So often we confuse being lonely with being alone. When we are lonely we have a great deal of pain and suffering with the thought that there is no one in our lives that wants us. We can feel depressed and anxious going back and forth from one of these feelings to the other.
Lonely is so empty with the feeling that we have no future with another person. We feel doomed to be without a partner and become envious and even jealous of those around us who have someone in their lives.
Being alone can be a whole different situation, for in fact, it can be a choice or even a break from others at times in our lives. We are not desperate to be with someone and we can even tolerate and like our own company. We do not need validation from anyone else that we are okay by ourselves. We can spend time with ourselves without feeling we have to have someone in our lives to make us better people. We like our own company. We need to know the difference between these two feelings in our lives!