Loneliness

My first fall and winter in Vermont were heavy with dark, gray loneliness. We had left a full life and rich community in Tennessee and moved to the rural area where my husband grew up. He had a job and friends that he had grown up with. I was newly pregnant, throwing up non-stop, with no job or friends and my sweet dog as my primary companion. In addition, I was working through what I jokingly called an identity crisis, but what was truly a very difficult time internally. In my memory it rained or snowed every day for about four months, sympathetic nature at its finest.

I believe that loneliness is a spiritual and social condition. The spiritual condition is linked to our sense of connection and closeness to ourselves and the Divine. The social component is linked to our sense of connection to others and to a broader community. Loneliness always involves both the spiritual and the social, which is why being lonely is very different from being alone. When we are alone, we can still feel connected to ourselves, God, and our broader community. When we are lonely, one or more of those connections feels limited or severed.

I don’t hear a lot of conversation around loneliness, and I think that is a mistake. Loneliness poses a serious and real threat, to us as individuals and to our community as a whole. Loneliness is a big deal.

This summer I stumbled across some research on loneliness. The research shows that living with air pollution increases our odds of dying early by about 5 percent. Living with obesity increases our odds of dying early by about 20 percent. Drinking excessively increases our odds of dying early by about 30 percent.

Living with loneliness increases our risk of dying early by 45 percent.

Living with loneliness poses a higher threat to our health and our lives than smoking, drinking excessively, being obese, or living in a highly polluted area. We need to be talking about this.

We were made for connection and intimacy. We need it. Without a sense of connection to ourselves, to God, and to others, we live in a dark and painful place. We live with a heavy loneliness that fills our days and nights. We weren’t made for that.

It’s easy to find advice and resources on how to make healthier eating and exercise choices, stop smoking, or drink responsibility. As a culture, we lean pretty heavily on those areas. When I ask people what they do to take care of themselves, inevitably the first answer they give is about diet and exercise, either that they feel good about the choices they make in that area or that they know they need to work on it. Very rarely do people mention community involvement or relational investment as a form of self-care.

We don’t really talk about how to combat loneliness. It’s a big topic, and one I plan to keep coming back to. The first step is identifying the loneliness in your own heart. Where do you feel disconnected and where do you feel connected? How satisfied are you with the quality and depth of your connections?

If you uncover an area where you feel loneliness, I encourage you to think about how to move into that. Make addressing loneliness a high priority.

When I was first living in Vermont and feeling a loneliness deep in my bones, I made a commitment to say yes to every social invitation I was given. I said yes to plays I wasn’t interested in and coffee dates I was pretty sure would be a flop. And somehow, out of all of those yeses, and what felt like hundreds of invitations of my own, a meaningful community emerged. When I found myself feeling a deep loneliness about a year ago, saying yes to everything was not an option. At the point I had a busy career, 3 small children, and more commitments than I knew what to do with. In that season, I looked at the relationships I did have and tried to find ways to deepen them and invest in them more. I set up bi-weekly coffee dates and renewed my commitment to checking in with people via text. I’ve learned that when loneliness seeps in, I need an intentional plan to keep it from overtaking me.

I feel passionate about being on guard for loneliness in my own heart and life, about pushing into spiritual and social connection. There is a world of difference between being alone and being lonely, and I want to fight against loneliness. I also want to be a person who sees the lonely and invites them into meaningful connection and community. Will you join me?

#loneliness #emotions #relationships #community #laurenshaw #counseling #therapy