Living alone, how do you do it?

Living alone is something many people do and is becoming increasingly common in individualistic society. If you are just moving out or have been divorced you may start to wonder how to live alone and not suffer from loneliness. Fortunately, it is a misconception that people who live alone can suffer more from loneliness, nothing could be further from the truth.

To find out how you can live alone, I have some tips for you in this blog and how hypnosis can help you do so

Loneliness and living alone

As mentioned, single people often experience less loneliness than others might think. People who are divorced or have been in a long-term relationship are often more likely to feel lonely when they have to live alone again than people who have always lived alone.

A Good Neighbor

People who live alone but, for example, in a duplex house or apartment complex often have good contact with neighbors. For example if they are two women they meet for coffee and there is often a helping hand with household chores.

Living close to friends and family

Many people who live alone live close to friends and family. This makes it easy to visit them, and vice versa, the family can visit you more often. As a result, single people still have a social life in addition to work, so they do not suffer from loneliness.

Living in the city

Most people who live alone also live in cities, where there are more opportunities to meet people than in rural areas. You can easily walk or bike there.

Social Events

Social events are also something people living alone are more likely to participate in.

Participate in an event more often

For example, people who live alone are more likely to participate in an event, even in support roles for the event. This is also a way to connect with people outside of work.

Eating out more often

In the process, people who live alone are more likely to eat out, which is, of course, something you do with friends and family.

Take music or art classes more often

Taking music or art lessons? It’s something people who live alone do more often than those who live with others. Think, for example, of singing in a choir or practicing with a band.

Hypnosis to overcome social anxiety

Going out to dinner more often, meeting new people, joining an event or taking up a hobby can sometimes require overcoming social anxieties. Doubts about your skills or niceness can cause you to shirk from social life, which is a great shame.

A hypnosis expert can help you overcome these fears in several ways. This process begins with a personal consultation to identify the outdated beliefs that have led to those fears and insecurities—which might be why, for example, you don’t join a choir.

Then, using a guided visualization, for example, an exercise can be done that overcomes that fear. By overcoming the fear in front of you, you are more likely to actually take the step for more social contact.

A guided visualization can then go as follows:

"You've decided to join a choir in your town. You drive/bike or walk to the location and arrive curious. You introduce yourself to each person and repeat the first name hoping it will be remembered. Some people give a firmer hand than others, but that doesn't matter. You find that the welcome ritual relaxes you and feel like mastering the basics of singing in a choir. You are assigned to the group with your pitch and the lesson can begin. You feel good and feel like joining in."

This is just an example of a guided visualization, if you specifically want to join something other than a choir you will obviously get another way to overcome your nerves or fear of starting something new.

Benefits of living alone

Alone is just alone and that is certainly true, but living alone does not mean being alone. There are also advantages to living alone over living together, for example.

Better maintain friendships

People who live alone are better at maintaining friendships. They simply have more time for this than people who live together.

More connected to people than people who don't live alone

In doing so, people who live alone have even more social connections than those who live together. Of course, this may be because they participate in more social activities.

Better contact with your parents

Compared to the baby boom generation, this generation, a greater proportion of whom live alone has a better relationship with parents. Family is also generally seen as larger than by older generations. As a result, many singles are also more likely to be there for people who need help than people who live with someone else.

Hypnosis and finding new friends

People who live alone after a divorce or the death of a partner are particularly at risk of experiencing loneliness. After building a life together, you may realize at such a time—following the end of a relationship—that you don’t have that many friends, and that the friends you do have don’t have time for you every day.

So it’s time to meet new friends. For some people, this can be nerve-wracking because their self-confidence may already have taken a hit after such a realization. A guided visualization can also be helpful when looking for new friends; in addition, hypnotic suggestions can help you find friends who are a good fit for you and for whom you don’t have to change who you are.

You repeat these hypnotic suggestions during self-hypnosis. How this works you first practice with the hypnosis expert before working on it at home.

Suggestions may include:

"People accept me as I am."

"I can meet new people."

"I am socially adept."

These are just examples of hypnotic suggestions. Depending on your beliefs about finding friends and how good you are at this, you may be given other suggestions to practice at home during self-hypnosis.

Meaningful work or hobby

Loneliness often doesn't have much to do with how many people you know and how deep the bonds with those people are. Therefore, people who interact with other people a lot can still be lonely.

This while loneliness can also be countered by having meaningful work or a meaningful hobby, even if you do it on your own.

When you can become totally absorbed in your work or hobby, you often suffer less loneliness than when work doesn't mean as much to you. It also appears that people who live alone find it more important to have meaningful work than those who are married.

A study comparing people who lived alone or just married also found that over a 5-year period there was more personal growth for those who lived alone than for those who were married.

Hypnosis to pursue your dreams

What is meaningful differs from one person to another. One person may find helping others meaningful, while another may find writing, dancing, or creating art meaningful.

Yet there are an awful lot of people who aren't doing anything meaningful with their lives, not for their feelings anyway. Chasing your dreams then is meaningful. You may not become the new Justin Bieber, but even in adulthood you can make music and perform at the local cafe or even at weddings.

Hypnosis can also help you pursue your dreams and give you the courage to do so. For example, mental blocks that prevent you from putting yourself first can be overcome with hypnosis; there are countless techniques for this, such as a Socratic dialogue in which the question “Why?” is repeated several times—until you realize that not pursuing your dreams is the result of a belief that makes no sense.

This makes it much easier to call "just-do-it" and realize your dreams.

So living alone without being lonely is definitely something people can do. For this, it is important to have social contacts in your environment. To keep developing yourself and to pursue your dreams. These are goals that hypnosis can help you with.

Would you like to know how you can help yourself—or others—with hypnosis? Then come to an event hosted by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands or check out the training programs on our website.