We all experience loneliness in our lives. Loneliness that happens when we move, a relationship ends, or when we miss home is a normal part of life we often don’t have control over.

However, there is a second kind of loneliness.  This form is often more difficult and happens when we feel a deep seeded sense something is wrong with us, we don’t fit, and feel hopeless in the ability to create real connection.  No circumstance causes this, it is more a place we find ourselves in.  Even if we did connect, we feel that quickly people would see through us and find beneath the surface a person not worth knowing.

This loneliness tells us it is easier to stay home and isolate, than to connect.  It leaves us feeling like every call/invite we receive is not a genuine invite or comes from a place of others feeling bad for us or obligated to invite us.  Why would others want me around or care how I am doing?

Loneliness leaves us feeling like friends can and will leave at any moment.  If failure is inevitable, we feel hopeless in even trying…we quit seeking connection before we even give it a shot.

Failing by not trying is easier than failing when we put in effort and are left rejected.  Fear of rejection may be the single biggest driver of loneliness.  We fear, so we try to protect ourselves. An easy way to do that is to isolate.  We can’t get hurt when we isolate.

I liken this form of loneliness to the term shame.  Shame defined is a deep sense internally that there is something wrong with us.

I often think some of the books of the Bible that many religious groups share from the Old Testament are sadly used to perpetuate feelings of aloneness, abandonment, fear, and shame.

Fear based theology often communicates a story like this…

Adam and Eve live in a perfect garden, they eat from a tree they aren’t supposed to (sin), and God is holy so he separates from them and is angry (them = humanity).

This narrative often perpetuates a feeling of brokenness, shame, and the feeling that we have been abandoned and will be again…even by God, the one who created us.  This is a dangerous and harmful narrative that often pushes people further into loneliness, despair, and isolation from God and others.

A healthy reading of those scriptures go like this…

The garden scene starts the same and Adam and Eve are described as “naked and not ashamed” (interesting word selection). They eat from the tree they were told not to. Right after, God is walking through the garden in the coolness of day, searching for them (not separating) but they are hiding. God asks about the hiding. Adam responds “I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid” (Enter shame and context for earlier words choice). God, heartbroken in hearing this compassionately asks “Who told you this?”

God proceeds to go through the entire Old Testament with these people saying things like: “You are fearfully and wonderfully made, knit together in your mother’s womb”, “you are created in the image of God”. In the New Testament we see Jesus engaging with the adulterous woman, Zacchaeus, the woman at the well and telling stories like the prodigal son.

These stories and scriptures don’t tell of an angry God. Rather, they tell of one who deeply desires connection with us no matter how unlovable we feel. They tell us a story of a God who desires us to be connected to others.

Resist the narrative that there is something wrong with you at your core or that you are broken.

You are worth being known now, as you are.

The most common phrase in all of scripture is “Do NOT be afraid”.  Come out of hiding and isolation and let yourself be known and found by others.

We need YOU to make Belmont beautiful, whole, and complete. Not just parts of you, all of you. The great parts, the hard parts, and the in-progress parts.

 

Dave Jaeger, Counseling Services Therapist