You must have heard of the phrase, “lonely in a crowd”. I was thinking about this the other day. It clearly suggests that one can be alone and feel lonely even when surrounded by people. Many wives and husbands complain of loneliness even though they live with their family members. If the mere physical proximity of people doesn’t necessarily prevent the so called feeling of loneliness this means that what we call loneliness has to be a state of consciousness or thought. 

Many times at gatherings I have noticed people with such forlorn expressions that it made me wonder where their thoughts were. I have come to know that so called loneliness is a matter of false thinking. If whatever we are thinking becomes our experience it shows we have the ability to unthink loneliness. 

At times I catch the thoughts of loneliness creeping in and I am happy that now I can sense these false thoughts and immediately reject, reverse and replace them with the Truth of my presence with God at all times. If we think that we really cannot miss anyone since we always have everyone in thought. Even when we are with loved ones is it not our thoughts at those moments that make us feel close to them or be so close and yet feel so far apart? We can comfort ourselves with the lovely qualities of friends and family members, the memory of the good times and most of all know that we are never really alone.

We really need to bless our world by rejecting some of the false beliefs that the holidays do increase feelings of loneliness. Such collective thinking and expectation does all of us more harm. Where did such false beliefs come from? If we all start rejecting such thoughts we will be chipping away the false concepts and contribute to healthier collective thinking.

We really cannot make anyone responsible for us being lonely and unhappy. I have stopped depending on my family members, my friends and specific events or achievements as sources of my happiness. I take the responsibility of making sure I am thinking rightly and being happy so that I can share my happiness. I know now that being alone should not equate unhappiness. 

So start now, especially as the holidays are drawing near to see each day as God’s day full of blessings all around. Nothing really changes on these days we call the holidays except our thought about them and thus our actions on those days. Moreover we are blessed with phones, internet if we really must get in touch with someone. But most of all it is our thinking that is going to make us lonely and unhappy.

And really don’t we need to be alone some of the time in order to look inside ourselves to know who we are and cherish some of the more important things in life?

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