I feel empty. Confused. Lost. Alone…

Recently one of my colleagues told me that she is feeling completely lost. She doesn’t know what she is doing and why she is doing. She is feeling directionless. She also said that every morning it feels like she is dragging herself to work. After a long and intense discussion with her, I reflected back at times in my life when I had similar kind of feeling. How it felt and what I did. Feeling lost feels a lot like depression. You might feel unmotivated and uninterested in work. You might feel like life is meaningless. You also might feel like you’ve lost sight of the person you want to be. You might no longer recognize yourself. It also can feel like you’ve always felt this lost, and you always will. You might struggle to remember a time when you felt like your old self. You may see no way out of it.

Below are some of the reasons why so many of us feel lost in our lives.

Drift Syndrome. When we can't figure out why we're doing what we're doing, or how we ended up working the job we're working, a sense of "drift" settles in. It seems that instead of planning-out our career, we just drifted along the tides and eventually found ourselves here. Or perhaps we had a plan, but lack of follow-through and/or a few of life's hard knocks changed it, and we just drifted along. The truth is, most of us drifted to some extent into whatever it is we're doing. Nonetheless, feeling the "drift" is an emotional trigger for feeling lost.

Too Busy for Passion. If you're passionate about your main job, that's great. But for many people, their job is a means to pay the bills, not an outlet for their deeply felt passions. But if we always think we're too busy with our jobs and other parts of our daily routines to pursue anything we're passionate about, then feeling incredibly bland, if not lost, is inevitable.

Can't Locate a Purpose. Right alongside passion is the necessity of perceiving that what you do has a purpose, a meaningful reason for being. One of the side effects of the knowledge worker revolution has been that many people work on discreet tasks that appear detached from a larger sense of purpose, and their supervisors feel no obligation to connect the dots. It's hard to get motivated about the meaningfulness of your position when you have only a shallow sense of why what you're doing contributes to the big picture. This may be one more reason to seek out a passionate sidebar, because it may also offer the sense of purpose you're missing.

Cognitive Overload. We simply have too much on our mental plates day-in and day-out to manage effectively. Without a quality external system for helping to manage it all, we can't help but feel overloaded, and that contributes to a feeling of being out of sorts with the responsibilities and demands we face endlessly. Our brains didn't evolve for nonstop information-driven, consumerism-driven, technology-laden societies, so we have to find tools to offload our cognitive load, or sink.

Thankfully, there is a way out. There are many ways.

Acknowledge and accept how you’re feeling. Denying our emotions usually just leads to self-destructive behavior. When a person acknowledges their feeling of being lost emotionally, they can then attend to it. Remind yourself that it’s fine to feel sad and disappointed and helpless. These are natural consequences when our life path changes abruptly in a direction we did not want.

Take compassionate care of yourself. After you’ve acknowledged how you’re feeling, sooth yourself with practices such as deep breathing, meditation, and yoga. Also, be kind to yourself. Remind yourself that although you may feel your circumstances are out of your control, you can still control how you react to them.

Use your loneliness as a self-directing guide. You’ve most likely heard the expression: “You have to know where you’ve been to know where you’re going.” Loneliness also serves as a life signal to indicate you’re in search of something. It’s when we’re in the midst of solitude that answers come from true soul searching.

Realize loneliness helps you face the truth. Being in the constant company of others, although comforting sometimes, can often serve as a distraction when we need to face the reality of a situation. Solitude cuts straight to the chase and forces you to deal with the problem at hand. See it as a blessing that can serve as a catalyst to set things right.

Be aware that you have more control than you think. Typically, when we see ourselves as being lost or lonely, it gives us an excuse to view everything we come in contact with in a negative light. It lends itself to putting ourselves in the victim mode, when the truth of the matter is that you choose your attitude in every situation. No one can force a feeling upon you! It is you who has the ultimate say as to how you choose to react.

Keep striving to do your best. Often those who are feeling isolated and unto themselves will develop a defeatist attitude. They’ll do substandard work because their self-esteem is low and they don’t care. Never let this feeling take away your sense of worth. Do your best always and when you come through this dark time, others will admire how you stayed determined in spite of the obstacles you had to overcome.

Don’t forget that time is precious. When we’re lost in a sea of loneliness and depression, it’s all too easy to reflect on regrets of past life events. This does nothing but feed negativity and perpetuate the situation. Instead of falling prey to this common pitfall, put one foot in front of the other and acknowledge every positive step you take. By doing this, you can celebrate the struggles you overcome at the end of the day.

Remember to ask for help if the problem persists. The feeling of being lost and lonely is common to everyone, but typically it will last for a relatively short period of time. But if the problem persists longer than you feel it should, don’t ignore it. When your ability to reason and consider things rationally becomes impaired, do not wish away the problem and think it isn’t worthy of attention. Seek help from people around you.

Loneliness and a sense of feeling lost can in many ways be extremely painful and difficult to deal with at best. However, these feelings can also serve as a catalyst for change in our lives if we acknowledge them and act.