The Fear of Being Alone

A surprising number of people fear being alone. Maybe just about all of us do to some extent.

We fear being without a partner, or friends and family. We fear traveling alone in strange places, lost without anyone to ask for help. We fear taking on life without help, for fear of failure.This is natural, this fear of being alone. We’ve all felt it, deep within us, though we try desperately to avoid this fear.And this is the cause of our misery: to avoid this fear of being alone, we will socialize endlessly, including on social networks and email. To avoid being alone, we’ll end up with someone who isn’t really good for us, just to have someone to cling to, someone to rely on. We’ll eat junk food or shop to comfort ourselves, because these things are replacements for love.

But here’s the secret: being alone is empowering. The quiet of being alone is joyful. We tend to see aloneness as bleak, depressing, scary. But it can be seen as freeing, as an opportunity for growth, an opportunity to get to know yourself. This is something I’ve been learning the hard way. I had the fear of aloneness for many years, but learning emotional self-sufficiency is one of the best things I’ve done. Sit quietly for a minute, now, and turn inward. Who are you? What are you capable of? What do you think about?

Can you accept yourself, when you look closely at yourself?

Can you see the beauty in yourself, as you learn something new? As you contemplate life?

This is nothing to fear, but to celebrate. Aloneness is beauty.