Loneliness 101

Hello everyone, and welcome to The Loneliness Guru Blog. I'm so glad you're here. In this blog I'm going to explore the why of loneliness, what secretly drives it, the negative impact it has on one's physical, mental, and spiritual health, the typical solutions and much better ones, what skills are needed to navigate through it successfully, and how people can transform loneliness into meaningful connection.  

Now...I can imagine some of you might be thinking, why do I need someone to explain loneliness to me, everyone already knows what it means to be lonely. (What’s next? Hunger, thirst, ooh, I know, how to breathe?) It's a fair point, but what makes loneliness different is how much our perception contributes to its presence in our lives. If you’re thirsty, you drink some water. If you’re hungry, you grab a snack. The solution is pretty straightforward most of the time. Solving loneliness is much more nuanced because of how much our brain, and especially our thoughts, help to unconsciously foster that not so lovely feeling. 

Not so sure about that? I get it. It's not our thoughts, right? We're lonely because people don't care, because our bosses suck, because our partners don't really want us, or because dating apps bite (I’ll give you that last one). Not feeling true connection or being in a conflicted relationship really hurts. It feels lonely, absolutely. But much of our feelings of loneliness come not from our circumstances but from an unconscious, primordial drive for self-protection that helps create the loneliness we experience. Because of that need to be safe, we can feel an inner loneliness even when we’re with friends or loved ones or surrounded by a crowd. Loneliness can find us in all kinds of places if we aren't aware of what's driving the train. 

Understanding the root causes of loneliness matters because we're experiencing a serious upswell at the moment. In 2023 the U.S. Surgeon General declared that loneliness was an epidemic that's having serious health impacts including an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, cognitive decline, and early death. One study compared its negative effect to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day! 

While the understanding of the depth of the problem has increased, the solutions offered by the Surgeon General and other national organizations seeking to end loneliness focus mostly on reducing isolation and increasing social connection as the answers (and, of course, establishing committees to study research for future studies and committees). Essentially, it boils down to some version of “if we all just put our phones down and came together, we could lick this!” 

That's not to say that creating more opportunities for connection can't make a big difference when the problem is physical or social isolation. I was once a volunteer coordinator for home health agencies and later helped start and run a volunteer program that supported homebound seniors by providing help with transportation, chores, and companionship. I know the very real benefits of social connection to those needing social supports. When loneliness is the issue however, I've learned that those types of solutions aren't very effective.

I’m not alone in making this observation.  University of Chicago researchers conducting a meta-analysis of studies that examined the effectiveness of interventions to reduce loneliness found something very similar (see the Study). The typical approaches to combat loneliness—improving social skills, providing more social supports, and increasing opportunities for social contact—had a negligible effect compared with approaches that centered on "maladaptive social cognition." That's a fancy way of saying that it's the crap our brains tell us—what I call our Story—that increases our sense of loneliness and makes it difficult for someone to access support, no matter how many opportunities for connection surround them. The researchers came up with an apt phrase to describe how this plays out—the loneliness regulation loop.

Evolution excelled at getting the world through billions of years of development so humans could eventually experience the miracle of streaming unlimited content, but it also screwed us by hard wiring us for threat above all else. As highly social creatures, when we feel lonely or isolated, it raises our internal threat level. When this occurs, the loneliness loop fires up, our brains prioritize scanning for signs of danger (and assholes) in the environment, without us realizing it. Seeing all of the perceived harm around us, we retreat to the "safety" of isolation, leaving us feeling more alone and the world feeling more unsafe. And the more this occurs, the more convinced our brains become about the threat, and the more it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the less likely we are to venture openly into the world. What's even worse, the people around us don't see the same perceived threat, they just see us metaphorically hoarding non-perishables and grumbling about the end being near, and slowly back away. 

Nowhere does this feeling of loneliness play out more painfully then in our relationships. It hurts to feel unseen and unmet, unloved, by someone we care about. The fifty-percent divorce rate is well known but after years of offering therapy, I'd put the unhappy relationship rate closer to eighty to eighty-five percent. And it's the same, familiar loneliness loop at work. We feel lonely and we self-protect without realizing it, seeing the threat of hurt in every raised eyebrow and curt text. We surround ourselves with barriers, wanting others to prove their love by climbing over them, and end up feeling even lonelier when it doesn’t happen.

And it's not just in relationships, we can see this in families, in neighborhoods, in nations, and in the world. Huge masses of people feel the threat of the Other, everyone convinced of their truth, with little understanding of how much our perception—driven by survival instincts—affects how we experience the world. So what do we do? Lobotomies all around? Thankfully, major brain surgery isn’t required for our perceived threat level to decrease. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean the task feels any easier to accomplish. 

As much as I’d love to be able to offer you five easy steps to ultimate happiness, lasting change is never that simple. The five easy steps kind of approach—highlighted by magazines and click bait headlines—never includes a downward step, it’s always upwards into the light. True transformation is more about the journey then the number of steps, and you might have to try really hard to push yourself through the discomfort change requires (good luck getting subscribers or clicks with that attitude). Doing the kind of things needed to feel less lonely—bringing the unconscious into the light in order to rewire the brain, learning how to lower our perceived threat level, being able to access actionable information like our emotions, taking the risk to set effective boundaries, and exploring meaning in your life—can feel daunting because it’s a walk into the unknown, which is one of the hardest things for us humans to do.  Feeling truly less lonely, however, and feeling authentically connected to yourself and others is so, so worth it. 

I don't, and won't, pretend to have all the answers; I’m not a guru, at least not in the way we tend to imagine it. I don't have flowing robes, or followers—heck I can't even sit cross-legged for any length of time due to a knee replacement. But if I think about a guru in one of the ways that the dictionary defines it, as an “intellectual guide in matters of fundamental concern,” the name fits.

I've walked my own well-worn, painful path of loneliness, gotten lost in my own Story, and lived out the loneliness loop like so many others.  And I’ve gone through my own process of learning how to leave my personal wilderness of loneliness behind and step into the light of connection with the help and guidance of others. In addition to my own journey, for the last twenty-five years I’ve been helping people as a minister, grief counselor, therapist, and transformational coach, (learn more about me here) and I’ve learned about the many detours, wrong steps, narrow passages, shortcuts and must-experience places on the journey out of loneliness.  

Think of me as your travel guide, as someone who knows the way well and will offer you my thoughts, observations, and suggestions based on the information that I’ve gathered over the years in hopes of making the journey easier and more meaningful for you.  And not just my thoughts, but my personal stories, the stories of the many people I’ve been honored to work with, and insights from research and experts in their fields.  

In life, we often become experts in something we wish we knew nothing about. One of the ways we transform that pain is to offer that hard won wisdom to others. It can help us integrate it, so we can make it a part of us rather then something that defines us.  

I appreciate you taking the time to read this. It sure feels less lonely then shouting into the void. If this struck a chord with you (or if you're lacking bathroom reading materials), I hope you will sign up and continue to follow along as I write about loneliness and related topics and ultimately, how to feel more connected. And hey, until next time, why not open a door for a stranger today or let someone merge in front of you. They'll feel less alone and so will you.

LG