Book: Dancing with loneliness

Dancing with Loneliness by José María Rodríguez Olaizola SJ is published in Ireland and the UK by Messenger Publications. Priced at €12.95/£11.95.

The Philosopher Paul Tillich said that language created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone - and it created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone. It is when we experience a disconnect with our world, a diminishing or disappearance of the quality of our engagement with others, perhaps a feeling of irrelevance, that aloneness slides into loneliness.

However, loneliness is one of the most universal of all human experiences, a singular companion on our life journey. In his new book, Dancing with Loneliness, celebrated author José María R. Olaizola SJ says that if we can accept loneliness as a normal emotion, we can learn to listen to it and embrace it as a creative emptiness within which something new and life-giving can develop. This negative experience may provide us with a space for self-awareness, self-reflection, self-discovery, and self-acceptance. It can help us to rebuild trust in people and possibly choose those we trust more wisely.

Using the imagery of dance, Olaizola says the world is filled with the music in our hearts and that everyone has a different song. He describes a 'vicious' loneliness, painful and unwanted, which is destructive and does not carry the seed of new growth, 'a tortuous tango'. However, we can learn to guide our emotions and to dance to our own song. We can choose to tango alone or together. This book teaches us the steps.

Olaizola is perceptive, imaginative and down-to- earth, and he conveys his wisdom through literature, poetry, cinema and personal anecdotes. Rather than being a sombre read, this book sparkles with the potential of individual endeavour.

José María Rodríguez Olaizola SJ is a Jesuit, writer and sociologist. He is currently head of institutional communication for the Society of Jesus in Spain. He has an active social media presence and is the author of numerous books in his native Spanish. This is his first book with Messenger Publications

For further information see: www.messenger.ie/product/danclng-with-loneliness/