Loneliness Is NOT A Disease, It’s Just Trying To TELL You Something (Response To “Psychology Today” Article)

Women (and men) are being misled, and I can’t sit by quietly as it happens.

A part of the mainstream psychology community is trying to convince us that loneliness is a disease.

It is not a disease, it is a signal. It signals the lack of something we need: connection.

Much like hunger is a signal that we have an unmet need for food. Hunger is NOT a disease to be pathologized, and loneliness is not a disease to be pathologized.

And believing loneliness is a disease is dangerous. VERY dangerous.

Because the SECOND we choose to make it a disease it becomes something to eradicate rather than listen to, something to bury or numb under DISCONNECTIVE drugs rather than experience with full presence to HEAR what it is trying to tell us.

We HAVE to stop calling EVERYTHING a disease. In fact, THAT is our real disease, as Marianne Williamson points out. But where she takes a spiritual stance in this, there is room for a rational, pragmatic one too.

When we have an unmet need for connection, we NEED to NOTICE it. Loneliness is that ‘hunger’ signal. That hunger signal is how we know we need to take ACTION to go get food. Without that signal, or if we treated the hunger signal as an enemy, we would be at war with it rather than heeding it.

Loneliness feels bad. Like being hungry. Except people feel shame around loneliness and tend not to admit feeling lonely, especially those with a self-image of being a powerful, strong, independent woman.

But the only BAD thing about loneliness is when we ignore it and fail to take action, or take UNHEALTHY action.

The REAL crisis, folks, is that people don’t know WHAT to do about their loneliness. You can feel lonely as a single woman, or you can also feel lonely when you have a partner you don’t feel close to anymore (one study found more than half of the people with chronic loneliness were married). And there are lots of coping mechanisms people use. Some of us distract ourselves from it by over-committing to filling every second of our day with tasks and keeping our mind racing so there is never a quiet moment to notice our feelings. Yep, over-working, over-committing, living in our heads, filling our mind with CONSTANT thinking (notice if you sit in quietude easily or jump immediately onto your phone to use the internet, engage with apps, check for texts, read emails etc for example). I have had clients who used to travel excessively to distract themselves from loneliness, others who triple-down on doing Mom tasks and tasks for others instead of themselves, and yet other clients who used anti-depressants of various types to disrupt the feelings of loneliness. Distraction or drugs that disconnect you from feeling your real feelings are NOT the same thing as actually meeting your need for connection, this is more the throw-a-rug-over-it-and-pretend-it’s-not-there approach, which I do not believe helps solve the real source of the issue long-term. That said,  correctly prescribed drugs can and do help short-term or in extreme situations, in my non-medical, but extensive relationship coaching experience. One recent client needed alternative herbal treatments, another new prospective client needed traditional prescription drugs to get them through a severe episode of depression as they let go of a partner during a dramatic break-up and break-down — but long term we need a strategy that meets the actual need for connection (I ended up helping that prospective client after she had stabilized her emotional state and we could dig into the long-term man-pattern).

Another way people deal with loneliness is to get so tired of feeling powerless to solve it, that they want to feel IN CONTROL again so they declare that they have DECIDED they don’t want a relationship at all. Sometimes it’s sincerely coming from a deep, loved, at peace place (think of some spiritual people who give themselves to God), but USUALLY it’s just a decision to settle and feel more in control — if they KNEW the right partner WAS available they’d RATHER have that, but lacking a ‘loneliness cure’ they would rather feel like they had at least some certainty and control so they convince themselves they do not want what they do really want deep-down. In case you couldn’t guess, THAT particular approach does not work out so well in the long run either. The deep desire for connection eats away at them and either they over-compensate in out-of-proportion ways for the lack of connection (like the new client who had 7 dogs and still felt lonely, but said she felt like they gave her the unconditional love she needed… she just needed more of them), or they give up completely and fall into a deep depression. Others will have low-quality relationships with the ‘wrong men’ or stay with a partner they are not deeply fulfilled with just to partially meet the need.

I have a TON of empathy for people who feel underfed in their need for human connection but who don’t know how to get it in a healthy way — they are usually at a loss because past experiences have been painful or disappointing. Really, no one ever modeled what healthy human connection REALLY looked liked as you were growing up (this was my situation in my twenties and early thirties and it took a decade of work to get good at it).

Look, this IS a need. Babies who are not touched die faster than babies who are not given food.

We NEED this.

See what I mean about loneliness being a SIGNAL like hunger not a disease?

And you do not try to get rid of a functioning signal, you pay attention to it.

Here is what I do with clients when loneliness arises:

1. Feel it in the present moment it is arising
2. Notice what emotions come with it (sadness? anger at an ex or ‘unfair’ Universe?)
3. Ask yourself, “What belief about myself fuels that emotion? What am I saying is true about me, to feel that way?” So if they are sad… they may be sad because they believe “I am never going to find anyone. I am unloveable. No one will ever choose me.”
4. Use one of several tools to begin letting go of that old belief and replacing it with a new belief to counter-act it, such as “I love myself completely. The Universe created me and loves me. Friends and family love me. My partner, met or unmet, loves me.”
5. From THIS healthier paradigm, select ONE immediate action you can take to meet your need for connection. The action you would take if you knew you were fully loved. This is easier after doing step 3 because once you shift your feelings and beliefs, even a bit, it’s like the clouds part and a ray of light comes through with ideas of what you really need in order to feel connection.

It starts with SELF-CONNECTION like mirror work, journalling with the inner child, doing something you deeply want but have been denying yourself, etc. I use tools like my Loveworthy Toolkit, Inner Freedom, Mirror Work, Journalling, Inner Child, Inner Baby Presence, and many more. Tony Robbins, Byron Katie and others have many wonderful tools too. Clients’ intuition has also provided answers like, “This Sunday night I need ‘Me’ time with a good book and a bubble bath, then writing poetry from my soul”. Whatever the form of self-connection, it is exactly what you really need.

This is why, as Psychology Today said in this month’s cover piece on Loneliness “recent studies are revealing that the subjective feeling of loneliness—the internal experience of disconnection or rejection—is at the heart of the problem” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201803/cure-disconnection). But the article , which starts out with some good intentions, fails to stay focused on the real solution — it falls into the common trap of much of the psychology community on it’s loneliness ‘cures’ recommendations by offering a slew of EXTERNAL solutions at the end of the article. Connection MUST begin with internal work. I have immense respect for trained psychologists and therapists, having worked with many, using academic studies to stay up to date on knowledge and best-practices in the field of human behavior, plus me currently being trained by world renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel (check out one of her amazing TED talks here). But, coming from a life-coaching background and experience with thousands of powerful women clients, I had fewer restrictions and previous processes that I carried into my work with clients so I developed my approach based on adapting my training to what I actually saw work best for clients. Instead of of deciding what clients needed, my approach was very much developed by clients revealing what worked for them as I paid attention — SO… here is what works and the REAL answer:

Loneliness is not REALLY about other people.

As the article states, “Loneliness is not simply being alone…Loneliness is a perceptual It’s all about how the person feels. Feelings really matter”.  Psychology Today correctly identifies that our OWN feelings are the main cause, yet they then make the mistake of focusing on EXTERNAL solutions (meeting other people, etc.). Instead, I prioritize the FEELING of connection with self and connection with whatever your version of spirituality is (even if that just means believing in the laws of physics and energy, which some of my atheist or agnostic clients do) — know why? SELF-connection and connecting to a force that governs your life and the Universe are forms of connection that are completely under your control and NOT reliant on others as your primary source. This is also why, when a new client has been feeling lonely but wants to focus on a man as the solution, it is critical that we re-train her thinking to understand that the primary source for connection has to be INTERNAL, for example beliefs like, “I love myself, I connect with my feelings and needs daily.” and “I am part of this Universe, connected to life.”. Then we back those beliefs up with actions. Look, being ‘alone’ does not equal FEELING lonely. I re-frame it with clients as being ‘with myself’ or ‘connecting with something bigger, like life’.

Often we need to do DEEPER work on the roots and wounds that CAUSED #3 in my list of steps, our beliefs about ourselves. This may mean digging into wounds from childhood. You follow the trail of breadcrumbs. One client found her loneliness connected to sadness, which was fuelled by the belief she would never be loved, which, in turn originated with a Dad who over-worked and was never around to love her.

Once we identify the belief to replace, and begin SHIFTING it with one of the effective modalities, THEN you can choose an action to begin delivering on the self-connection and connection to others that will meet the need for human connection. Moving from our head back into our heart and self-connection takes work, but it is WORTH IT. As the big Psychology Today article makes clear, feelings of loneliness are extremely destructive to your health (short term and long term), to your happiness, to your self-esteem, to your ability to live life.

Let’s not look at this as ‘getting rid of loneliness’ but as ‘meeting a need for connection’.

As the article sums up: “the need, left unmet, still has the power to kill us—just by a slower, more invisible mechanism than starvation”.

So don’t treat your loneliness as the enemy, because it is only destructive when your need remains unfed or if you fed in unhealthy ways

Or, as I said to a client, “This week, remember loneliness is like hunger… so when you feel it, feed it with a healthy self-connection snack.”

So when you feel those loneliness pangs this week, remember, there is nothing “wrong” with you. You do not have a disease. You just need to feed your need for connection.

So snack on some self-connection see how it feels to be loved instead of lonely.

Much Love and Be Powerful!

Tags: alone, barry paul price, connection, disease, Empowerment, esther perel, expression, fear, feelings, human connection, hunger, life coaching, loneliness, loneliness is not a disease, lonely, love, powerful woman, powerful women, psychology today, psyhcology, relationship expert, relationships, relationships., self connection, signal, strong woman, women's empowerment