I’m lonely – what can I do? Why starting with ourselves is the first step.

It isn’t news that we’re in a loneliness pandemic. It’s been widely disseminated, especially since Covid struck, that we are a lonely, lonely population. Perhaps it all started with the digitisation of the world and our relationships - social media, zoom calls, online dating. Or perhaps it started with industrialisation, a side effect of workplace alienation, long hours, and poor pay. Perhaps it’s a symptom of consumerism, and the way our culture tells us that connection and happiness come from buying things, spending on experiences, and aspiring for more. 

There’s  a myriad of reasons behind it. 

The point is, we’re lonely – and it’s unlikely to get any better, either. 

With the rise of remote work and artificial intelligence, it appears that things are only going to get worse. Problem with my internet service? No phone support, just that dreaded chatbot on a screen. Trying to contact FedEx? No humans for you, just an automated callbot, gatekeeping access to an actual agent. Even coaching, provided by a big company, is increasingly becoming powered by AI…*shudder*. 

Real human connection is becoming scarce. Remote work will likely continue and whilst a blessing in many ways, means we will spend more of our days behind a screen, on video calls in our sweatpants, taking lunch breaks alone, and often only going outside the house to walk our dog or go to the gym…also alone. Trying to find a mate has felt more and more like sifting through the abyss of people, each swipe making us a little more jaded, our list of criteria getting longer and longer as we feel more and more burned out by our matches. Consumerism will continue to speed up connections of instant bursts of gratification – likes, hearts, and brief replies, if we’re lucky – in lieu of actual community. And as climate change rages on, it’s possible that travel will become less accessible, tickets more expensive, more elitist, private, and closed off. Migration patterns may mean having to potentially leave loved ones behind, and families will continue to get smaller as less and less people choose to have children. In the endless pursuit of achievement, action, experiences, outcomes, and material gain, we look outside of ourselves yet nothing ever satisfies the itch we seek to scratch.

Of course we feel alone. Disconnected in our hyper “connected” society.

It’s hard out there.

Dating is hard. Work is hard. Family dynamics are hard. 

Against a backdrop of everything feeling so fast-paced, busy, overwhelming, endless doom and gloom, more work, less resources, and endless reasons to feel sad and stressed…what do we do?

We try to fix it.

If we have a romantic partner, we try to plan date nights. We try to leave our work in the (home) office and avoid excessive work travel. We try to splash out on fancy holidays and connect over dinner with talk about our days. Yet the date nights feel too far and few between. Work always bleeds into longer hours than we’d like. Our fancy holidays fly by in a blur and dinners feel short, spent catching up on telling each other about our days. Issues get put on the back burner, and connecting deeply feels like a ridiculous and unobtainable utopia. 

If we’re single, we prioritise seeing friends on weekends, try to join clubs, and download dating apps. We swipe, and swipe, and swipe, booking in the dates wherever we can. Yet we often find ourselves left feeling underwhelmed. We can’t figure out why – we’re open minded – yet dating remains a minefield. We aren’t really sure what we are looking for. No one that we actually like seems to be into us, and anyone that likes us, we don’t like back. 

We book plans with friends, but it feels like everyone’s busy and the time we have often feels so short and ephemeral. We drag ourselves to networking or community events to find new connections, but rarely are we impressed with the outcomes. We cling to hope that we will find that special someone, that relationship that feels worth investing in. But it all feels a little bit superficial. We might work from co-working spaces, hoping to meet interesting like-minded folks, but the conversation remains baseline, the dialogue skin-deep. They’re not people to share our vulnerabilities with, to go to for solace, support, or help. Unfulfilled, hungry, yearning, we go around in circles, looking, looking, looking for that connection, that spark, that breath of life that will invigorate us and fill the hole that quietly burns in our hearts.

Exhausted, confused, and defeated, we don’t know what else to try. So we stop trying to reinvent the wheel and get on with it. We make do with what we have, and accept the status quo. We continue swiping, continue dating, continue trying to forge connections, and plod on. We’re fine. It’ll be fine. It is what it is. 

But, our lives continue to look a little bit bleak. Headaches, sleepless nights, the odd extra bottle of wine when we’re feeling a bit weak-willed. Our motivation’s down and productivity is fading but we force ourselves to just get on with it, unsure of what else we can do or what the problem really is. We don’t want to imagine potentially dying alone – the thought silently horrifies us – but we accept that it is a very real possibility and so we grin and bear it, heads down. At least our careers are going well. Well, well-ish. Well enough. It all feels a bit disappointing.

What’s the answer?

It’s returning to ourselves. To our true nature, to our essence, to our inner core. To ourselves. 

The age old cliche of ‘you can’t love anyone until you love yourself’ is, unfortunately, a cliche for a reason. It’s true. But it’s not as woo-woo or sappy as you might think. Consumerism has sold us this idea that loving ourselves is some ridiculous hippy idea fit only for strange people holding hands in a circle smiling maniacally singing kumbaya or perhaps yoga teachers living slightly off grid eating their own homegrown vegetables. It’s not for us. Not for highly rational, smart, well-paid professionals. We’re too busy. We understand our limitations. We have self-awareness. We know how hard the real world is out there and we’re realistic. We aren’t fluffy utopians. God no. We don’t have time to go off grid, wear linens, and hold hands with strangers. We have to work.    

But that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is precisely what some of the smartest and most successful folks out there have mastered. What the likes of my own personal idol, Martha Beck, Harvard Professor and happily-married, highly-successful individual, spent her PhD studying. What Gabby Bernstein, multi gazillionaire and thought leader has nailed. What Eckhart Tolle, Michael Singer, all the spiritual teachers who found themselves to be affluent, spent their practices preaching. It’s not the woo-woo self love of unicorns and flowers, but the deep-seated, profound, powerful relationship to ourselves that lets us become our own best friends, gurus, and leaders. It’s the heart-opening, ego-shattering, spiritually awakening self-connection that enables us to see through the illusions, heal our traumas, and show up authentically as our best selves. It’s the self-love that is at its heart, all about having the most powerful relationship in our lives be the one we have with ourselves. 

At the end of the day, if we cannot have a pure and unfettered relationship with ourselves, we cannot have it with others. We cannot date expecting to meet the love of our lives, if we have not fostered enough raw and honest dialogue with ourselves to even know what it is that would constitute that love. We cannot lead authentically in the workplace if we have not dug deep into our own egos and extracted the dark parts that get in the way of our greatness. We cannot be the best friend to our loved ones if we have no awareness of our own projections, subtle manipulations, and ways in which we unconsciously will (almost always) try to control them. We cannot be the loving and empowering parents we want to be if we haven’t dismantled the intergenerational crap that we’ve inherited from our own. 

It all starts from going within. And building that relationship up first.

It’s about removing the subtext of ‘if I accomplish X, Y, and Z, I will be okay’ and accepting that you have the capacity to be okay deep inside yourself already. And that comes from recognising that we are worthy as we are, irrespective of whatever is going on outside of ourselves. Our inner self is completely fine. It’s perfect, in fact. It’s just there, constant, unchanging, pure, whole, solid. It’s the core of us. It is the infinite energy within us and it is perfect because it exists. It is safe because it is ours. It is unchanging because it is the only constant we have ever had since birth, and will have until our final breath. And perhaps, if you believe in life after death, beyond that, too.

Luckily, it doesn’t have to be that hard. Yes, it is hard to achieve the nirvana-like levels of euphoric self-adoration that consumerism has sold us as so-called ‘self-love’. But that isn’t the real deal. We do not have to live up a mountain or parrot affirmations into a mirror every morning to create it. We do not have to be screaming from the rooftops that we have ‘self love’. Nor self-esteem. Like a muscle, it can be a steady and iterative practice of building self-connection. Moment by moment, day by day. Going deep, finding that inner kernel, and connecting to it. Letting yourself feel the delicious endless flow of energy within and the fulfilment that it offers. That it has always offered. That it will always offer. Unconditional, stable, solid, trusting, true. 

In doing this work, within a week you will see some progress. Within a month, you will feel significant, permanent change. You will find clarity. Peace. Direction. Guidance. Flowing out as your source of life force, it knows where your fulfilment lies. Connecting to it, you can follow its wisdom.

There are tried and tested, proven (scientifically based) ways that we can start.

One of these is my own 12 week program that I’ve built which synthesises over a decade of researching, training, research, and practise in relational behavioural science to help you pave the path to finding your partner. The crux of this program is on helping you connect to yourself so profoundly that you can’t miss your perfect partner - you will be open and laser focused, clear, and ready. You won’t be operating from a place of empty, scarcity, and neediness, but a place of self-connection, comfort, clarity, and confidence. You will know exactly what you need and how to get it - because you will, firstly, thoroughly know yourself. 

But first (and this is the first 4 weeks of my program), through some pretty nifty practices, we can learn to come home to ourselves and give ourselves what we are seeking, so that we don’t have to keep seeking it elsewhere from a leaky, unhealthy place. Suddenly, the safest and happiest place for ourselves will be inside. We will have the richest and most nourishing relationship of our entire lives. We will have a bedrock of unconditional safety within us. We will attend to our bodies like a beautiful best friend. We will soothe and care for our emotions like an unconditionally loving parent. We will listen to, and give our intellect exactly what it needs to be vibrant, enriched, and alive. We will hear our gut instincts, know our intuition like an inner compass, and trust our inner wisdom like the wisest teacher.

Whole, home, and happy from within, our relationships will inevitably improve.  We’ll be less needy. We’ll stop second guessing ourselves. We’ll stop projecting. We’ll stop hiding. We’ll stop people-pleasing. Instead, we will show up authentically. Whole heartedly. The best version of ourselves. In a position to have the best relationships for ourselves.

From this place, loneliness becomes a foreign concept.

What sort of partner can we call in?

What sort of life can we live?

What sort of legacy can we leave on the world?

Looking to answer these questions?  Message me to chat if any of the above resonates - I would love to hear from you.