not be forever. This will come to an end. When? Soon, I hope. We are getting people vaccinated and the cases are going down. Now is the time to visualize your dream vacation! Picture your next epic adventure after this pandemic. You’re not going anywhere so you are saving money — best to use it for creating an epic future experience (not objects).

Remember that sometimes shifting your focus toward the future can turn solitude into a gift.

To recap (for singles):

• Take time to reflect because it’s a great time for singles right now to give themselves permission to really become someone that they like, somebody that they enjoy being with, and live a life they enjoy having so that they can attract someone that they like without even trying. If you’re someone you like, you will attract someone that you like.
• Doing something that makes you HAPPY out of the blue without any goals or any points at all but to feel happy will propel your life! You need to create a life that you’ll be satisfied. Your life will never be perfect, you can’t exactly plan when you’ll meet “the one” but when you feel satisfied with your life, with what you do for a living, with your body, with your friendships, then you won’t need to look for a partner who will fix your life and make you happy.
• I saw this happen many times, when single clients stop looking for a partner and focus on themselves, the right person finds them. Another client of mine from Eastern Europe met someone during the pandemic as well. Two years of inner work helped him resolve his past childhood traumas and found forgiveness and peace for his parents. This allowed him to be vulnerable and cultivate an intimate relationship with another individual who is willing to accept him for who he is.
• Folks get a great dose of pleasure from planning and getting excited about a new experience or adventure because the memories that you will create will last a life time and can be told again and again even after you are gone. Experiences cultivate connections with new people, and experiences make you feel that you belong and it means so much more than material purchases.

So go out there in the snow and make snow angels!