Most people struggle with loneliness. Most people struggle with loneliness during all times of the year, but the holidays can be extra difficult for various reasons.

The 40 suggestions below can help you feel less lonely during the holidays (or any time!). I’ve done the research. I’ve seen the results. Everything listed here really can help. I’m not going to promise your loneliness will disappear because I don’t believe it will. Loneliness comes and goes. It swells and shrinks. But it also gains and loses power. Let’s do what we can to make sure our loneliness loses power.

If you want help making a plan to broaden your belongings and reduce your loneliness, let’s set up a One-on-One Spiritual Direction for Belonging™ Session. We’ll strategize. We’ll make a plan that’s unique to your circumstances and needs. We’ll help you move closer to the belonging you desire. Email me at charlotte@charlottedonlon.com to begin the conversation.

Establish an easy Five-Minute Ritual.

Step One: Sit in a safe and comfortable spot in your home.
Step Two: Light a candle.
Step Three: Take six deep breaths with a six-count inhale and a six-count exhale.
Step Four: Read a poem aloud or silently."
Step Five: Blow out the candle.

Try to do this every day or most days at the same time of day. Try different poems or choose one that suits this particular season of life. Learn more about the benefits of this quick ritual in this Instagram Live/Reel. Need a great candle? I got you.

Quote: “Rituals help us feel less alone. They help us feel like we belong to ourselves and our places, and they can broaden our belongings to other people, to the world around us, or to God.” — Charlotte Donlon

Additional Resources: Do you know the “Sunday Routine” series in the New York Times? It profiles notable New Yorkers and their Sunday rituals. It’s lovely. Here’s a recent one.
Sip a warm beverage. Learn more about why this helps in Chapter 13 of The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

Quote: “Our social experiences are not always separate from our bodily experiences. In other words, we feel in our bodies what we experience in our relationships. It's as if our bodies are thermometers, registering in bone and skin and muscle the temperature of our lives and the condition of our inclusion.”—Charlotte Donlon, The Great Belonging

Additional Resources: Sheldon knows what’s up. Watch the first 45 seconds of this Big Bang Theory clip
Conduct a Quick Belonging Checkup.

Quote: “The things that offer me the greatest relief from loneliness are also the things that bring me into the moment, and remind me of my senses. My children’s laughter. Petting my puppy. Listening to birdsong in the woods. Baking.”—Natalie Eve Garrett

Additional Resources: Read more from Garrett in the Lit Hub interview, “How the Pandemic Has Changed the Way We Think About Solitude and Loneliness.”
Schedule an extra appointment with your hair stylist. Learn more about why this helps here.

Quote: “Salons and barbershops have long been places that provide positive opportunities for people to converse and enjoy a sense of community while caring for themselves.” — Charlotte Donlon
Become a regular at a coffee shop or gym or other places where you’ll see familiar faces (and maybe even chat a bit!).

Quote: “Relationships and conversations with acquaintances help us feel like we are a part of something larger than ourselves, give us a greater sense of connectedness, and enhance our quality of life.” — Charlotte Donlon

Additional Resources: “Where Everybody Knows Your Name: How becoming a regular at a neighborhood shop soothed my loneliness” by Maura Kelly in The New York Times and “God I Miss Eavesdropping” by Brock Colyar in The Cut.
Attach yourself to a great street. Here’s a bit about one street I’ve attached myself to.

“I knew that every time I returned to this city, I would walk up and down this street and receive what it has to offer me.” — Charlotte Donlon
Listen to music that helps you feel less alone. Learn more about why this helps in Chapter 35 of The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

Quote: “Sarah Vaughan singing ‘Lullaby of Birdland’ feels like the touch of worn cotton; a rotation of old T-shirts my mother wears when she’s cooking… And when I hear Mingus’s ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’—that pendulous elegy, sad but sleuthing, like a gloomy gumshoe’s anthem—I smell my father’s plaid shirt. Its collar has since lost its stiff. One button snaps with less snap! It hangs in my closet in Brooklyn, sharing a hanger with two other shirts—an indignity I should fix.” — Durga Chew Bose, Too Much and Not the Mood

Additional Resources: “How Can Music Engagement Address Loneliness?” by Frederic Kiernan and Jane W. Davidson, International Journal of Environmental Research and Mental Health
Do visio divina with a work of art. Read about how visio divina helps me belong to myself and God in chapter 38 of The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

Quote: “Was it a mirror that reflected an image of my soul? If so, what was it trying to show me? I stood in front of this painting, asking questions and waiting for answers.” — Charlotte Donlon, The Great Belonging
Explore new ways to broaden your belongings to the church year. More rituals and more traditions are always a great idea. Learn how Advent and the church year can help you belong here.

Quote: “The core of a celebration speaks to the hearts of all humankind–in all times and in all places. It speaks the symbolic language of the soul and is hardly ever practical, but more poetic, playful, prayerful. All good ceremony asks us to engage and make real the problem at hand and to feel and express fully both the dark and light sides of its reality, its joy and its fear or pain. Ceremony makes the ordinary extraordinary.” — Gertrude Mueller Nelson, To Dance with God
Plan ahead and create a support team. Learn how in this podcast interview with Aundi Kolber.

Quote: “I often encourage people to try to identify maybe two or three people in their life that feel safe enough essentially so that if they were feeling really vulnerable, they could potentially reach out. Now this is important to do again before you need it. So this might look like contacting them in whatever way feels comfortable to you. If it's text, okay, that's doable. If it's a phone call, that's great. I use Voxer sometimes with some of my friends who live in different parts of the country, but it's kind of being able to have a script of saying something like: I know that Thanksgiving is usually a really pretty tricky time for me because of X, Y, and Z reasons, and I've found that it's helpful if I just know if things are hard for some reason, if I just need to just touch base with you to say, today's been a tough day. Can we chat for five minutes? Or can we exchange funny memes or can you just remind me that I'm not alone?
Whatever that looks like, it’s so helpful to identify those things early and to connect with those people. I think it’s a really good starter plan to begin to know that if you need it, if you need that friend support, that's there to utilize.” — Aundi Kolber
Hang out with some plants and other growing things. Learn more in Chapter 32 of The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

Quote: “While appreciating the beauty of the island, she noticed a small sea snail crawling back into its shell and thought, ‘I don't have to be lonely with a world of different creatures to be explored.’” — Charlotte Donlon, The Great Belonging

Additional Resources: Read “How the Pandemic Has Changed the Way We Think About Solitude and Loneliness” in Lit Hub, where Emily Raboteau reflects, “Cultivating seasonal native plants makes me feel connected to the land.”
Re-watch a favorite TV show.

Quote: “One really effective way to reduce stress for many people is to re-watch or revisit something they have already seen or done before. [Professor Linda Byrne of Australia’s Deakin University] tells us that in stressful times, our brains and bodies’ desire comfort and one of the places we find comfort is in entertainment we have consumed previously. ‘When people play familiar content, they know what to expect. In the current environment, where there’s so much uncertainty around, we retreat to something familiar because it’s reliable and reassuring and can be calming for us’ she explains. ‘It can also serve as a way of nostalgia for a better time when things weren’t so stressful. It arouses those positive feelings and can become the new way of ‘switching off’ from work.’”

Additional Resources: The quote above comes from “Press play: The link between stress and re-watching the same TV show on repeat,” from the blog of Deakin University in Victoria, Australia.
Cancel your plans. Establish boundaries with people who make you feel lonely or sad or anxious.

Quote: “When you think more deeply about what you want to attend and why, you start building the community (and life) you actually want.” — Priya Parker
Make more lists. Begin keeping a list of people, places, things, and ideas that help you belong to yourself, others, and the world.

Additional Resources: Ross Gay’s poem “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude” is an amazing example of a list of things that help the speaker belong.
Read a novel. Read more about how stories help in Chapter 37 of The Great Belonging: How Lonelienss Leads Us to Each Other.

Quote: “I didn’t skim. I didn’t skip pages. I grasped onto every word from the opening sentences…This scene is perfectly portrayed with details I identify with so strongly that I have to wonder if [the author] has written about my own life.” — Charlotte Donlon, The Great Belonging
Read more poems.

Additional Resources: The poet Major Jackson knows poetry’s power. In “Why I Write Poetry,” he answers the titular question when he writes, “Because one drop of rain is hope for the thirsty.”
Honor your objects. Gather five things from your home that hold memories of belonging. Hold them. Look closer. Take notes or journal about why these objects help you feel less alone. Keep them nearby.

Additional Resources: Read “The Kitchen, Indexed,” a poem by Ira Goga
Take six deep breaths with a six-count inhale and a six-count exhale. Let your breath be a prayer or meditation. Pause and let your slow inhales and exhales integrate your body, mind, and soul.

Additional Resources: A recent New York Times article popularized the term “screen apnea” to describe how our breathing is disrupted, becoming shallow and infrequent, when we go about daily online tasks like checking email. The exercise of taking six deep breaths with a six-count inhale and a six-count exhale can wake us from the lull of our digital work, calm and energize us, and return our breathing to a healthy rhythm.
Establish a 15-minute ritual using nourishing rhythms, encounters with art, good words, beauty, delicious food, yummy drinks, whatever comforts and inspires.

Quote: “We mark the major moments in our human existence with a rite or a ceremony. Sometimes even the smaller events in our lives need the recognition of a celebration or the consciousness that a ritual brings. In our creative ritual making, we draw a circle around that place and that event so that we can be more fully awake to the magnitude of the moment.” — Gertrude Mueller Nelson, To Dance with God
Break a rule. What is one arbitrary rule that you follow that’s not serving you? How did you absorb this rule? How can you let go of it.?

Quote: “I want you to let go of the rules you've created for yourself or absorbed from others that define what it means to be a ‘real writer.’ Anyone who writes anything is a real writer. So, if you've written an email or a text or a to do list or a letter or a postcard or a journal entry or a tweet or an essay or a poem or a novel, you're a writer. Do the work you need to do to let go of the rules that no one is making you follow. It may take a few days or a few weeks or a few months. Give your attention to your views on this topic. You may have rules you didn't even know you had. As soon as you notice the writing rules you've created for yourself, that you've absorbed, that you're trying to follow, that you don't even want to follow, try to let go of them.” — Charlotte Donlon
Talk about it! Tell a friend or family member or therapist or spiritual director about your loneliness. The more we talk about our loneliness, the less power it has over us.

Quote: “What if we joined our sorrows? What if that is joy?” — Ross Gay, The Book of Delights

Additional Resources: Or, as David Brooks suggests, talk with another person about them. Be a good question-asker. Make someone else feel seen.
Re-watch a favorite film. And watch it again a few weeks later.

Quote: “There’s no better place to experience the contemplative impulse, that quietness and solitude, at least for a little while, than a cinema.” — Alissa Wilkinson

Additional Resources: The quote above comes from Wilkinson’s film review “Priscilla and Sofia Coppola’s lonely girls: Solitude and wisdom at the movies” in Vox
Sing a song. Learn more about why this helps in Chapter 27 of The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

Quote: “Singing is a communal act. This is obvious when we are performing with choirs or singing at church on Sundays. It’s not so obvious when we sing a hymn alone in our cars on a Tuesday afternoon while running errands. [But even this] connects me to others who have sung the hymn throughout the ages. It connects me to God and reminds me who God is and who God will always be.” — Charlotte Donlon, The Great Belonging
Draw a picture of a corner of your home. Learn more about why this helps in Chapter 33 of The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

Quote: “John Ruskin didn’t believe that drawing was dependent on talent. Rather, he thought that drawing was vital because ‘it could teach us to see–that is, to notice rather than merely look.’” — Charlotte Donlon, The Great Belonging
Eat some comfort food. Enjoy favorite snacks and meals that are associated with happy memories that help you feel more connected to yourself, others, and the world around you.

Quote: “I fed myself like a woman who needed to love the world again. I made fresh lo mein tossed with sautéed broccolini, soy sauce, ginger, sriracha; corn tortillas warmed in a pan and loaded with warmed and spiced refried beans, chunks of creamy avocado, twists of lime; elaborate salads with golden beets and goat cheese and walnuts, tossed with goddess dressing and robust, garlicky croutons. I bought produce I didn’t know how to cook or eat. Googled it. Found new obsessions, spit others into the sink. Smelled the durian with longing—the scent incredible to me, overly sweet and meaty—but never could afford to buy one. I bought salad mixes with edible flowers from the farmers market and stood over the counter in my cottage’s kitchen, nibbling at the petals like I imagined a snail would. The meals were overwhelmingly vegetarian—my ex-boyfriend was a vegetarian, the son of Seventh-day Adventists, and I’d gotten used to it. I learned to like wine. At least, I learned to like two-dollar bottles from Trader Joe’s, which was all I could afford.” — “Carmen Maria Machado On The Meals Of Her 20s” in Refinery29

Additional Resources: “The Science of Comfort Food,” by Melinda Wenner Moyer, The New York Times, 2022
Hang out with your pet (or your friend’s pet). Learn more about why this helps in Chapter 9 of The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

Quote: “As we walked along our usual routes throughout our neighborhood, and as I performed my regular duties for her, I slowly remembered who I was. She was my mental health doula. Happy helped me return to who I was before I got sick. She helped me belong to myself anew.” — Charlotte Donlon, The Great Belonging
Make a list of lost friends and answered prayers. See mine in Chapter 26 of The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

Quote: “A few months ago, I told my spiritual director I felt disconnected from people. I was alone too much, and some weeks I only saw my husband and our kids. My few dear friends at the time were in busy seasons. ‘Maybe I need more friends,’ I said. ‘You could pray about it,’ she responded. ‘Ask God to meet you in this. Ask for more friends.’” — Charlotte Donlon, The Great Belonging

Additional Resources: “What Adults Forget About Friendship,” by Rhaina Cohen in The Atlantic and “Like many men, I had few close friends. So I began a friendship quest” by Leonard Felson in the Washington Post
Redirect. Missing an ex? Tired of being sad? Become more in touch with your curiosity. Research a new project or idea for at least 10 minutes most days. Let your curiosity lead you to new thoughts, new obsessions, new longings.

Quote: “She would make things out of her isolation and distance, things that would be of use to others one day.” — Richard Deming on Zora Neale Hurston, “Understanding Zora Neale Hurston’s Loneliness,” Lit Hub

Additional Resources: Read Deming’s book This Exquisite Loneliness: What Loners, Outcasts and the Misunderstood Can Teach Us About Creativity
Think about the potential benefits of loneliness. Read Chapter 42 in The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other to get you started.

Quote: “My friend and former therapist, Gordon Bals, recently said this about loneliness: ‘I do think there is profound good in loneliness. It helps us reflect, make changes, seek more and make space for God.’” — Charlotte Donlon, The Great Belonging

Additional Resources: “You Can Learn to Love Being Alone” by Holly Burns in The New York Times
Embrace the ordinary. Read about some of my experiences of embracing the ordinary in Chapter 8 of The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

Quote: “The poet’s habit of living should be set on a key so low and plain, that the common influences should delight him. His cheerfulness should be the gift of the sunlight; the air should suffice for his inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Poet”
Plan a party. Why not? It can be a small party. A big party. A medium party. A simple party. A fancy party. Any kind of party.

Quote: “When a gathering sprouts from an actual need [such as loneliness], we give our guests the experience and pleasure of relevance.” – Priya Parker

Additional Resources: “How Dinner Parties Became the Fuzzy Blanket of Adulthood” by Alissa Wilkinson, Bon Appetit
Join a book club or a Bible Study or a writer’s group. Or start one!

Additional Resources: This Harvard Business Review article suggests that book clubs can create a sense of belonging in the workplace by building stronger working relationships and making colleagues more comfortable having substantive conversations.
Nourish yourself. You won’t be belong to yourself, others, or the world very well if you’re depleted and exhausted. Rest more. Be less busy. Let go of a few obligations. Put yourself in the way of more beauty, more goodness. Maybe my Daily Nourishment email will help!

Quote: “For me solitude is, ideally, an embrace: I am choosing time with and for myself.” — Maya Shanbhag Lang

Additional Resources: Read more from Lang in the Lit Hub interview “How the Pandemic Has Changed the Way We Think About Solitude and Loneliness”
Speaking of goodness, seek the good. Maybe my Five Good Things email newsletter will help!

Quote: “You’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.” — The Message, trans. Eugene Peterson, Philippians 4:8
Vent. Be honest. Say a lot of words out loud about how much your loneliness sucks. Say it out loud to yourself or to someone you trust.

Additional Resources: You’ll be in good company, for instance, with the contributors to The Lonely Stories, (2022): A collection of essays about the joys and struggles of being alone by 22 literary writers, including Lev Grossman, Jhumpa Lahiri, Lena Dunham, Jesmyn Ward, Yiyun Li, and Anthony Doerr.
Keep practicing broadening your belongings. If you feel lonely in a certain area, be more intentional about deepening your belongings in another area. It might be hard to figure this out at first, but the more you practice it, the better you’ll get at doing it. Take notes as you try different approaches. What works? Do that more. What doesn’t work? Skip it.

Quote: “I love the solitude I experience on the page (writing or reading) and while working out (I’m a weightlifter), when the physical world disappears. There’s a kind of transcendence of space and time.” — Maya Shanbhag Lang
Smell good smells. I know a candle! (Or two or three or four!) Learn more about how our senses can help us belong in Chapter 14 of The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.

“I always felt that my father was thrilled to have me as his daughter. No motorcycle trip was complete without my accompanying him. We would zigzag our way through the congested streets on our way to Anarkali Bazaar to get fresh lamb and haleem for dinner. I loved whiffing the aromas of cardamom, turmeric, simmering meat, and bubbling naan from the many cement ovens that erupted as large cylinders from the ground.” — Samra Habib, We Have Always Been Here
Daydream. It’s good for you! Just don’t stay there forever. Find your way back to reality and seek creative ways to make the things you daydream about a reality. Is it really that much of a long shot? If it is, can you try daydreaming about something more obtainable?

Quote: “‘Positive constructive daydreaming (PCD),’ where we cast our mind forward and imagine future possibilities in a creative, positive way, can be quite beneficial.” — Monica Parker

Additional Resources: “Why Daydreaming is So Good For You,” by Monica Parker in TIME
Write more. Journal, take notes, write a letter to a friend, whatever. Writing is good for you and has been proven to alleviate loneliness. Not sure what to write? Daily Nourishment can help with that.

Quote: “It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about.” — Joan Didion, “On Keeping A Notebook”
Try to have hope. Or try to hope for hope. I promise you can broaden your belongings to help mitigate your loneliness. It takes a little effort and intentionality but it’s totally worth your time.

Quote: “I talk about hope being a muscle. It’s not wishful thinking, and it’s not idealism. It’s not even a belief that everything will turn out OK. It’s an imaginative leap, which is what I’ve seen in people like John Lewis and Jane Goodall. These are people who said: ‘I refuse to accept that the world has to be this way. I am going to throw my life and my pragmatism and my intelligence at this insistence that it could be different and put that into practice.’ That’s a muscular hope… I don’t always feel robustly hopeful. Depression is something I’ve struggled with. I’ve found the world an unbearable place for months at a time in the last two years. But at the same time I don’t feel like there’s a place in my work for my despair.” — Krista Tippett

Additional Resources: Read more from Tippet in the interview “Krista Tippett Wants You to See All the Hope That’s Being Hidden,” by David Marchese in The New York Times Magazine

Which one do you want to try first? If you want some support in navigating your loneliness and belonging and determining what to try, what to skip, etc. contact me to set up a One-on-One Spiritual Direction for Belonging™Session. Email me at charlotte@charlottedonlon.com to begin the conversation.

Charlotte Donlon’s writing and work are always rooted in helping her readers, audience, and clients notice how art and other good things help them belong to themselves, others, the divine, and the world.

Charlotte's first book, The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other, was published by Broadleaf Books in 2020. The Great Belonging explores various angles of loneliness and belonging. In vulnerable, thoughtful prose, Donlon helps us understand our own occasional or frequent loneliness and offers touchpoints for understanding alienation. She is currently writing her second book, Spiritual Direction for Writers, which will be published by Eerdmans in 2024 or 2025.

Charlotte is an author with a broad audience and a spiritual director for people who inhabit points all along the belief-unbelief spectrum. She includes some faith threads in her writing and work, but her words always strive to be generous and welcoming to people from different spiritual traditions, in addition to those who share her Christian beliefs.

Charlotte is the founder of Spiritual Direction for Writers® , Spiritual Direction for Belonging™, and Parenting with Art™. Her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Seattle Pacific University where she studied creative nonfiction with Paula Huston and Lauren F. Winner. She holds a certificate in spiritual direction from Selah Center for Spiritual Formation. To receive Charlotte’s latest updates, news, announcements, and other good things, subscribe to her Five Good Things email newsletter.

Buy The Great Belonging