My five-year old great niece, Selah, is a great niece. She is charming and kind and empathetic and I adore her. Her name, Selah, was taken from the songbook of ancient Israel, the biblical book of Psalms. And faithful to her name, she loves to sing.

This year her Uncle Daniel and Aunt Madhavi gave her the perfect gift: a microphone and stand. Inspired. Selah's father sent us a video a few days ago featuring Selah, standing before the open mic, improvising a heartfelt song of loneliness. Her stream of consciousness included the following words of despair, alternately channeling, I say with a smile, the emotional and musical stylings of Mosie Lister and Billie Holiday:

They ask me to do something, and I tell them to stop doing it. But they never stop doing it. So I end up and love them back. But now they know what to do. I work every day. How they feel all alone. Let's do it by myself. All alone...can't you see...all alone.

Best I can tell, Selah initially and dramatically opines that people won't leave her alone; moments later, however, she despairs of being "all alone." If you find Selah's lyrics difficult to decipher, let me state the obvious: no, not that she's just five years old, but that loneliness is complicated.

Many who are alone are not lonely, and many who are lonely are not alone. Even among the lonely, there is a hesitation to surrender their aloneness, their privacy; and so, as in Selah's lyrics, there is a desire for companionship--on demand.

Loneliness in its purest form is a natural desire for companionship, a desire to know and to be known. But our desire for companionship, and with it our sense of loneliness, is often laden with unfair expectations of the very relationships for which we long. Loneliness then deepens and becomes almost indistinguishable from our felt need for identity, affirmation, and security from others. The pursuit of relationship then becomes more than a pursuit of companionship; it becomes a quest for completion.

A beloved mentor, a family therapist, James Orten, observed, "Two lonely and insecure people marry, hoping to find completion and happiness. Instead, they are two lonely and insecure people who are now married." Dr. Les Parrott writes:  

The truth is, self-worth does not come from the mere existence or presence of someone in your life. When you come to a relationship lacking self-worth, all you can offer is neediness. And even if you do win the heart of another, you'll still, over time, come up empty...It isn't anyone else's job to give you an identity or to make you whole. People in your life are meant to share it, not be it.

What might you find if you were to "pull apart" your desire for companionship from your "quest for completion"?

Have you ever been in relationship with someone seeking self-worth or transformation through the relationship? What was that like? Describe the strengths and weaknesses of that relationship. 

How might your quest for completion ultimately undermine the very relationships that could bring you companionship?

What do you need in order to discover and to bring to your relationships a healthy sense of identity, affirmation, and security? Where will you find it?