Lonely eating

"I eat when I'm lonely." Does this sound like you? Loneliness, after all, is self-explanatory, right? We only need say the word, and others understand why we must eat. Being alone is awful.

Isn't it? Messages in your mind probably got recorded early on this one. As a child maybe you were a loner, and were teased over it. Maybe you were admonished by grownups to try harder to keep your friends. When you misbehaved, you were sent to your room to be alone. Being alone became banishment from something else, something better. Thus you associate being alone with loneliness. Being alone, for you, is terrible.

Here are some words we may mistakenly connect with being by ourselves:
1. Isolation
2. Rejection
3. Abandonment
4. Awful
5. Stress
6. Shoulds (as in "I must be constructive while alone")

But do we have any positive associations with being alone? Have we considered it's not always bad to be by ourselves? When we're alone, away from people, we can re-fuel. We can think. We can ponder our beliefs, opinions, strengths, and prefers. It's time we connected some positives with being alone.

1. Meditation and journaling
2. Wanting to be with our best friend (ourselves)
3. A step back from people-overload
4. Peace and quiet
5. A chance to work on a personal project, or do nothing, or watch whatever channel we want on TV

It's true that we're not always the ones in charge of when we're alone and when we're with people. Work schedules and the schedules of other people seem to often dictate the "when" of being alone vs. being with others. But as long as we have some kind of balance, that's what matters. All humans need balance in all things. But we don't all need the same balance as each other.

Some of us are, by nature, more outgoing than others. Some of us are energized by people, while others are drained, and need some time alone to get that energy back. Some of us need a little alone time each week. Others need a lot. But all of us need both--time to be with others, and time alone.

Here's what all of us do, to some degree, and it's quite healthy. Those of us who need more alone time than our schedules dictate, tend to schedule in some extra alone time. Alternatively, those of us who need a little more time with others than our schedules afford us, will tend to schedule in some extra social time, perhaps on the weekend or in the evenings.

So you see, we each have some wiggle room. In rarer cases, some folks realize they need a change in jobs, just so they can be with people more or less of the time.

Perhaps being alone is stressful for you. For an over eater with not much recovery, stress is thought to be something one must avoid at all cost. But we can re-frame stress, too. Stress can be tolerable after all. Start by saying "stress is tolerable. I can tolerate a little stress."

So we can look at being alone in two ways. First, we can try and attach new, more positive meaning to being alone. It doesn't have to feel so lonely. It can feel energizing, and doesn't need to have any of the old negative associations attached to it. On the other hand, since we may not make this leap in thinking perfectly or right away, we can also remember that when being alone is stressful, stress is tolerable.

Try meditating on the balance you have in your life of being alone and being with others. Is it just about right? What adjustments might you have a little control over? Do you strongly prefer at this time to make any changes, in order to find more of the balance you need? These are heady questions, and may take some time, as in days, weeks, or even months, to answer. Do some journaling on these questions. It can be helpful to see your own words written down.

Perhaps also ask yourself this "Just because the alone times happen outside of my control, does that mean I've been rejected or abandoned?" Think about what it means to be alone with you.

Personally, I've changed my general modus operandi with age. As a young adult, I needed to be with people almost constantly. I thought this was simply how I was built. But looking back, during those forced alone times, I did think "abandonment" and it was, indeed, stressful to the point where I turned to addictions for comfort.

Over time, however, I've noticed that I need alone time. Moreover, I need, crave, and enjoy quite a bit of it. I've learned about myself that too much social time is what's stressful. It's not easy being with people all the time.

This change in myself may reflect the natural aging process, or it may reflect a change in my self-esteem and basic recovery from poor self-image. It could very well be that hidden inside me was always a gal that liked her alone time, but because of some faulty beliefs, it took until my forties to discover it.

Whatever my own reasons for the change, you may not undergo or need as drastic a change as I did. But little adjustments are often what brings happiness, peace, and more contentment in life. Tweaks in how much alone time, or tweaks in our perception of alone time could bring about revolutionary change. Who needs the comfort of overeating when we're content in the moment?