Nine ways to cope with loneliness after the death of a loved one

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At various times, loneliness is the scourge of everyone, from the young, the elderly, the incarcerated, and the homeless to children, the incarcerated, the rich, and the poor. No one is immune to its claws. It occurs due to a series of conditions: abandonment, death, divorce, alcoholism, geographic relocation, isolation (solitude of coexistence), lack of human contact, to name a few.

Loneliness also manifests itself in various forms: cognitive (no one with similar intellectual interests and values ​​to interact with), behavioral (no one to go places and do things with), and emotional (one believes one is unloved, alone), and unsupported. emotional). Sometimes mourners suffer from all three.

Here are nine ways to face your loneliness and change your perception of it.

1. Build your inner life. Most loneliness experts agree that the foundation for managing loneliness begins with personal development: strengthening your inner life, recognizing your importance, and loving yourself. Specifically, improve your ability to spend time with yourself and then with others. Make your internal dialogue more positive.

Start by changing your belief that loneliness is something that happens from the outside, to: it is essentially something we do to ourselves. The conclusion is that we can reduce our feeling of loneliness since we created it.

2. Acknowledge loneliness and discuss it with others. Like any other problem, bring it up. Talk to other people who have had to deal with it. Model someone who lives alone and manages well. Seek help at your church, school, community center, and friends. Read. Go for it. Start your loneliness program with a big commitment: “I’m taking action.”

3. Work on reducing social isolation. Loneliness becomes a major stressor due to the lack of human interaction. Begins to find ways to meet others. Join a bowling league, square dance club, book or Bible club, or become a library or hospital aide. Start going to conferences, women’s centers and sports clubs or take a course on a topic you like. Go to various interest groups. Volunteer. Reach.

4. Work on your social skills and develop new friendships. You can never have too many friends. Usually starts the conversation. Become an expert at recognizing and meeting these four needs that everyone wants, including you: attention (a phone call, using the person’s name when meeting, remembering birthdays, etc.) acceptance (regardless of what a person looks like) , appreciation (thank you notes, sincere compliments) and affection (hug, smile, I love you).

We all have individual needs but we also have very similar needs. Become an expert at developing many specific behaviors that satisfy those four needs.

5. Monitor your negative self-talk. The way you talk to yourself about who you are and how you feel about yourself can either increase loneliness or start to decrease it. Loneliness is caused by our own thoughts and attitudes. The power of believing that you can decrease loneliness is enormous. Tell yourself that you are going to beat him.

6. Determine when you feel loneliest and start rearranging your schedule to fill those hours as much as possible. If the weekends are the worst, factor into your schedule things you can do to fill those hours.

7. Beware of some of the beliefs and myths that bring confusion, disappointment and maximize loneliness. Here are some that have infiltrated our culture. I must hide my fear of always being alone; There is something wrong with me to feel like this. I will not be loved. Nobody would want to be my friend. Others who live alone do very well. The Myth of Group Fun: Fun only happens in pairs or more. The perfect myth of friendship: a good friend agrees with you on everything. He dumps this garbage.

8. Develop solo activities that can be enjoyed every day. There are many things that you can use as a regular part of your daily routines. Do yoga, tai chi, draw or do artwork. Plan a daily stress break using audiotapes of the sounds of the sea. Read. Play a musical instrument. Send an e-mail. And, most importantly, take a walk. Download music or interviews on an ipod to listen. Renew yourself every day being in a natural environment.

9. Start generating breakthroughs immediately. Breakthroughs are doing things that your loved one or other people did for you that you should now be doing for yourself, or things that you have never done for yourself before. Here are some that other mourners have done. Fill your own tank with gas and have your car serviced; take a day trip; eat alone in a restaurant; take out the trash; plan ahead to deal with bad days; try the “pet connection”; take a trip to a senior shelter; go to the movies alone; plan a party for one: yourself.

After making a successful breakthrough, celebrate. Tell yourself that you are winning, changing, and that you are proud of your progress.

Again, ultimately, you can trade loneliness for loneliness and social isolation for essential interaction with others, every day. The moment you wake up, you can choose the attitude you will take during the day. Sixteen on the attitude of taking action to interact, reach out and heal. It requires effort and wise decisions. If you invest in others, loneliness will recede into the background.

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