Scared to be alone?

Aloneness and loneliness are topics so dear and close to me. I experience them and my personal interpretations towards them evolved over time.

The statement I keep hearing from people and the media is this: I am scared to be alone.

The experience of being alone has its ups and downs. When you were young, you didn’t have the cognitive ability and understanding. But you experienced moments where you were alone. In such a young age, you were forced to form ideas about this experience to cope and live with it. That is called the coping mechanism.

Then later in life you took it with you in your experiences in schools, colleges, careers, relationships and other areas of life. For example, you experienced aloneness in your emotions and no body could understand you when you were young. As a result, you formed the idea of fitting in, proving yourself and satisfying others’ expectations so that you would not have to be alone again. Then you took it with you and practice it in almost every area of your life.

However later in life with many events and experiences, you realize being alone is not such a bad thing. It is an experience. One of a kind. It comes with lessons and wisdom to gain. It creates opportunities for growth and transformation. Yes it involves pain, suffering, tears and more. But also it challenges you to get still, pause, reflect and understand the overall big picture of your life scenario.

I also like to refer to the stories of the messengers, peace and blessings be upon them. Yousuf, Mohammed, Younus, Ibrahim, Yaqoob and others experienced difficult and challenging moments when they were alone. But still with all the suffering they had to endure, interesting and humble transformations and growth happened as well.

So what about you? What is your interpretation of being alone? When you face those moments, what you normally do? What feelings you cross by when you are alone? How does this experience affect you today? And what you think can do to learn and reflect from it?