Are you lonely? Loneliness is far more prevalent than you think

This morning, l saw on TV that a video that was made by a woman who owned a pub in Ireland bringing attention to the loneliness that is out there around Christmas had gone viral.

As l watched it, tears ran down my face. It touched me in so many ways. It featured an elderly man who was alone and had lost his wife putting flowers on her grave and walking amongst laughing and pre-occupied people through the street. It echoed all the loneliness that still exists around my own felt loss.

So do we think that loneliness is just what happens when you get old, because that is how it is often portrayed? Although there are, of course, lots of lonely elderly people who need our thoughts and our love.

I don't think it is. I have at times felt hollowed out by loneliness.

It is something that so many more people suffer from, in silence behind their own doors, than any of us could ever imagine.

It is something that is felt when you come home from yet another date with someone that you know isn't either right for you, or "the one". When you can hear your own key turning in your door, back to supper for one.

It is there when the world seems full of couples and you seem like the only single person!

It is there when the weekend comes and you have nobody special to spend it with.

It is there when the one you loved with all your heart "got away".

It is there when those you love have died.

It is there when love dies in your marriage, or a relationship that you can't replace. There in our endings.

It is there in hearing when the people around you tell you about their plans for lunches and dinners and weekends away and holidays and get-togethers with friends, and you have no such plans.

It is there when you are left out, and you are too proud to say or let anyone know.

It is there on Saturday nights and Sundays when you can see families and couples walking together in the streets, and you are alone.

It is there when you feel you keep on making bad choices in your relationships.

It is there in your regrets, where maybe you didn't hold on to your marriage, or your relationship, because you so believed that there had to be something better out there when, as it turned out, there wasn't.

It is there in our loss. It is there in our "Why have l ended up alone?", there in our fear that love might never come to stay.

It is there when our children grow and become adults, and the little people they were have gone forever and will never need you in the same way again.

It is there in the ache of our disappointments.

It is there when you give endlessly and nobody gives you anything back, there when you are taken for granted.

We need to feel "known"; we are wired for belonging and there is no lasting alternative to that.

It is a hard thing to tell someone, too. You can look like you've got it all rocking when you are out there but you can feel loneliness coursing through your veins even though nobody would ever imagine how lonely you feel inside.

Normally when l write, l write about the resolve, however, here l am writing this more to share and to say, that if you are feeling lonely, you are not alone. You are not the only one, and somehow in the sharing of knowing that, there is belonging.

Reach out. Beyond your pride. There is no shame in telling others that you are lonely.

As l walked through my door this afternoon my two little dogs ran to greet me. So happy l was home. That love is such a treasure.

We have to keep on looking and hoping for love to come, and maybe that is where the resolve lives. We have to give it too, to those who need our love, because it is our most precious gift, not only at Christmas, but always.

I have written this to hold your hand.

In the beautiful words of a Birdy song, "It is the people who help the people", don't turn those good hearts away because you don't want anyone to know or see.

Don't hide away, it is our sharing that dissolves loneliness through belonging to our humanity and love.