You Are Not Alone

Lately I’ve been noticing a very common thread running through the people I meet.

We’re all lonely.

Loneliness isn’t the absence of people in your life, it’s the absence of connection. It is feeling as though no one sees you for who you really are. No one understands you. No one is looking out for you. No one is there to hold your hand when you’re struggling or cheer you on when you accomplish something.

And since I mostly encounter creative people, I’ve been thinking about the unique connection between creativity and loneliness. If you’re an artist or a musician or a writer, it can feel like no one understands you. Creatives often choose between the path of independent work, which leads to isolation, or they choose a more commercial path, which can put them working in non-creative industries. Or, they gave up on their creative work entirely to choose a more secure path, which can mean no one around them even knows what is hidden beneath the acceptable exterior.

All of this can make you feel very alone. When you do try to share your wild hopes, your crazy ideas, and imaginative dreams with others, it becomes obvious that the people around you don’t think like you do. And it can become easy to further push down those things about you. To feel that there’s something wrong with you.

If you’ve ever felt like this, as I have, you are not alone.

And I don’t believe you don’t have to feel alone. What you have to do is accept that the people you have tried to connect with don’t get you because they aren’t like you. And if you’re using that as evidence that there’s something wrong with you – stop. Out there in the wide world, there are your people. But you have to be brave enough to go searching for them. You have to be willing to show up in the world as true as you can get to the person you are to attract to yourself the people who can understand you.

I know all of this because I have felt all of this I’m describing. It is very defeating. But I began to struggle against the feeling that I would never have the right people in my life. So I began to step out of my comfort zone. I got better and better at just being myself, sharing what I cared about, what I imagined, all of the things that were wrapped up in the unique way I think. Little by little I weeded through the people I was meeting to find people that were more like me. And what I discovered was that they needed me as much as I needed them. Making a safe little corner of the world for myself to discover and grow these relationships has been life changing for me.

Now I finally have support. I have connection. I have people I can go to to share ideas and work through problems. It takes time, but it’s worth it.

You can do it too. Stop accepting the idea that you’re alone. You’re not.

Your people are out there waiting for you to find them.