Loneliness Epidemic: How to Heal and Reconnect

Source: Andrew Neel / Unsplash

Given that loneliness has reached epidemic proportions on a global level, there is a good chance that you or someone close to you struggles with it. Sadly, loneliness casts a large shadow, darkening the landscape for those overcome with it. Their limited vision often makes them feel all alone and depressed and pessimistic. However, there is a way out of this darkness, and it is with connection.

Healing Through Connection

Connecting with others is essential to our drive to survive. As attachment theory explains, infants connect to caregivers in a way that is designed to ensure their physical survival. Also, depending on how their caregivers manage threats and emotional distress, children learn to view caregivers as safe and emotionally available, or not. At the same time, they learn to experience themselves as lovable, or not. The implications of these dynamics have a cascading effect throughout our lives in how we relate to ourselves and to others. Among other situations, it is manifest in the quality of our personal relationships with family, friends, and lovers, and at work with colleagues and bosses. But it all comes back to a wired-in need to connect.

When early emotional bonds or connections fall short of providing a sufficiently emotionally safe and nurturing environment, people often struggle with feeling like they are not a part of the community of humanity. They experience a deeply rooted loneliness, or sense of aloneness, that creates a chronic emotional pain. If you feel an emptiness in your chest or a chronic or deep sense of loneliness, it may be a result of having learned that you are somehow different from all other people. Fortunately, though, your loneliness, along with any sense of worthlessness or hopelessness, can be comforted. You can help yourself feel better by gaining clarity on your experience, as I explain in this three-minute video, Alone No More: How to Fill the Emptiness in Your Heart.

Learning to Connect

When you feel intensely alone, you can gain a sense of connection with three healing agents:

Awareness: Begin healing by bringing awareness to your experience. Pay attention to your sensations (e.g., hollowness in your chest). Be aware of your thoughts (e.g., thinking you are deficient). Open up to your emotions (e.g., lonely, sad). And note your actions (e.g., isolating from others, crying). Many people instinctively try to avoid their loneliness, such as by watching YouTube videos, playing video games, overeating, or sleeping a lot. Or, they may keep busy with an ever-growing list of chores and activities.

Acceptance: Once you are aware of your loneliness, it becomes impossible to not know it is there, despite attempts to distract from it or numb it. So, instead, choose to acknowledge and stay with the feeling. This is the work of acceptance. It means accepting that the experience is with you, not that you want it to stay.

As you attend to your loneliness, you might feel the pull to blame yourself. You might label yourself as unlovable or worthless, or you might hyperfocus on flaws or mistakes. By placing yourself under a microscope, you might be unconsciously trying to both prove your unfitness and look for ways to “fix” yourself so you are acceptable to others. These misguided efforts to alleviate the loneliness are likely to only feel make you feel worse. So, when you are aware of having these kinds of thoughts, choose to stop trying to explain your experience. Focus instead on how you are in emotional pain. Chances are that you’ll want to jump out of that awareness with the same problematic thinking. Do what you can to note this and again choose to return to just being aware of, and accepting, your loneliness.

Empathy and Compassion: It is important to know that feeling lonely is part of the human experience. So, as you become aware of and accept your loneliness, it can help to practice empathizing with your loneliness by reminding yourself that most people share the experience at some time or other. In other words, you are far from alone despite how you feel. Finally, just as you would show compassion for someone else who was lonely, practice seeing yourself from this compassionate perspective.

As mentioned earlier, the ability to connect with yourself and other people is essential to our physical and emotional well-being. So, along with comforting yourself, thinking about reaching out to supportive people in your life. Take a deep breath, pick up the phone (to text or call), and ask for support in whatever form you need it. Or, go someplace where you can just be around people. If all of this feels beyond you, or you are so lonely that nothing seems to help and the struggle is chronic, consider seeking therapy. Working with a therapist might help you move past this impasse. Ultimately, truly connecting with others will help you alleviate your loneliness and feel more connected and happier.