How to Feel Loved When You Are Alone

Photo Credit: Lovely Day Pittsburgh
Makeup: Hope Star Makeup

People are alone for many reasons. People are single because of a break-up, a death, a divorce, or simply because they have chosen to be alone for the time being. Some people are celebrating their single-dom and some people are wallowing, while others are kind of indifferent. Often times though, when you're newly single, for whatever reason - it can feel like the entire world is partnered up and you are at home watching Gilmore Girls, talking to your dog, and eating take-out in the same sweat pants you've worn for 3 days (not that I'm um, talking from experience or anything). Some days being alone is awesome - hello to not sharing the covers, eating whatever you want, doing whatever you want, listening to whatever you want, not putting away your laundry immediately, etc - but sometimes it's just plain overwhelming. Some days it feels like your someone doesn't exist and all you really want is your someone - someone to tell your day to that isn't your Mom or you dog, someone to cry to when you don't want to be strong, someone to cook when you're too tired, someone to steal the covers, someone to make you laugh, someone to sit across the table from, someone to tell you that you are loved.  What do you do though, with that time in between, when your person hasn't arrived and you're sick of wallowing, tired of waiting?

They say "When you least expect it, when you stop looking, when you are REALLY ready - your person will arrive." or "Trust the timing, be patient, have faith". Yeah you've heard it. I know. I know that you want to smack your well-meaning friends and family that have repeated these things to you a million times. I know it can feel mind-numbing to hear it over and over. And I know that it can all suck - no matter how patient and faithful you've been - no matter how much you have worked on yourself and no matter how many times those kind souls around you have told you that you are worthy of someone and that they are coming - it can really just suck. I know because I've been there. But in my darkest, loneliest, single-est of times, I found that the easiest way to feel love is to surround myself with signs of love - physically - to embrace it at the simplest of levels - to physically bring love into my life with tangible items. 

The sign in the above picture - that was my first, literal, "sign of love" to myself just days after moving into my parent's basement after my marriage ended. I felt ANYTHING but loved. I felt unworthy, I felt useless, I felt embarrassed, horrified, scared, lonely, ugly, awful, anxious and sick - but most of all, I felt unloved. I found that sign at Marshall's one day when I was mindlessly browsing to distract myself from my thoughts and I put it in my makeshift bedroom. For the longest time it was the only thing I felt I really owned, aside from my Thunder Shirt. I woke up everyday, and as cheesy as it sounds, I repeated it to myself daily. I am loved. I am loved. I am loved. On days when I didn't feel like being upbeat and repeating it to myself, it was a quiet reminder when I walked by it. It breathed life into the still, heavy air that hung around my being and shortly after, when I started making my way out into the world again and out of my parent's basement, I decided to fill my physical space with more love. I bought heart earrings and wore them every day. I stocked up on mugs with "xoxo", "Hello Beautiful" and "love" all over them and used them daily. I made myself a rose quartz bracelet to heal my heart (and eventually made a business from this!). I bought notebooks and planners and shirts and socks that had hearts and quotes of love on them. I didn't switch the station when a love song came on - I learned the words, I sang them out loud. And when I FINALLY moved into a place of my own, I bought Valentine's Day decorations, even though I was single. I bought a sign for my front door with a heart on it. I promised myself not to hate Valentine's Day or marriage or weddings or relationships or anything pertaining to love just because I was single. I promised to stay close to love, whether I always felt it or not. In the years that followed, I bought more jewelry, more pictures, more books, more clothes and more signs that said or spoke of or radiated love. I did not shy away from love. I let it engulf me physically, even when my heart hurt. And most of all, I spoke it. I told the people in my life that I loved them often, and I reminded my pets they were loved more than anything in this world. I said it out loud, and I still do today.

Did the physical love signs bring me instant love and change my mindset right away? No. Did my person walk through my parent's basement door when I read that sign to myself each day? No. Did I love being single now that I had all my physical love signs? No. But those love signs - they lightened the heavy energy of loneliness; they reminded me that I was loved even when I wasn't sure. Those signs of love strengthened my heart, stopped me from waiting for someone else to give me love, and whispered to me that there was more than just one kind of love.

There is the love you give yourself. There is the love your family gives you. There is the love your friends show you. There is the love in your pets' eyes when they look at you, and the love that is shown to you through random acts of kindness, and the love that your God gives to you (if religion is in your life). There is love everywhere - everywhere - and if you cannot feel that love right now then I encourage you to go out and pick up a reminder. I urge you to write it on a piece of paper and to tape it to your mirror. I remind you that you are loved even in your darkest of times if you just remember to give love to yourself.

I know this "quick fix" doesn't stop the ache, I know that everyone around you seems to be in love while you are alone, and I know that sometimes the pain of loneliness settles in at the most inconvenient of times, but I promise you that the energy will change around you when you begin to bring more love into your life on your own, at the most basic physical level, by surrounding yourself with actual signs and speaking it into existence. Immerse yourself and speak it out. There is no quick fix, but there are tiny steps in the right direction and standing still never got anyone anywhere. 

You radiate love. You have love. You are loved.