Being Alone vs. Being Lonely: How to Find Your People and Build Real Connections

Hello my beautiful audience. I wanted to brag a little bit about a new cup that I got from my office. I didn't actually get it. It was a gift from a very special friend of mine and this is how it looks. And I just want to show you the plate. So delicate. And this is the cup. I got it from my best friend. She is a very special person. If you've seen the video on my home tour, office tour, you probably noticed I share a glimpse of my cup shelf that I really love. I've always wanted to have a shelf that had all the cups that I've loved to use or just like to collect from around the world. And the more welcoming party I have to my office as I welcome my friends and family, they bring me beautiful cups. And this is one of those. So shout out to my best friend for buying this cup for me. Actually I was not right now in the mood to shoot. I was working on a project that I'm currently working on. Working on a project that I'm working on. So I was really focused on that. But I took a break and I wanted to make myself a cup of coffee and just like sit in silence which brought this idea to me that I wanted to share with you. And now that I've been receiving a lot of love from you for the content that I share that's like heart to heart, candid, shot on my iPhone, impromptu, not prepped beforehand, I realized that you enjoy this content. And actually I personally love doing this because I think it comes completely out of heart. It's unscripted, undrafted. It just feels like therapeutic for me because I'm able to share my thoughts with my beloved audience and in a way hopefully through my thoughts I'm able to inspire, to motivate, to give some hope to people, to calm them down. I get a lot of comments about by being super calm after watching my videos so I hope that this helps as well. But today I wanted to touch about something that I have actually read in this book that I kept on thinking for quite some time now after ongoing some personal things. I realized I wanted to talk about this matter because I feel like in this day and time a lot of us are experiencing what this chapter covered. So the book is called The Rules of People and it's by Richard Templer. This is how it looks. I just bought it a few weeks ago and as I'm reading I am also taking notes on that and you see these little sticky cards so I know which are the topics I want to talk about, which are the ones that I already have done something on or some things that I want to remember, especially important for me. So I color code them and I also write my notes inside which is probably one of the reasons I don't really like giving my books away to other people. If they ask me to read a book I usually just gift it and I give the book that I haven't underlined or highlighted in any way. But I prefer to gift a new book rather than the one that I've used because it usually has my personal notes in it. So sorry for such a long introduction but I really had to share this with you before I proceeded to talk about what I wanted to talk about. That is the difference between feeling alone and feeling lonely. The book talks about one of the chapters in the book and in each chapter each page is dedicated to one rule and it's not like it talks about one particular thing. But one of the rules was that you can still feel lonely in a crowded room but you can feel completely fine being alone and not feeling lonely. So the difference between being alone and being lonely and how the two are distinct and how one is not the same as the other or being alone doesn't mean you're lonely or that you want to be lonely. So I get this thinking because I'm a person who is particularly, I would say personally, I'm introverted where it makes me a little bit more extroverted. I'm very comfortable with people, I'm comfortable with socializing, I enjoy being able to meet new people, I love hearing stranger stories, I love making a small talk with, not small talk, usually that small talk ends in a deep talk with strangers on a plane or a train if I'm not too tired. I like to really engage with people and I love learning people's stories. Work has made me very extroverted in a particular way but if I am to spend my time, if I think of a perfect time for myself that would be being able to spend it alone. It's the way I recharge, it's the way I get inspired, the way I get motivated, it's the way I get energized, it's the way I learn to hear myself out, to know what I truly want, to know my actual desires and my actual wishes and what I aspire to be. So being alone for me is an essential part of recovery period and I know I'm not the only one. A lot of introverted people feel that need but even if you're not introverted, you're someone who is naturally extroverted, I encourage you to take some time to spend alone, to be alone with yourself because I think nothing helps you to better understand who you are as a person by just choosing to stay alone and what I mean by staying alone, I also mean stay away from social media or stay away from engaging in conversation with others in social media. You can be on social media watching podcasts, listening to inspiring videos, watching an interesting movie, it could also be that you are engaged in some way with some information but that also means that you are not engaging in a conversation with another human being over social media because I think the danger of people feeling that they are connected to others is using social media and faking that connection. There are some deep connections on social media as well, that is not to say that social media is evil and there's no real connection over there, there are. I have a lot of followers that I've been able to connect over online communication for years of their support and they've been so supportive of me through my ups and downs in sending words of encouragement and love and support and appreciation. So that's not to say that but I think being able to just disconnect from people in general and be alone with your thoughts, with things that you want to listen to, music or movies you want to watch to be inspired by or podcasts that you want to listen to but it's really important that you take that time to be alone because I feel like oftentimes we spend time with so many people around us, family, friends, colleagues, university students, that we are often confused about who we are and what we want because everything around us tells, I mean friends, people, colleagues, everyone around us are telling us that things that we have to do or things that they are doing that feels like we have to do it too but it's not true to who we are and then we'll be overwhelmed by the feeling that we're not able to do that because they're doing it, we are not and so hence we're in some way lesser than them but the truth is everyone's journey and interest in life is very different and just because they're doing it doesn't mean it works for you or just because they're doing it doesn't mean it's good for you and it's just trying to mimic someone, imitate their lifestyle is not going to make you any way happier if that's not truly who you are as a human being. So I feel that being alone has helped me a lot with hearing my inner voices, hearing my inner desires without feeling bombarded by the information from the outside. So just to give an example I think I used to think that I need to also meditate because everyone on social media is meditating, everyone I know is meditating, it's like a go-to pill for everyone and it was very difficult for me and I wasn't able to do it and I felt in some way lesser because my day didn't start from meditation and it's like I had to do it too because everyone else was doing it but I've come to terms that meditating in a way that social media propagates or the way that is shown to us online now, it's not the only way to meditate. Meditation is being in a state of flow, being in a state that you forget about the hours, you forget about your surroundings, you really attune to yourself and that can happen, meditative state can happen when you're cooking, it can happen when you're gardening, it can happen when you are watching the sky, it can happen when you are tending to flowers, you are drawing, you are dancing, this meditative state can happen in anything that is really helping you to switch off your connection to the outer world and really be in yourself, in your inner thoughts and feelings. So I've come to terms that I can't meditate in a classical way yet, that's not to say I've given up completely, maybe at one point in my life I'll be able to do that, but for now I'm not able to do that. What I do instead of meditation is I pray, I do dhikr, so I have these beads that I'm able to, for example, recite the names of Allah, 99 names, I'm able to recite certain words from Quran, I'm able to recite certain surahs, so whatever it is that takes my mind off of the world and brings me inwards, this is meditation for me. So another example that I think was something that I thought I had to do because I was around other people is probably wanting to walk a lot or hike, and I'm not someone who's into hiking or walking at all, I would rather dance, I would rather horseback ride, I know everyone needs to take 10,000 steps, I'm not mocking it in any way, but I'm saying this is something that is so propagated by everyone around us that you have to do the 10,000 steps, and I'm someone who doesn't enjoy that, I haven't come yet to the realization that I enjoy it, and so for me not doing it felt like I was not accomplishing in any way a certain goal, but the more I'm alone, the more I've spent time with myself, I understand what I like, I understand what makes me Jamila in my own unique way, and I'm in no way trying to chase the lifestyle that others are leading, and the more I have come to listen to my thoughts by being alone, the more I've come to appreciate who I am, and the more I'm able to live my true authentic life, and I think essentially the point of whole life is being true to yourself and living your truest best possible version. Being alone is something that I completely endorse you to do, and being alone is being not lonely, but rather just having the time to be by yourself, not surrounded in your proximity by other people, and being alone means also being so okay with yourself, so accepting of yourself, that being staying by yourself does not scare you, because I feel like a lot of times people are trying to socialize, or like to try to be out and about with other people in a way trying to forget themselves, maybe it's a trauma they want to forget, maybe it's an incident they want to forget, I oftentimes observe that when people go off from a really bad relationship, or when they break up with their partner, or break up with a friendship, they start immediately being out and about, and oftentimes it can help you really get through those difficult times, not to say that it doesn't help, it helps a lot to get that emotional support, but if that is a coping mechanism to try to forget yourself, or who you are, what you actually are feeling, I feel like that can be damaging in the long run, so being alone can be difficult when you're not okay with yourself, but it's also something that you have to do in order to learn to love yourself, and be accepting of yourself, and that brought me to what the book was talking about, that being alone is not being lonely, you can also be lonely when you are surrounded by people, and I think I've experienced this on my skin as well, I wouldn't say I felt lonely, because I have amazing parents, I have amazing kids, and I never really completely feel lonely, but I think I've sensed this when I wasn't happy about certain things in my life, and I was surrounded by people around me, and I've been a crowd of lone partying, and even though I was surrounded by people, I still felt so lonely deep down, and I think I've met a few people in my life that told me that they were the loneliest people, but if you look at them, they're the biggest party people you'll ever meet, they've missed a single party, they're out and about every day, and usually those are the loneliest people, so being lonely means lacking proximity, intimacy, so proximity not in a sense of physical distance, but proximity in a sense of emotional proximity, emotional intimacy with people, so all your connections are so shallow, you haven't been able to connect with someone on a deeper level, hence even if you are close to other people, you are surrounded with people, you still don't feel connected, and it's those false connections that we make, those really shallow friendships, and the social friendships that we have, that we meet only when we're going out and partying, it's great when you have other people to support you when you need those deep connections, it's fine to have those connections, but when you're constantly aiming to have these fleeting, very shallow connections with people, you'll never feel completely at peace, or you'll always feel lonely no matter how many people you have around you. I think one of the things that I've observed is that oftentimes people that have most connections online, I mean it's ironic that I'm saying this because I have a lot of followers, which doesn't equate to having connections in real life, but some of these people have become really connected with me and I appreciate that, but I still think a lot of times people think like if it's a big social media personality, then they're not lonely in any way, people have these misconceptions about social media people, if they have fame, popularity, followers, that means they're not lonely. I think you probably have seen a lot of Hollywood stars that you'd see have all these people around them, they're in a party, they're the life of the party, but then when they go home, they feel completely lonely because they don't have anyone that they feel physically, not physically, but emotionally close with. So creating real depth connections is so important for being able to not feel lonely and to be able to stay alone, because when you know you have someone to give a call to, if you have an important conversation to have, and even if you're at home alone, you can just phone that person and have that connection with them, you'll never feel lonely. So to basically finish off my today's rant, I wanted to encourage you to avoid connecting online. If you can, go out and try to meet people in person, try to create real-life connections with people that can not just be there for you when you want to party, but they can be there for you when you want to pour out your heart and soul and your thoughts, share your issues. You don't always have to share your issues, but really just having someone that you can have a deep connection with on a personal level, human to human, doesn't have to be intimate, doesn't have to be physical, it just has to be a connection with someone that you can feel like you can trust with your life, you can trust with your life, important decisions, and if you don't have anyone like that at this time and moment in your life, don't try to force it. These people usually come to us on their own, but also do not cover yourself up thinking if you have these connections online that it's just enough for you not to feel alone, and so when you're at home alone and you feel lonely, do not immediately reach out to your phone and social media and try to have these empty conversations with people that you've been following each other. Invite those to that person over a cup of coffee if they live in your town, or connect with them over zoom, or do a face call. Try to have a real connection rather than just talking to each other back and forth like hey what's up, good, and you. So if you are feeling lonely, it's not because you're in the wrong room, it just means that you haven't met your people yet. Try to understand that it's not about the number of people that we know, it's really about the depth of people that we know. So you can know a hundred people, but just like that, and it's not very going to be satisfying, but you can know five people, but those connections are going to be so so deep that the value of that connection is 110 times more than that what you have with 100 people. So even when you go to a networking event, to wrap it up, as an etiquette advisor, as an etiquette trainer, I always advise when you go to a networking event and a social event, where the whole ultimate goal of you going to that event is actually to meet as many people as you can, I always say do not aim for quantity of people that you meet, but aim for the quality of people that you meet. It's not a speed dating event, it's not that you have to meet as many potential people as you can, it's about connect to three people, connect to five people over the course of five days, who really have deep connections with these people, so that you are able to actually create long-term relationships, because majority of people that we meet in those kind of events, out and about, we rarely form deep connections, or friendships, or bonds, or even able to help each other career-wise, or professionally, because these are just like, hey, hey, let's connect, let's connect, but if you meet three people, and you really are able to carry out interesting conversations, then you're able to follow up through emails, through calls, through perhaps meetings in a town, if you visit together or to each other's town, you're able to actually create connections that in the long term might help you career-wise, professional professional-wise, and even if not career-wise, they can help you as a human, you have created an acquaintance that you can trust, that you can talk to, that you can go for advice for, so in whatever you do, I think it's important that we have a system of support, it can come in the form of a family, some of us are blessed with great parents, others grew up in more difficult families, it doesn't have to be your family, it could be a stranger that you met on a bus that then you were able to have this deep conversation with, that you're able to carry out through years, that you're able to reach out in case you need help, it could be a teacher of yours, I've had a lot of great teachers in my life, and I hope that I'm one of those teachers now to my students, it could be a neighbor of yours, it could be someone you met randomly in a gym, it could be someone that you met in a cafe reading a book, it could be really anyone that can turn into your sort of confidant, someone you can reach out and talk to when you really need a deep conversation, and to be honest I oftentimes see that it's not really just having a whole 100 people supporting you, it could be just one or two people that really believe in you, that see beyond your capabilities now, that are able to uncover your potential, because they can basically see through you, that are able to give you that kind of a support, that kind of a mental, emotional, physical support that you need in order to rise from where you are. If you have seen a lot of documentaries on big celebrities like Michael Jackson, like Serena Williams, people that have achieved something in their life, it was usually David Beckham, it was usually either their parent that saw that potential, or it was a manager that saw them somewhere and saw something beyond what their parent saw in them, so it really just takes one person to really see your truest potential for you to be able to attain things in life. So quality is not the same as quantity, so having 100 supporters is not going to give you that support that one person believing in you can. It's not the amount of people you're surrounded by, but it's really the quality of connections that you have with these people. It's not the quantity, but the depth of people that really matters when it comes to never feeling lonely. And finally, stay alone from time to time, even if that could be something that you're struggling with, you're not comfortable with being alone, but I encourage you to stay alone from time to time, stay bored from time to time, so you can really listen to yourself, your inner voices, your head, your thoughts, your heart, your gut, whatever it is, and have an old book nearby, write down your thoughts that come to you, things that truly speak to your heart, thoughts that really come from your head and not are from the outside inwards. So try to stay alone from time to time to uncover who you are as a person and surround yourself with good people that you can have good, great connections with, so that you never feel lonely. I hope that you enjoyed this video. I was meant to actually take a sip of this coffee since it had a heart in it, and I will. And I just encourage you to share your thoughts under this video, let me know how you enjoyed it. If you did, give it a thumbs up, tell me what you like about these videos, and if I should keep on doing more of these videos, because I truly enjoy filming them. And if you would like to support the work that I do, I encourage you to get my books that are available on my website. So they're available for international shipment to everywhere in the United States of America for now, but you can purchase all of my books as ebooks as well on my website. You can join my two pre-recorded online etiquette courses, The Art of Entertaining at Home, which teaches you how to set up a table according to four different seasons. If you're someone who's never hosted before, this is your go-to educational tutorial. And the second course is called Western Formal Dining, etiquette from A to Z, that teaches you how to behave at a formal dining table. So if you're going to meet your in-laws, if you're going to meet an important client for work, if you are attending a gala dinner, this is your go-to etiquette course. All these courses are pre-recorded, which means you can just purchase them and watch them anywhere at any time, wherever you are, and they give you a certificate of completion. And if you want to further support my work, you can join my Patreon etiquette movie club, where every month I do an analysis of an etiquette video for a movie from an etiquette standpoint. So I have there Dil Wears Prada, the first part, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Gone with the Wind, we have Titanic there. I have over 15 different movie analysis, and this content is exclusive for my Patreon only, so you can only find it there. And if you join it now, you have access to all those movie reviews. So if you're someone who loves movies and loves etiquette, then my Patreon etiquette movie club is for you. All the descriptions are below, underneath this video. And also, I just wanted to let you know that I do host online consultations over Zoom, one-on-one, so if you're interested in booking a consultation with me, you can also email me at info2melissahera.com to book an online consultation. Thank you so much for watching this video until the very end, I hope that you enjoyed it. And actually, since you're here, I wanted to show you what I'm wearing for today's video, which is just my leisure wear. I have this sort of like a lounge wear, pyjama, silk one from a brand called Intimissimi. I have this shirt that I'm more sure that I put on in order to look more put together for the video. It has my initials here, GM. It's from a local brand here, I think they're called Paper Moon, and they do this initials as well, customized. So I usually wear this shirt when I'm traveling or if I'm wearing a silk gown like that and I kind of want to be more decent, then I'm wearing this over shirt like that to show you my full look. It looks like this. So this is how it looks. And then I have here my very comfy Zara slippers for home that I always leave outside when I'm stepping on a carpet. So this is it and I hope that you enjoyed it. Thank you so much and I hope to see you in my next video. Bye!