“When you are able to fully experience loneliness, you find that the deep sense of what’s missing contains specific guidance about what is needed to remedy that absence and longing.”

-LAURA PARKER, MFT

Loneliness is not what you think it is.

Surprisingly, loneliness isn’t about being alone (that’s why you can feel terribly lonely in a marriage, or at a potluck).

Loneliness is about not feeling connected and it can guide you into reconnection - with yourself, other people, and life.

You can learn to approach loneliness with fresh and unexpected ways of seeing and responding that cultivate connection, belonging, and love.

Want to know more? 

In February 2019, I hosted Transforming Loneliness, the first-ever online summit to approach the topic of loneliness. Click here to get access to all 16 interviews in the series - completely free!

My work with loneliness explores its many dimensions and meanings - from personal to cultural to ancestral to ecological - as well as the necessity for soul-nourishing solitude.

One aspect of the personal dimension of loneliness is that, sometimes, without fully realizing what we are doing, we create our own isolation

Loneliness is full of contradictions and paradoxes. One paradox is that, for many lonely people, their deepest longing AND their greatest fear is intimacy with another person.

So, while you may lament your loneliness and consciously state your desire for connection, when you look closely, you may be surprised to discover that many of your choices and actions actually create separation and isolation - the opposite of what you really want.

This is not to blame you - the lonely person - for your predicament. There may be many valid reasons for your choices. For example, you may have a long commute, which leads you to choose NOT to socialize after work.

Other valid reasons are less circumstantial, and more psychological, like the fear of criticism or rejection, or the expectation of not being seen or appreciated, or feeling easily overpowered by other people, or even a secret need for the freedom and silence of solitude.

It can be quite a journey to undo the many perceptual and behavioral habits that create separation and isolation instead of connection.

Often, this journey takes you into your early family life, where you first learned about relationships and developed your habitual ways of seeing and responding to other people.

Another part of the journey is learning the relationship skills - like authentic communication and interpersonal boundaries - that will make connecting with others more meaningful and enjoyable.

This journey is arduous and requires much courage and tenacity, but, if the pain of loneliness has become unbearable, then, it could be that your true self is urging you to take the first step towards finding companionship. And, most importantly, the journey into greater connection and intimacy requires that you venture out of your comfort zone with other people, repeatedly and in as many ways possible.

I can help you to stay strong, focused, and compassionate as you undo self-limiting habits, step into more meaningful and satisfying relationships, and transform isolation into solitude.

Solitude is aloneness that is desired and treasured, in which not only is nothing missing, but the richness and depth of one’s own being can be discovered and celebrated.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

~ David Whyte (excerpted from Sweet Darkness)