With the flu season came the corona virus, officially known as Covid-19. This has led to the beginning of one of the most serious economic downturns since 2008. Specifically, I am referring to the worldwide stay at home order enforced to varying degrees around the world.

With the stay at home order can come a loss of physical contact with friends and relatives. This can also get more serious, when your source of income has been reduced or compromised. It is times like these where some people could easily find themselves struggling with feelings of loneliness, isolation and despair.

Love and Belonging

So if you find yourself struggling with feelings of loneliness, how do you move past such feelings? According to Abraham Maslow, (a well known psychologist), there are five level of human needs that people must adequately get met. In his book, “Motivation and Personality” Dr. Maslow identified the five needs as physiological, safety and security, love and belonging, self esteem and self actualization. For this section, we are going to focus on social belonging.

According to Maslow, love and belonging is a powerful need people focus on once their needs of survival and safety have been met. Now there are a few interpretations to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The one I agree with, states that if a person is role modeled how to get his or her needs met properly in childhood, the person will have little to no difficulty getting these needs met in his or her adulthood.

So with love and belonging, a child who has experienced unconditional love and acceptance from his or her parents, will learn to accept his or herself unconditionally. This is in contrast to another child who has experienced abuse and neglect from his or her parents. Due to a lack of exposure to unconditional love and acceptance, the child will likely to grow into an adult who habitually seeks approval and recognition from others.

Relationships are Transactional

The term belonging can be confusing to some, because if suggests that in other for a person to belong, actionable steps need to taken by others. However, belonging comes from a place self acceptance. This is because all relationships are transnational. For a person to be a member of any community, he or she needs to effectively and consistently transact with others. Such transactions from the person’s end comes from providing something of value to others, on a micro or macro level.

This does not strictly apply to commerce, but all types of relationship. When you provide something of value to someone, they in turn provide something of value back to you. If you and someone are exchanging something of value of a recurring basis, you are both in a relationship. While in said relationship, you are subconsciously role modeling how the other person should treat and regard you.

When people experience loneliness, they are suffering from a lack of comprehension of how relationships work. You are fundamentally supposed to accept yourself and for interpersonal relationships, you are supposed to appreciate of the other person. While grief, is a natural reaction for a close relationship that has come to an end, grief is not the same thing as feeling lonely. As loneliness indicates a dependency for approval from others.

A Need for Maturation

An adult who learns to play the piano for the first time, will like sound just as terribly as a child who is also learning to play the piano for the first time. This is because both the adult and child are utilizing parts of their brain for a task they have never done before. This is an analogy for how difficult it is for a person to get a need met, they have never learned to get appropriately met before.

So if an adult was not role modeled unconditional self love and acceptance as a child, they will likely continue to succumb to child like instincts towards getting this need met. To the extent, that such a concept of self love and acceptance will sound strange and foreign to him or her.

Moving Past Feelings of Loneliness

In order to transition past any feelings of loneliness, you may be experiencing, you have to answer to yourself, how you really feel about yourself? Do you accept yourself? Do you still see yourself as a worthwhile person despite your flaws? Please keep in mind that acceptance of your flaws is not the same as being complacent about your flaws.

If you answered no, to the two questions in the previous paragraph, you have a problem. You should start treating yourself the way you want others to treat and regard you.

The most effective method for this will be cognitive behavioral therapy.

Therapy and coaching in Tucson Arizona

Ugo is a psychotherapist and owner of Road 2 Resolutions a counseling and life coaching practice in Tucson, Arizona. Ugo helps individuals and families in office and online. If you would like to learn more, you are welcome to call and book an appointment or fill out my contact form and click Send.