3am knows all my secrets...

[cheech]

Most of the time, I'm one of the happiest people I know. Overall, I'm very happy and proud of who I am and the life that I lead. I think I'm naturally pretty cheerful, and over the past year, I've made a number of changes in my life, inlcuding picking up some new hobbies, exercising regularly, eating healthily and doing some volunteer work, which seem to have massivly improved my mood. I literally walk around much of the time with a goofy grin on my face. At a club last night, I was standing at the bar, and a girl next to me turned to me and said "you look really happy". When I replied that I was really happy, she was like "are you just naturally happy? you're not on drugs or something?" (I wasn't on drugs. I'd been drinking, but then, so had most people in the club)

And yet sometimes, as I lie awake at night, I don't feel happy at all. I feel miserable and lonely and freakish and unloveable. One of my main issues is that I'm single and have never had a girlfriend (I wrote a post about it a couple of months ago limiting beliefs arising from lack of romantic/sexual experience). It's something I continue to work on, and since writing that post, I've gone to a speed dating event (no matches), gotten contact lenses, and signed up for a massage course. So I am working on this, and I think there's a fair chance I'll get it sorted, but it's very likley that I will continue to be single for at least the next few months.

Mostly, this doesn't really bother me as I go about my day (especially if I keep busy), but it can make me feel terrible as I lie alone at night. It doesn't help that two of my housemates (one of whom has the room adjacent to mine) are quite loud in bed. I use earplugs, which help, to an extent. This problem is ameliorated somewhat by getting up fairly early and exercising regularly, which means that I sometimes fall asleep pretty much as soon as I get into bed. This doesn't always work, though, and feels like kind of dodging the issue. I don't have any more constructive way of dealing with it though

Thanks for listening. As always, advice, suggestions or requests for more info or clarification all welcome

chica

[Vasilisa]

It's normal to long for intimate connection (in all ways) with other people.
Why didn't you hit on that girl who asked you why you were so happy? Obviously, she was giving you a sign, that she would like to know you better.
In my opinion you have to work on courage in approaching people. I mean that you have to start approaching ladies and asking them out or for a dance in a club or something. It's unbelivable how many girls want to be approached, especially those in clubs.
I don't know why people are so scared of each other nowadays. A lot of us are lonely and still afraid to connect, to make the first step.

[Alison Jenkins]

Sounds like you are making lots of changes which would increase your chances of meeting someone.

There are many people who feel incredibly lonely in a relationship so it isn't the solution to cure everything. Learning to love yourself and finding peace within, fills the loneliness

It sounds like you use busyness as a strategy to avoid how you are really feeling. I've done that for years until the last few years. Have you tried writing about how you feel in a journal

Keep up all the great work you are doing.

Alison

[Vasilisa]

Alison, a lot of people feel lonely in the relationship, but it doesnt' mean we shouldn't try to find somebody we have connection with.
I personally do not believe that the happiness is in loneliness and conecentrating on oneself. I think people do need each other to be happy - for companionship, for serving each other, for sharing. And to be happy we have to learn to relate to other people through trying and succeding or failing sometimes and learning from it.

[acordaamor]

Thanks for your share Cheech. I'm also familiar with negativity arising for me as well in the early hours of the morning. I used to call 5 a.m. the "black magic hour" when I was a kid, because that's when I'd have to replay all my painful memories and anxiety scenarios about the future.

I don't have these experiences much anymore, and I think it's because I had the realization that the feelings I was having at 5 a.m. represented how I really felt about myself, and the way I behaved the rest of the time -- trying to be professional and "have it together" all the time -- was my way of compensating for that. In other words, I spent much of the time trying to show that I was powerful, to compensate for the feeling I had -- most strongly at 5 a.m. -- that I was powerless.

What I saw was that I had not only created those strategies for looking powerful -- what Stephen Wolinsky calls the "False Self" -- to compensate for my feeling of powerlessness -- the "False Core." I had also created the belief that I was powerless. I was trying to compensate/cover up a belief I myself had created! This realization has changed the way I experience the world, and I wonder if a similar one is available to you as well.

Best,
Chris
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