How To Deal With Loneliness - Never Feel Lonely Again

This talk provides you with exercises and insights to immediately and permanently lose your feelings of loneliness by addressing the common beliefs that cause loneliness. No matter how long you've felt lonely, and no matter what your physical situation is, it's possible to lose your loneliness.

Please note: This audio is ripped from a video.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Noah Elkrief,

And in this video,

I'm going to talk about how to deal with loneliness,

Or in other words,

How to stop feeling lonely.

This video is going to be relevant to you,

Whether you feel like you're lonely because you don't have a romantic partner,

Or whether you feel like you're lonely because you don't have any friends.

So first,

Let's look at what the loneliness,

What happens when you feel loneliness.

So first is you have a feeling,

And then we decide that feeling is loneliness.

Then we naturally assume this feeling,

This loneliness,

Is created by being alone.

And since we believe this feeling of loneliness is created by being alone,

We naturally believe it will be fixed if we can find friends or romantic partners.

Then if we try to find friends or a romantic partner,

And we can't make friends or get someone to love us,

Then we naturally assume that it's because there's something wrong with me,

That I can't find friends or boyfriend,

Girlfriend,

Because there must be something wrong with me,

There must be something not good enough about me.

And once we tell that story,

Then all of a sudden shame,

Depression,

And a feeling of lack comes over us.

And since we believe that we can't find friends because there's something wrong with us,

And now we feel depressed,

We also naturally believe that we'll never find friends or never find a partner,

Because the reason why we can't find friends or someone to love us is because there's something wrong with me.

And once we believe that about the future,

That there's no hope for us to find friends or a romantic partner,

Then our depression and loneliness also turns into despair,

A sort of giving up on life,

Like I have no hope.

And I'll never make friends,

Which means I'll never get rid of my loneliness,

And there must be something wrong with me,

And it's never going to go away.

This is what my life looks like.

And that creates a whole compounding or whole increasing of intensity of our suffering and adding layer upon layer to our loneliness,

Which makes it really hard to live life with any happiness at all,

Really.

So I completely understand where you're coming from.

I've spoken to a lot of people that have this.

So hopefully in this video,

Now that we've looked at what's going on,

This video is going to really help you to lose that,

As much suffering of that as possible.

It may help you lose all of it,

It may help you to only lose a little bit,

But we'll see how it goes.

So the first thing you need to do is right now,

I want you to ask yourself the question,

What is the number one most important thing to me in life?

What do I want more than anything else?

Take a moment and answer that,

Okay?

So if you've been feeling lonely,

The answer for you might be,

I want friends or a boyfriend or a girlfriend or something like that more than I want anything else.

But I'm here to tell you that you don't actually want that.

What you really want is peace and happiness more than anything else.

And you happen to think that a friend or lover will give you that peace or happiness.

So the way to help you see that or understand that what you really want more than anything else is peace,

Happiness,

To lose all of your loneliness,

Depression and suffering,

Is to simply ask you the question,

If I give you two choices,

Okay?

Choice number one,

Have a lot of friends,

Have a boyfriend,

Girlfriend,

Whatever,

But suffer all the time,

Still feel insecure,

Still feel lacking,

Still feel lonely,

Have anxiety about the future,

Worry about others' opinions,

Judge others,

Feel angry,

Sad and everything in between.

But you have friends and a romantic partner.

Or option two is you stay alone,

But you feel completely happy,

Fulfilled,

Joyous,

Nobody depressed,

No insecurity,

Never thinking about how it would be better if you had friends,

Just always happy.

Which of those options would you choose?

And keep in mind,

I'm not saying those are your two options.

And you may think that those two options are completely impossible,

That if you have friends you're guaranteed to be happy,

And if you're alone you're guaranteed to be suffering.

But even putting that aside,

Let's say,

Hypothetically,

Those were your two options,

Which would you choose?

Friends and suffering,

No friends,

Be alone,

And nothing but happiness,

Never suffer again.

Which do you choose?

Well,

For most of us,

If we're willing to look honestly at ourselves and what we want and at life,

We could see,

You know what,

If those were my two options,

I would choose be alone and be happy all the time,

Because what I really want is to be happy.

So if you can see that,

If you can really see,

If you can discover for yourself that what you want more than to have friends and a boyfriend or girlfriend is really to just be happy,

To lose your loneliness,

You want to lose the feeling of loneliness,

And the reason why you think you want friends or boyfriend or girlfriend more than anything else is because you think those things will cure your loneliness.

So if you can see that,

We can move on.

So the feeling of loneliness,

You want to lose it.

You want to never feel lonely.

It's not fun to feel lonely.

So in order to lose that feeling,

We first have to understand what's causing it.

So you think it's caused by being alone,

By not having friends or romantic partners,

But take a moment and really examine that.

If being alone created the feeling of loneliness,

Then you would be forced to feel lonely in every single moment that you are alone.

But is that the case?

Is that true?

No,

Of course not.

In some moments that you are alone,

You're enjoying yourself.

Maybe you're playing video games,

Maybe you're drawing,

Maybe you're watching your favorite TV show,

Maybe you're eating your favorite food,

Maybe you're just listening to music.

But in some moments,

You don't feel lonely when you are alone.

That means being alone can't cause loneliness.

It has to be something else.

And that something else is thoughts.

In any moment that you're distracted from your thoughts,

You feel fine.

There's no loneliness.

And then a thought pops up again that says,

If I had friends,

Life would be better,

My life is missing something.

And then you feel lonely again.

But in the moments that you're distracted from your thoughts,

There's no loneliness.

That means loneliness isn't caused by being alone,

It's caused by thoughts.

Another way to see that loneliness isn't caused by being alone is to simply recognize that some people like being alone.

Right?

I,

For one,

Like being alone.

I'm alone a lot of the time.

Does that mean that I'm suffering when I'm alone?

No.

I enjoy being alone a lot of the time.

And so do many others.

That means if some people can be alone and be happy while they're alone and even want to be alone,

Then being alone can't cause loneliness.

It must be something else.

And if we can discover that loneliness is caused by thoughts and not by being alone,

Then all of a sudden we can get this idea out of our head that loneliness is cured by having people around us that love us.

Okay?

So now that we see that thoughts cause loneliness,

Let's get a little bit more specific,

A little bit more detailed about what thoughts cause loneliness.

And the thought or belief that causes loneliness is the idea that friends or lovers create happiness.

That friends or lovers are needed to be happy.

As soon as you believe that a friend or a lover is needed to be happy or creates happiness,

Then all of a sudden you feel like something is missing now that you need to be happy.

And then you feel lacking and lonely.

That's the only thing that causes loneliness.

Okay?

As soon as you believe that you don't have something you need to be happy,

Of course you're going to feel lacking.

For other people,

If they believe success is the key to happiness,

Then they feel lacking if they don't have success.

For other people,

If they think travel is the key to happiness,

Then they feel lacking and bored and there's something missing in my life if they don't travel.

The same goes for everything.

If you believe something is the key to happiness and you don't have it,

You will feel lacking.

And the word we use for this feeling of lack and emptiness and missing when it comes to friends and relationships is the word lonely.

Okay?

So when you believe that friends or lovers create happiness and are needed to be happiness,

You feel lacking now.

But on top of that,

You also believe that.

.

.

So if you believe friends will make you happy,

Then you believe I'll never be happy if I don't make friends or get a lover.

And that creates anxiety,

Right?

It would be great if I get it,

Get friends,

And it would be terrible if I don't.

And that creates fear and anxiety that maybe I will never make friends or get a lover.

On top of that,

If you are ever in a situation where you're with a romantic interest or you're with potential friends,

Since you believe it would be so great if they like me and so bad if they don't,

All of a sudden there's so much pressure on you,

Right?

There's anxiety,

There's I need to say the right thing so they will like me.

I need to get them to like me.

I need to think of smart things to say,

Think of smart funny things to say,

Make sure I don't seem anxious,

Make sure I seem happy so they'll like me.

And then what that creates,

Not only does it create pressure and anxiety,

But it creates inauthenticity.

It creates a struggle to speak,

A struggle to interact freely,

A struggle to even enjoy conversations,

Right?

So if you think friends or lovers can make you happy,

Then you place so much importance and emphasis on them that you don't actually enjoy interactions with them because you're afraid of constantly evaluating,

Do they like me or not?

Did they smile?

Does that smile mean they like me?

Are they looking away?

Does that mean they like me?

Did they like what I said?

Was that the smart thing to say?

And constantly evaluating.

As long as you think somebody outside of you can make you happy and is the cure for you,

Then interactions become hell,

They become prison,

They become filled with suffering.

So how do you get out of that trap,

That prison?

Well,

You simply recognize friends or lovers can't make you happy.

They can't make you happy at all.

Okay?

And I'll explain why.

So we tend to look at happiness as if it's like a sweater that we just put on us.

If I just get that,

I'll get happiness.

But happiness is actually the opposite of that.

Happiness is simply what remains when we lose our suffering.

When we were two,

Three,

Why were we happy?

Not because we got everything we wanted,

But because we didn't have the thoughts that create suffering.

Right?

So what creates suffering?

Well,

Thoughts about the future create anxiety.

Thoughts about the past create sadness,

Guilt,

Anger.

Thoughts about others create judgment,

Anger.

Thoughts about yourself create insecurities,

Sadness,

Shame,

Depression.

And you name it.

Thoughts about others' opinions create worry.

The only thing that ever makes you suffer is thoughts.

So when you're saying that if I had friends or a lover,

I would be happy,

What you're really saying is that a friend or a lover can delete the thoughts in my head that make me unhappy.

Or friends or lovers can change my relationship with the thoughts in my head.

But that's not true.

It's very obviously not true.

But nobody ever points that out to us.

Everyone seems to be in agreement that friends and lovers create happiness when it's so obvious that they don't.

They can't get rid of the thoughts that make us unhappy.

And that's very clear from any reality TV show or speaking to anybody that's actually honest with you.

If they have a boyfriend or girlfriend,

Does that mean they'll be happy?

No,

They worry about whether they love me.

They still have all their insecurities,

Still having their anxiety in their job,

Still have judgment,

Still have absolutely everything that they went into the relationship with.

But in addition,

They have these new thoughts about how I'm worried that they'll stop loving me.

I'm worried whether I'm good enough.

I feel jealous about when they talk to somebody else.

It's not that that stuff goes away all of a sudden because you have new people around you.

We have this idea that other people have magic powers to make us happy because that's what we were taught.

We're not to blame for these beliefs and ideas.

We were taught that.

I was taught that too.

So this is about questioning,

Examining,

Investigating the ideas that have been creating our suffering.

So can a friend make you happy?

Can having 10 friends make you happy?

Well,

They can distract you from your thoughts just like movies or TV or whatever,

But then you'll go right back to your thoughts.

And even when you're with them,

You'll probably,

If you think they can make you happy,

You'll almost certainly have thoughts while you're with them about insecurity,

Evaluating their reactions and everything in between.

So can something make you happy?

We need to reverse that questioning to can something delete the thoughts that make me suffer because if they can't,

They can't make me happy.

Right?

Moving on to the next thing.

If friends can't make you happy,

If a lover can't make you happy,

Then what hope do you have?

Well,

First of all,

If none of those things can make you happy and none of those things are needed to be happy,

Then you're not missing anything.

You need to be happy.

You are not missing anything that you need to be happy.

Your life isn't missing something.

You are at no disadvantage whatsoever for being happy.

In fact,

You're at an advantage because most people never look at the thoughts in their head.

They never question what's causing their suffering.

They never question what's causing their anxiety,

Worry,

Loneliness or anything in between.

But somehow this feeling has gotten strong enough for you that it acted as a catalyst to say,

Hey,

I need to do something about this.

I need to really understand what's making me suffer.

How do I get rid of it?

So now that you're looking at the thoughts,

You can do that with any emotion.

You can do that with anything.

And that means you can be happy and at peace in your life.

You're going back to loneliness for a moment.

So how can you stop feeling lonely when you're alone?

It's simply any time that you feel lonely,

Ask yourself,

What story am I telling in this moment?

And the story you're telling will be some version of,

My life isn't good enough because I don't have friends.

And then you need to take a step back and say,

Well,

What do I want most in life?

Well,

I want to be happy.

Can friends make me happy?

Get rid of my thoughts?

No.

Okay.

So is this moment missing anything?

Is there anything not good enough about this moment?

Well,

I guess not considering that can't make me happy.

That can't get rid of my thoughts.

I speak to plenty of people who have friends and family that love them or boyfriends or husbands or girlfriends or wives or kids and they still feel lonely.

Loneliness isn't caused by how many people are around you or even how many people care about you.

It's only caused by thoughts.

So if you are alone,

That doesn't mean you're going to be lonely.

You can do whatever you want when you're alone.

You can whatever,

Play games,

Read,

Study,

Learn,

Question your thoughts,

Play sports,

Go on trips.

You can do anything,

Right?

Anything that you enjoy,

You can do.

And anything is enjoyable until you have a thought that you believe,

Which is this moment isn't good enough and something about me isn't good enough.

But that's not true.

Right?

You can be happy alone doing anything that you want to do,

Anything that you like to do if you just simply don't believe the thought that tells you this moment is insufficient and not good enough.

The final thing we're going to look at is the idea that if I can't make friends,

If I can't get a girlfriend or boyfriend,

That means there's something wrong with me.

So I'm here to tell you there's nothing wrong with you.

There's nothing wrong with you at all.

And I'll show you that in a few different ways.

Okay?

So first of all,

Just because the people around you don't like you,

It doesn't mean there's something wrong with you.

It means you have the right fit.

So in some places,

Let's say you're in a school and there's a hundred people.

In some schools,

One person really likes gaming.

And in another school,

20 people really like gaming.

In one school,

Everybody likes football.

In another school,

Most people like soccer.

In one school,

Most people like rock music.

And in another school,

Most people like hip hop music.

So you might not be the right fit for the school you're in,

But that doesn't mean you are bad or there's something wrong with you.

It means it just doesn't match.

The same goes for if you're in a company.

Maybe where you work,

The people are really serious and you're not a serious person.

So they don't get along with you very well.

It just doesn't match.

It's not the right fit.

Or it may be the opposite.

You're really serious and introspective,

But the other people are outgoing and just want to party and chat about celebrity gossip or something like that.

It's just that it's not the right fit.

We have to be very clear on the difference between fit and there's something wrong with me.

It's like,

Imagine you see a little kid,

Okay,

That you're babysitting or looking after a kid or maybe it's your kid,

Okay,

And that kid is playing with a toy.

You know one of those toys where it's like a wooden piece of wood and it has holes in it and some holes are shaped like squares,

Some holes are shaped like triangles,

Some holes are shaped like circles.

And then you have different shapes and the little kid tries to put the right shape in the right hole,

Right?

So imagine a little kid,

Let's say he's five years old or four years old,

Picks up a square and he tries to put it in a triangle hole and then he looks up to you and he says,

This shape isn't good enough for that one.

What are you going to say?

You're going to say,

It's not that this shape isn't good enough for the triangle,

For that hole,

It's that it's just not the right fit.

So when someone says,

I don't want to be your friend or when someone seems to think you are bad in some way,

It's not that you're actually bad,

It's just that it's not the right fit.

You see all the time someone doesn't fit in a school and they go to camp and they fit perfectly and everyone seems to be just like them or you're in a company and it's not working out.

Then you try a different field or a different company and all of a sudden everyone's like you.

Nothing means that you're not good enough.

It just means it's not the right fit with the people that are around you.

There's nothing not good enough about you.

I'm looking at it on a slightly deeper level.

Here's my nose.

That exists in reality because it exists.

Even if I'm not thinking about it,

My nose still exists.

Now where's something wrong with you?

Can you find it?

Can you show it to me?

Where would it exist?

What would it look like?

What's the shape of wrong?

What's the size of it?

What's the smell of it?

What's the color of it?

There's no such thing.

That's just an idea in our imagination.

If you can't find it,

It's not real.

But mine likes to say there's something wrong with it.

I don't know what it is,

But there must be something.

No,

If you can't find it,

It's not real.

It doesn't exist.

You may not be the right fit for the vast majority of people in your school or company or your social environment,

But that doesn't mean there's actually something wrong with you.

Okay?

You're fine as you are until a story tries to convince you in your imagination that you're not.

So in summary,

Loneliness isn't created by being alone,

It's created by thoughts.

What you want more than anything else is to be happy,

To lose your loneliness,

Not to make friends.

And friends can't make you happy because they can't delete the thoughts that make you unhappy.

So if you want to be free of loneliness,

If you want to be happy by yourself,

All you have to do is recognize that thoughts are making you unhappy and at any moment that you feel lonely,

Question whether those thoughts are true.

But just to be clear,

If you're happy alone,

It doesn't mean you're going to be alone forever.

If you discover how to be at peace while you're alone,

It doesn't mean you'll be alone forever and all the time.

It'll actually mean you're happier and more free,

Which means it might be much easier for you to make friends because then when you're around people,

You don't have this anxiety,

I hope they like me and trying to be a certain way,

You can be relaxed and light and free.

So I really hope you understood this video.

I hope that it gives you relief and good luck discovering it and practicing it and applying it to your life.

You may need to listen to this video multiple times or even take notes in order to really get it and discover the relief that I'm speaking about.

So thank you for watching and I'll see you around.

Bye.

So thanks again for watching and I'll see you around.

Bye.

Reviews

Thank you, Noah. I've been literally distraught and lonely after a breakup with my girlfriend Ronni, but this talk really helped. I got it. I need to feel happy and at peace INSIDE MYSELF, as the most important thing. Even before I met her I could feel lonely even doing things with a large group of people. Someone else cannot fill any kind of hole or emptiness in me, or delete the thoughts in my head. Even my ex gf alluded to my own cup needs to be filled or overflowing with joy. I'm a bit scared of the future/life change as I am also older (60 now and she is 56) but at the same time I have a great opportunity to work on myself in many ways.
I really like your talks - what you say and how you say it, and I do get it.

Thank you, Noah.

for the first time in 30 years this video helped me in understanding my loneliness.thnx a lot for helping us

Excellent talk. Helped me to see how my thoughts create my reality. I’m lonely at the present time because my husband passed away and I miss his presence. That is my reality now. I’m definitely not lonely all the time. Any suggestions or advice that might be helpful?

This makes a lot of sense. I wish someone had broken this down for me when I was a kid. I'm looking forward to distracting myself from my thoughts when I start feeling lonely. Whenever I feel pain, I feel like the right thing to do is sit with it and examine it. But I really feel now that I could just turn on music or read something engrossing. Love this: "You're fine as you are until a story comes along in your imagination that tells you you're not." 💚🕊🙏

Absolutely get the message - will try to put this into practice! Thanks for the revelation 🙏

Thank you. Really pretty found.

I totally agree with the ideas expressed in this talk. They are excellent reminders. I must say that over decades of unfulfilled expectations it can become more difficult to keep the thoughts from popping up. Thanks for these simple suggestions to help get back on track.🌺

I am certain that I stumbled upon this talk because it is exactly what I needed to hear at this point in my life. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, insight and truth. 🙏❤

Very excellent logic. Makes total sense! Now to strengthen the thought muscles to turn those thoughts around

Will listen again! Very helpful concepts.

Great! Going to ask my high school students to listen to this!

So interesting ! Thank you. I hope it will help me from now on.

This was everything I needed at this moment in life. Thank you for this talk my friend.

I think this talk continued your other one. Either way very informative and revelational! After listening to this I find it interesting that my ex partner was perhaps only with me due to her loneliness and anxiety. I’ve felt manipulated at times, but I still loved her despite that. I am also guilty at feeling lonely and wonder afer this talk if she ever truly loved me. It raises the question. Is feeling lonely just part of the human condition? Is this something that will always come up, especially if one has experienced trauma early in their childhood? (which I understand everyone has experienced some form of trauma)

Great insight and information. Thank you Namaste 🙏

Thank you so much for this talk. It was exactly what I needed to hear.

Thank you. I found this very helpful. Will definitely be returning to this.Thanks again. 💙

I think it’s fantastic.. makes so much sense when you think about it
Going to play this more often.. thank you 🙏 so much
Makes me feel better already

Love you! You're awesome and make me feel so much better every time I listen to you

Noah thank you.. I really needed to hear this from another soul today. I often remind people that love cannot be obtained only shared, which I do feel the same about happiness. Nonetheless being human at times, like you said, our thoughts make us feel like something is wrong with us. Beautiful example about the shapes, we are just not a good fit for a friendship or partner sometimes. Rejection comes from expectation which leads to feelings of inadequacy, at times, depending on how things are dealt with on both sides. Always striving to be a better version of myself and not avoiding life fearing pain but learning acceptance on many levels. Have a beautiful day.. I will be listening to this again, I’m certain..