8 Basic Emotions – Love and Loneliness – Part III of IV

Love.  What can one possible say of love that hasn’t already been written about or spoken of?  The arts in all its wondering forms has dedicated oceans of expression to this universally sought after emotion.  It takes on many guises and extends well beyond the romantic version.  People feel love for animals, the ocean, a particular car, a long held novel, an item of clothing, and extending out to others, the feeling of love can be the safety and humour associated with old relationships such as our friends, mentors, parents, siblings or surrogate families.  The power of the love that we feel for our children is a testament to the origins of this emotion and how it most likely linked with evolutionary tenets.

Let’s return to the romantic sort of love that we all seem to prioritise and yearn to experience.    There appears to be a fantasised version of the feeling of love where an expectation exists that it will cure all our anxieties, resolve our shame and transform us into a whole and actualised being.  Swiss/English philosopher, Alain De Botton speaks to the flawed idealism of love in which he references the impact of the romantic movement in his brilliant tome on emotional education, The Book of Life.  In it, the assumptions of romanticism are brought to light; that the right partner will rid us of all loneliness and that love will result in someone accepting every little detail of us unconditionally and without pause.  To highlight De Botton’s argument, the first instalment of the Frozen animation contains a song that has one of the story’s protagonists, Anna, falling in love with Prince Hans after having just met that day.  In the film, the two lovers sing “say goodbye to the pain of the past, we don’t have to feel it anymore”. Here the expectation that love will save us from all preceding and quite possibly any future pain is exemplified!  What is your relationship with this idealistic version of love?  What behaviours do you find yourself falling into in search of the so called ‘love conquers all’ cliche?  Does it feel like a much younger part of you, a part we might call ‘the romantic’, that is driving the desire for this fantasised bond with another human?   

The utterly sublime and mesmerising “Fade into you” by Mazzy Star seems to speak to the heartbreaking experience of giving love to someone who is not able to requite it.  Does this happen to you?  Take a look at the beliefs you have pertaining to love.  From an attachment perspective, what did you observe growing up?  Sometimes a parent forms an idealised version of what we think a romantic figure should be, or the attachment style we had with our parents can form the basis of what we seek in love.  Are you attracted to someone who is unavailable?  Do you find yourself in enmeshed romantic relationships, in which there is little independence?  Love is a complex emotion and it deserves our curiosity and attention.  Get to know the ways in which love can be expressed, what love language/s do you prefer; physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time or the giving of gifts?  Gary Chapman’s “The 5 love languages” explores the various expressions of love in excellent detail.  Understand that independence within a loving relationship is vital, it allows couples to retain a sense of themselves and it begets a tone of mystery within the daily routines of domesticated life.  Erich Fromm emphasises independence in ‘The Art of Loving’ and Esther Perele points to the importance of retaining a sense of question in her brilliant book on nurturing the erotic existence, ‘Mating in Captivity’.

Love is felt intensely in the heart and rushes out across the torso and to the extremes of the upper body.  People that seem to have a good gauge of this emotion, relay principles by which their feeling of love depends; honesty, lust, intrigue, trust, care, kindness or disagreement, are but a few.  What are your principles of love?  Our relationships might not embrace all the principles we align with but it is important to have awareness of them and where necessary bring them to light in an attempt to make our relationships as rich and encompassing as we are able.  

Love is a beautiful emotion.  The connection we can feel to another human being, the sense of hope and care and kindness is without parallel.  When we make ourselves vulnerable to another person, we are trusting them with our fears and insecurities and our esteem.  Learn about love.  Read, talk and be curious about its different forms.  One of the greatest gifts we can experience in all our relationships is to love and be loved.    

Loneliness.  Just as much as love is universally sought, people go to great lengths to avoid the dread of loneliness.  It is defined by a gnawing in the stomach, is painfully uncomfortable and closely linked with sadness and shame.  It was slightly by chance that loneliness ended up coupled with love in these writings, but intriguingly the avoidance of loneliness is absolutely one of the drivers in the search for love.  There are particular days of the week that people tend to connect with loneliness.  Sunday afternoon and evening is one in which I find people report to feeling it at its most intense.  What are the triggers of loneliness for you?  And what are the thoughts that you have when you feel it?  “I am on my own”, “Nobody understands me”, “I don’t belong”.  Loneliness is felt acutely in the heart and to a lesser extent in the head.  When it combines with sadness it can be felt as a twisting in the stomach.   Where do you tend to feel loneliness? 

It isn’t necessarily the fact that people are without company for them to feel this emotion.  Some convey the experience of being in a crowded room and feeling alone, does that describe your connection to loneliness?  Others explain long term relationships that have lost a sense of connection and find that they feel alone, despite sleeping beside the same person for a number of years or even decades.  And then there’s the desolate experience of isolation, the deep draw towards being without company, which can be driven by any number of reasons be it social anxiety, addiction, old age, agoraphobia, feeling like we just don’t fit in, the struggle with the heaviness of depression or even being physically impaired or medically unwell.  This prolonged form of loneliness can be a little dangerous and steps should be taken to address it. 

Johan Yari’s passionate exploration of the drivers of depression and addiction in his book ‘Lost Connections’, highlights the extent to which we have moved away from connection with others.  He spoke at the Byron Bay Writers Festival a few years ago and in his animated and passionate call he referenced multitudes of scientific evidence explaining how a loss of human connection has led to loneliness in its chronic form and an increase in mental health issues.   Yari highlighted how an increase in connection with others leads to significant reduction in levels of depression, supporting all of his claims with solid scientific evidence.   The message here is ‘no matter how much you don’t feel like connecting with others when you’re low, know that it will help your mood and improve how you feel about yourself’.  

Twelve Step approaches to the treatment of addiction such as Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous understand that one of the drivers of addiction is a sense of not belonging, which leads to a deep and enduring feeling of loneliness.  A vital component of this treatment approach is attending meetings in which people share about their struggle with addiction and, most importantly, share about the way in which they are recovering.  These meetings, or groups, are connection!  And speaking more broadly are a fantastic way of learning about day to day life and the human condition.  How do you connect with others?  Is it an area of your life that could be prioritised?  Womens circles, mens groups, mothers or fathers groups, sporting teams and gatherings, writing groups, dancing events, mens sheds, country women’s associations!  The list goes on!  Around the age of our early 30s we seem to lose touch with the importance of connection and things like career or family take precedence.  Explore the possibilities of connection in the area where you live, if they don’t exist, consider starting a group based on something that interests you!  Any collection of more than two people can be considered a group.

One important facet when exploring this theme of connection is, connection with self.  People that struggle to be with themselves without the input from another or an external thing are most likely to feel loneliness in all its immersed and painful ways.  Those that have experienced anxious attachment in their developmental years more commonly fall into this presentation.  What is your connection with yourself like? What activities do you engage in that help you be in connection with yourself? Being in nature, reading, cleaning, writing? Healthy time alone is oft referred to as solitude.  Unhealthy time alone is known simply as isolation. Get to know the difference between the two in the time you have alone.  See time alone as a healthy thing, especially when we embrace it with activities or behaviours that lead to greater connection with our self.

Loneliness is an inevitable part of the human experience and learning how to harness it and use the time to ourselves well, and knowing when to step out of time alone and connect with others, is imperative in terms of being able to regulate ourselves and keep our mental health in check.  Take the time to understand how your experience of loneliness plays out in your life and if there is anything you can do be on better terms with this emotion.