HALT Day 3

The third letter of HALT stands for LONELY.

What does that mean and what makes us feel we are alone in the world. The definition of lonely is being without the companionship, isolated, solitary, in other words being alone.

When I start to fixate on feeling or being alone I like to get down to what the word really means. That's another way of talking back to your feelings. You can prove that you are not truly feeling that way and to train your brain to think of lonely differently. One way to look at being lonely is to feel alone.

Think of alone as being with yourself not by yourself.

When we are with ourselves we are keeping ourselves company as opposed to being alone, which can give you a desperate feeling of wanting companionship. Why do we feel that we have to have companionship all the time, or even most of the time? Why do we diminish the fact that being with ourselves is being with an awesome person? After all don't awesome people make others feel good? If that is true then why wouldn't we want to be with ourselves, since we are or about to become awesome? Plus I think you probably have more contact with others than you think.

For one you have contact with me either by reading this blog, tweeting with me or emailing with me, as many of you do. Then there's the casual contact we have with the outside world at stores, doctors offices, and other places like that. This is one way that I feel less alone:

Casual contact makes me happy. Remember "lets make today a great day no matter what!" that I wrote about? Well this takes that 1 step further and can "make someone else’s day good". What I do is:

I try to be pleasant and to wish those that I talk to a 'good day'. You should see how the people smile; it really can make a difference in someone’s day. And when I do that I feel good about being kind to someone, which is a positive feeling. It makes my day as well as theirs, after all who doesn't like being wished a good day?

I encourage you to try it, what do you have to lose? The next time you go to the store to get groceries, when the cashier hands you your credit card back say "Thank you, have a good day" and see what the reaction is that you get back. Unless the person you are chatting with is a complete grump they will probably say thank you/your welcome and possibly wish you a good day too. Now doesn't that feel good? You made someone happy for at least a moment and you made yourself feel good too! Plus when you smile, even a forced one can make you feel a bit better. Why not try that now. Just sit still and smile for 30 seconds, how do you feel? And being able to make someone else smile shows that you are really not by yourself at all. Can you see the cycle?

Say "Thank you, have a good (or great, wonderful, etc) day!" -----> This makes their day a little brighter -----> Then they say "you too" or "your welcome" or some other positive response -----> Which in turn makes your day a little brighter.

And when all these little bits of brightness to your day add up it makes for a bunch of good feelings. And this works even better when greeting someone. All too often we just brush aside these little bits of happiness that come our way, but I choose to take the well wishes they are sending my way to heart. Which in essence makes me feel less by myself and more with myself. Being with myself is being in control of things around me.

So next time you start to feel lonely try doing something proactive to turn that feeling around. That little bit of kindness you show another person will come back to you and that feeling of happiness will make you feel less by yourself and more with yourself. And since you are an awesome person being with yourself is pretty good.

And always remember to SMILE!

Sha :)