What if we are lonely because we are alienated from ourselves?

You cannot have enough social connections and belonging to compensate for a deep sense that you don't belong even to yourself.

I have been intimate with loneliness for the past three years. Living abroad hit me hard last year, and I am going the social connection route—signing up for more classes, traveling to stay with friends around Europe (poor me), trying to learn German, joining a gym, and visiting the USA annually instead of waiting so long.

But I have long struggled with another kind of loneliness that I rebelliously had to "find out for myself" rather than read about in a book. I experiment with myself and take up training and learning outside my scope of practice as a psychotherapist because I am hungry for knowledge about how we connect and loneliness. I am toying with the idea of getting a Ph.D. in social psychology. We will see.

For the last two years, I have been aware of just how traumatic my religious indoctrination was in making me lonely. I had to perform "good" from such an early age; getting to know who I am is something I have had to fight for for years. I don't think I am alone in being indoctrinated into something from our culture about performing. I am now doing another level of deeper EMDR and trauma work as many elements of modern-day policing of speech and centering identity and rank as the starting point for human relating have brought fundamentalist religious flashbacks of end times and hell keeping me up at night. Fundamentalism and performing good - no matter what group is proselytizing it - leaves us ALL empty and alienated from who we are as a human.

I love this TED Talk by Dolly Chugh on why we must stop trying to be "good" to bring about social change.

Once we are just an identity and all the role expectations/judgments of that identity, we are no longer human—we are a thing. When the culture "thingifies" us and we don't have the tools to "rehumanize" ourselves and each other, we will have a big problem with loneliness. That is what is happening today.

What is the definition of loneliness?

Loneliness is the subjective feeling of isolation, emptiness, or disconnectedness from others, regardless of your social interactions or relationships.

What are the deeper causes of loneliness and self-alienation?

????????: Loss of not only circumstantial things, people, or a job, but also the loss of rituals that brought us a sense of meaning, like religious or tribal rituals. We often struggle with grieving, leading us to either deny a loss or suppress the grief, which inevitably leads to loneliness.

???????????????????? ????????????: High ACE scores instigate a relating from child survival states rather than our wise adult self, making it hard to hold on to relationships as sources of nourishment.

I??????????????????????????: Forces us to conform to societal norms, often asking us to abandon parts of who we are to fit in. This creates a separation from one's essential nature, contributing to feelings of loneliness. Political systems, religions, social norms, and economic systems all indoctrinate us in ways that we start to marginalize aspects of who we are, as people.

???????????? ???? ??????????????????: Difficulty finding ingroup affiliations due to social identity and oppression tensions. Ingroup affiliations have become increasingly unpredictable and unreliable, leading to a continuous state of threat in the nervous system, fueling disconnection. The "will I be canceled" terror.

???????????????????????????????? is the idea that humans rule all other creatures and living things. This mindset creates a lonely separation and dislocates us from a more profound sense of belonging to nature and with nature.

Disembodiment: As the Industrial Revolution provides more creature comforts, we consume information, sit still at desks, or work at a pace only remaining disassociated from our bodies would allow. Our bodies are related to the above point, too. We are mammals. We want to touch, cuddle, be fuzzy and furry, move, and make sounds, and do that together in nature/ with nature / as nature.

???????? ???? ????????????????????????????: Failure to address past wrongs or injustices can exacerbate loneliness. Meaningful repair and connection at both interpersonal and cultural levels are crucial to fostering deep and abiding connections. When we participate in collective amnesia about the harm caused, we repress or repeat harm. And this repression and repetition is alienating on a massive scale.

Disconnected from ancestral roots: A somatic therapist I worked with for many years shared that her Ph.D. was on our disconnection from our ancestral roots, which is traumatic for our being. Many of us moved to escape persecution, serfdom, poverty, or were exiled. Yes, it had colonizing impacts on the indigenous people there (see above). We must still acknowledge the often traumatic circumstances of the disconnection from our ancestors that live on in us today.

???????????????? ????????????????????????: Evolving expectations in partnerships, work, and technology can contribute to loneliness. Banking on a "soul mate," changing roles of self as a brand, and relying on social media for primary sources of meaningful connection can all amplify loneliness.

If we genuinely want to heal this loneliness epidemic, we must address each of these points head-on. I have new thinking just from writing this piece, so thank you for thinking with me and continuing to read. I started working on a listening curriculum for Sidewalk Talk called HEAR five years ago. It isn't just listening skills, as I reflect on it now. HEAR provides an antidote to this deeper loneliness issue. We missed a few of my points, but I may go back and add them. I will offer HEAR again in late spring, so add your email to the interest list here. 100% of what we make we donate to Sidewalk Talk programming. HEAR covers Honoring Others, Embodiment, Assumptions Checking, and Receiving before Responding. We embed some IFS, Gestalt, Power and Rank awareness, Boundaries awareness, Somatic Experiencing, and Cognitive Bias, and we do this training live online, in the community, for 11 weeks.

Visiting San Francisco and Austin in March and April:

I am hopping on a plane to San Francisco on March 23rd. I will spend the first-week eating Tacos with my sons and the following two weeks without them, having authentic, in-person connections, and listening on the sidewalk in San Francisco and Austin. If you'd like, please join us. The details are here. I cannot wait to be a fuzzy, furry, ooey, gooey mammal with you and the trees.

Would you like to add some of your thoughts about loneliness? I would love to hear the points I missed. I am especially eager to hear from philosophers and psychoanalysts or send me any research papers or articles. I am a nut for this stuff.