Molly and Jason broke up six months ago. The split came as a complete shock to Molly and she hasn’t been managing it very well. She’s become sullen and withdrawn, barely able to get herself motivated just to go to work in the morning, nevermind having any kind of social life. Her coworkers try to invite her out for drinks, her friends try to drag her out of the house, her mom and sisters show up with food and wine and a queue of bingeable shows to watch on Netflix, but Molly prefers to bury herself in bed with her cat, Tonto, and wallow in her misery. When her friends and family ask what in the hell is going on with her, Molly’s response is, “I’m just so lonely.”
You might be thinking, Lonely? What about all those friends and coworkers? What about her mom and sisters? What about Tonto? The thing is, the feeling of loneliness is not always about being alone. So what is loneliness? Why do we feel it? Typically, the feeling of loneliness is the byproduct of focusing on the absence of somebody in our life, focusing on how they’re no longer there. Which is interesting because, like Molly, most of us have all kinds of people who love and care about us. Those friends and coworkers, family members, even pets that absolutely adore us. But all it takes is focusing on the absence of one person and all of a sudden we start telling the story that we're alone and that we don't have anybody in our life.
Now, let’s be clear up front, it's totally okay to feel sad or to feel a little bit of loneliness when we notice that we're missing someone. That's normal and that's healthy, but it's not so great if we start waking up to loneliness, and months and years are passing us by. When we focus on and obsess about how this person is no longer in our life, loneliness can begin to define our way of being, how we identify ourselves. And now we want to know how do we get out of loneliness? How do we get out of this conditioning? Because all emotions are conditioned and trained. So what can we do instead to train and condition a different emotion, a love based emotion that is going to support us to perform better in our life and bring the best version of ourselves to our life and the people that we love?
It all starts with…(drumroll please)...our old friend, the nervous system. See, your nervous system doesn’t know it’s living in the 21st century. It doesn’t even know what a century is. The software that runs your nervous system was programmed hundreds of thousands of years ago, when we were proto-humans trying to survive day to day. For those early ancestors survival meant being part of a group, a tribe. There was no such thing as rugged individualism on the ancient African plains. Being alone in a place like that meant your demise was just around the next corner. And being abandoned, or tossed out of the tribe, meant certain death. Loneliness, and the feeling of loss that comes with it, developed as a defense mechanism that says, “Hey! You better find some friendly peeps or we’re gonna be toast!”
Today, when a relationship ends or someone we love passes away or transitions out of this life, we’re not in any danger of losing our own life, but our nervous system doesn’t know that. It simply reacts the same as it would have if we’d been voted out of the tribe. Add in a lifetime of emotional patterning around loneliness and, for some people, it can become crippling.
Terrence, Terry to his friends, recently lost his grandfather. It was nothing tragic, or even unexpected. The man was in his nineties, lived a full life before his body finally closed up shop. But Terry has taken it exceptionally hard. He and his gramps were incredibly close and it feels like there’s a big hole in Terry’s life. It’s been over a year now but Terry still sulks around, moody, doesn’t seem to have much interest in anything. When people ask what’s up with him, he says, “I just feel so lonely without gramps around.” Terry is suffering in the space called loneliness, but let’s also consider the impact this is having on all of his loved ones who are still around. His wife, his kids, his buddies. Are we not enough for you?
Clearly, for both Molly and Terry, living in a state of loneliness is not sustainable. But there’s good news for them, and anyone who finds loneliness is defining their lives. It starts by paying attention and recognizing when we are focused on how a person is no longer there in our life. Then we can make a distinction. Molly can say, Hey, the relationship with so and so has changed and evolved. We're now becoming friends. We're now acquaintances. We're now moving into a new phase of our life. She can focus on what the relationship has become instead of the absence of a relationship. And I get it, easier said than done, Joey. But the idea here is consistency. Remember, we’re training and conditioning the nervous system to have a different response. It’s going to take time, but with practice and intention, we can shift from that space of loneliness to a space of acceptance, peace, and love.
This can also work when we're experiencing grief and the deep loss of somebody that we care about. Terry can focus on the presence of gramps in his thoughts and memories, even years after gramps has passed. He can focus on what gramps meant to him, the great times that they shared, the wisdom that he learned from gramps, the lessons he took away. And the newfound appreciation that he has for life because gramps’s transition reminds him that life is so special and sacred. Again, not necessarily easy to do, and there should always be an appropriate period for grief and mourning. But I promise you this, the last thing gramps would want is to see Terry suffering in the space of loneliness. And his own family would be much better served having Terry back in their lives.
We always have access to what's there for us if we remember to focus on the present. We need to ask the questions, What is the relationship now? What is it becoming? Then transition into where we're going with the relationship, which is focusing on the presence of something rather than the absence. We can remind ourselves of all the beauty and all the relationships that are still in our life, the friends we have, the family, and our work buddies. When we start paying attention, we see that we have all these people in our life, and we’re not really alone at all.
If we're willing to start putting our attention in the direction of what’s present in our lives, we'll see that we always have support, even if it's more in the universal sense. Like, the universe is supporting me and I'm supported by life. I'm alive, I exist. The air is supporting me, I'm breathing. The more you focus on how you're supported and what's available to you, the less you're going to feel lonely or focus on the absence of things. And the more you're going to feel the presence of things in your life, such as love and connection, safety and support.
If you find that loneliness has a lingering presence in your life, join us for a Power Series program. We’ll provide you with the tools, techniques, and strategies for recognizing when loneliness is present and how to shift your emotions, thoughts and nervous system toward achieving the results you’re looking for. Click HERE to learn more about the Power Series and sign up today!
