sadness
Navigating Loneliness During the Holidays
The holiday season is traditionally portrayed as a time of togetherness, love, joy, and belonging. We are inundated with media images of families gathered around a festive table, friends celebrating, and communities coming together.
Paradoxically, for many people, this time of year is instead filled with feelings of loneliness, isolation and disconnection.
The root cause is the societal stereotype and cultural assumption that everyone should be joyful, happy, and surrounded by loved ones during the holidays. If you’re not, for whatever reason, it can lead to feelings of inadequacy, isolation, and social failure.
Holiday loneliness is exacerbated by the stark contrast between our actual circumstances and the commercially driven, idealized versions of holiday gatherings and celebrations we see in advertisements, television shows, movies, and social media. This increases feelings of disconnection, low self-esteem, and even depression.
Loneliness during the holidays can have a significant impact on mental health. Feelings of isolation and disconnection during this time of year can exacerbate existing mental health issues and lead to the development of new ones. The constant reminders of togetherness and joy, combined with a lack of social connections and meaningful interactions, can increase feelings of loneliness, leading to emotional distress, feelings of emptiness and hopelessness, and a decline in overall well-being.
Accepting The End Of A Relationship
Don’t resist change, even in love. It is always best to accept things when a relationship ends. Sometimes a door needs to be closed in order for another door to open down the road.
I have seen this in my own personal relationships and those of many of my clients and friends. If it’s meant to be and there is true, everlasting love between two souls, there can never be a permanent goodbye. Rest assured, if you are meant to be with your beloved, they will come back to you, or you will go back to them.
At some point we all experience the pain of saying goodbye to someone we love very much. Experiencing relationship break-up tends to turn our lives upside down. This is especially true when we have to close the door on someone we love very much when we don’t really want the relationship to end.
But if we do it in a way that leaves the door open for them to come back, then maybe we can have a new beginning later. We just have to do the very hard thing of saying goodbye and taking a step back for now. If we refuse to accept that a relationship is over, we only prolong the pain and dysfunction, and make it difficult to heal and grow from the issues that caused it to fail in the first place.
Instead, we should focus on ourselves and our own needs for a while. When we are in a relationship that is not working, it can be easy to neglect our own needs and issues. Accepting the end of a relationship allows us to focus on our own healing and well-being. No matter how hard we try to hold on, it will only make it more difficult to bring healing to the aspects of the relationship failure that need healing.
Remove Toxic People From Your Life
Have you ever had the presence of an emotional vampire in your life? This can happen in a love relationship, a friendship, or with a family member.
You will feel like your soul is being drained, you are not yourself. Your joy is gone when you are around them, you can’t be yourself. If all of this describes how you feel, then maybe it’s time to do some soul searching. Remember who you are and how important you are.
I have counseled so many people who are normally outgoing, loving, supportive, wonderful souls, but sometimes these folks are so giving that they give their power away. They forget to protect and take care of themselves.
Are there people in your life whose needs seem to be all that matters, but yours never do? Love is not love and friendship is not friendship if you have to put yourself aside on a daily basis in a relationship. We must constantly remind ourselves of this.
Sure, relationships are give and take, but when they seem to be only take and take and there is no giving, something is wrong.
Who we surround ourselves with, who we give our time to, greatly affect the quality of our lives and our spirit. If you suspect that someone is a toxic person, do not be afraid to set boundaries and make changes in your life.
You deserve to feel nothing less than wonderful and lovable, as God, Source, Spirit, the Divine intended you to be. Do not let fear make you settle for less than what you are worth.
Remember, You Are Never Alone
The night is creeping up so quickly. You had so many plans for the day that has passed. You were sure that today was the day that miracles would come, that they would begin to flow. Yes, you have made some progress, you have removed some of the obstacles in your path, but here you are in the darkest part of the night, still in that place where doubt, anger, worry reign supreme.
In such moments we begin to feel alone. like a ship without a life raft, no one to call, no one to care.
Remember, we are never alone. The energies around us, the old ones, the ancients, the universe itself is here to hear our cry, our call. There are answers not only within ourselves, but there are messengers sent to Earth to listen, to hear, to care. These divine messengers come because the Great Spirit sends each one to us at just the right time.
An animal or bird we don’t normally see may appear on our path to instinctively give us the strength we may need on that path. An old beggar on the street asking for a few coins may speak words that stun us because they are exactly the words we needed to hear.
We reach out to chat groups for online support and hear craziness, advice that we can barely realistically believe. We have become cynical, forgetting that the universe puts what we need in our path when we need it.
There is no such thing as ‘being alone.’ We have the whole universe around us. So, sing out to the universe your pain, your despair. Your heart will receive the messages you need, the answers you want.
Healing A Broken Heart
One of the hardest things that we will ever have to do is recover from a broken heart after a relationship break-up. We don’t want to be without the person we love; it hurts to say their name, or to think about them. And sometimes it is hard to even breathe.
When a relationship fails we need to grieve and heal. This is a time to be around people who care about us. The worst thing that we can do is to harden our hearts and build a wall that no one can touch. All that this will do is stop us from growing and learning more about ourselves – to know who we are and learning how to love ourselves again.
We are not to give up on future relationships, because that will not serve us in the long run. We need to be able to feel again, but it takes time. Everyone has to go through their own grieving process because no one really knows just how much you are really hurting. With time you will get there.
So many times we think that the love that we have found is real and everlasting, but true love does not lie, or cheat, or make you feel unwanted. True love makes us feel secure, not insecure.
Sure, we have to work at a good relationship, but when it becomes too much of a tug-and-pull, we have to listen to our gut feelings. Trust your inner guidance and hear what spirit is trying to tell you.
I do not think anything hurts more than being disappointed by the person that you thought would never hurt you. When you are ready to start again, make the decision that you are going to move on, that its time.
Empaths And Endings
Anger is one of the most difficult emotions for the empath to navigate, and the ending of a relationship is definitely one of the most challenging of all.
Any relationship that falls apart is tough, but if you are an empath you may well find yourself trying to navigate some very overwhelming waters. Not only will you be feeling your own pain, anger and confusion, but you will also sense your partner’s feelings, and possibly even that of your families and mutual friends.
Trying to make sense of all these emotional energies, staying centered and sorting out your own feelings separate from your partner’s is a very tall order.
Chances are you have also been sensing that something had been radically amiss for some time, before your love finally went on the rocks. It is important to take time to look back and remember when you first sensed something was off. Empaths are often aware of their partner’s moods and feelings, and may act on it too prematurely. Pushing too soon can result in the partner shutting down, or insisting that nothing is wrong. The problem is, however, that an empath will feel that something is wrong and will not be able to shake that feeling. You knew something was wrong… and you were right!
It is critical that you shift your focus away from your partner and towards taking care of yourself. Allow your emotions to flow. An empath is always going to be more focused on the other party’s actions, reactions and feelings. You automatically link in to them instead of you. To move through this painful experience you must shift your focus and concentrate on you.
Healing From A Relationship Break-Up
Breaking up with someone can be one of the most difficult experiences in life, especially when it is a long and deeply meaningful relationship. It can feel impossible to see any future without that person and very difficult to move on and find joy in life again.
I find many of my clients do not realize that dealing with a break-up or divorce is very similar to processing the bereavement and grief associated with the passing of a loved one. It is often accompanied by agonizing sorrow, intense feelings of despair, and an all-encompassing sense of loss and confusion.
According to clinical psychologist Dr. Tricia Wolanin it is actually “the death of a relationship, hopes and dreams for the future. The person we are losing was a big part of our world and therefore has taken up so much of our mental and heart space.”
It is however possible to recover, heal and move on after any breakup or divorce. In my work I have found the following strategies to be helpful for clients who go through this kind of life challenge.
Avoid Major Life Decisions
It is usually not a good idea to make any important life decisions if you are working through the aftermath of a breakup. This includes changing your job or career, relocating, or making other drastic changes to your life. It is vital to take some time to heal and reflect on the situation before making hasty life-changing decisions that you may later live to regret.