Healing Loneliness

Do you sometimes feel lonely? Then you are not alone! According to a recent study of 20,000 people done by CIGNA, nearly half of Americans now say they sometimes or always feel alone, and one in five says they rarely or never feel close to anyone nor feel as though there are people who really understand them. And many of those people were in relationships!

In October of 2017, former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy made headlines when he called loneliness an epidemic. He even went on to say that loneliness can truly affect our health. “The increased mortality associated with loneliness is equal to the increased mortality we see with smoking 15 cigarettes a day,” said Dr. Murthy. “It’s in fact greater than the mortality associated with obesity.”

Why, when in some ways the Internet has us more connected than ever, is loneliness such an epidemic? In the Cigna study it was discovered that heavy users of social media have a higher than normal loneliness score!  Why? Because social media does not soothe our loneliness.  In fact, it can increase it because we feel we are connected when we really aren’t.

Social media has its purpose but what we are geared for is in-person, authentic, real communication. It isn’t about how many friends/likes you have.  It is about the authenticity of your connections.

One of the most important qualities in authentic connections is listening. We long, we need, we crave to simply be heard.  And yet most people truly do not know how to listen to another person so most of us are never really heard.

Four years ago, psychotherapist Traci Ruble started a community listening project called Sidewalk Talk, where she set up chairs on a sidewalk and filled half of them with people who were willing to listen, and the other chairs were open for people who wanted to be heard. She said she began doing this because, “I believe that everybody gets lonely. Period.” This touched and moved to so many people that Sidewalk Talk now has 3,200 volunteers in 48 cities around the world.

When Traci was interviewed, her project was met with a bit of incredulity because it is assumed that most people would not tell a stranger what was going on inside of them. “Actually, people open up to strangers more easily than they do people they know,” said Traci. “A few months ago, I had a young guy sit down – he was just fresh out of college – and he said to me, ‘I didn’t realize that work was going to be like this, that I would sit in a cubicle all day looking at a screen talking to no one.’ And he didn’t say anything else. He just sat and cried for about 10 minutes. And then he said, ‘Huh, great, I feel so much better, thank you.’ And then he left.”

Listening is magic! Traci ended the interview by saying, “I would like people to start to notice how much they need actual connection. We need vitamins, we need vegetables, we need clean air, and we need connection.”

You can hire a professional, but you may have people in your life, who, when you educate them about listening, will be happy to be there for you in this way. You can say to the person you choose, “I am learning the importance of being heard. I want to share some things with you, and I am asking you to not tell anybody else.” And please make sure before you share, that you feel you can trust their commitment to hold sacred your sharing.

Also, if they don’t know the power of simply listening, it is important to request that they don’t say anything back to you unless you request it. It is also very important that they understand that you’re not asking them to fix you, judge you or deny what you’re experiencing. You are simply requesting the healing of being heard.

Can you feel the relief of this? You’re not trying to be fixed or find solutions or even understand what’s going on. You simply are requesting to be heard. One of the amazing things you will discover when you have a good listening partner is that the solutions to your challenges are already embedded in them. And when somebody listens to you, the noise inside of you calms down and you can hear what is appropriate for the situation.

And if you give listening to them in return, remember, you are not trying to fix them or judge them or solve their problems. You are just giving them the healing of being heard.

Are you ready to discover the phenomenal power of listening?