Shame of Loneliness

I wrote, deleted, and rewrote a text to one of my closest friends feeling incredibly raw and vulnerable. I told her I didn’t want to be alone on Thanksgiving. 

I soon felt a familiar immense shame rise within me. I call this my vulnerability hangover. The part of me that deeply fears revealing my heart. The part that says, “Oh shit. Now what are they going to do?” As it braces for rejection.

It’s a shame that claws at my heart, whispering in its cold harsh tone that something is wrong with me for even being lonely. That if I were “better” in some ever elusive way, I wouldn’t be alone and lonely. It essentially attempts to blame me for my loneliness. 

AFTER thirty-five years, I know this egoic fearful part of me is full of shit and is a liar.  But it’s a part of me nonetheless. So, I do my best to feel it, love it, and soften its edges. 

I will admit, I’ve also learned to hide it really well. I’ve learned beautiful ways to connect inward and cultivate love for myself, by myself. Often hiding the truth of my hurting heart.

I hide it through pictures of big smiles and by prioritizing care of others. I’d rather inquire about how you are rather than take space to tell you how I am. I have abandoned myself for years by doing this because I learned my emotions were often too much, seen as untrustworthy, and not welcomed. 

So hiding became a useful and reliable strategy. 

MOST often, we haven’t been taught how to respond to pain, grief, heartache, and fear. We aren’t shown how to meet people with compassion for where they are in their journeys. We become uncomfortable with strong emotions, confused by our own empathy that causes us to feel sadness when others are sad and pain when others are hurting. So we react to dismiss another’s experience in order to relieve ourselves from the heartaches of feeling with them. (You may want to read that again…)

A gift of these recent years, has been trusting myself in the deepest of ways. That whatever I feel has every right to be felt and also shared. It’s really uncomfortable sometimes. But it’s better than hiding so much and so often.

I’ve learned to risk sharing how hard this year has been as a single person, living on her own and 1300 miles away from family. Some have really blown it in their lack of responsiveness and closed hearts. But others met me exactly where I was and with so much love.

And that made every risk and every vulnerable hangover worth it.

To all my fellow single people, grieving people, hurting people, lonely people: This year, the holidays are going to be really hard. And so, we have to courageously reach out. We have to risk it. And perhaps we can help those who love us understand, all we need is company and compassion. 

Perhaps this year, we could all keep our minds and hearts a bit more open.
Perhaps this year, we can set another chair at the table and consider who may need the company.
Perhaps this year, we can all reach out beyond our comfort zones, ask for help and respond with love. 

Too Busy To Connect

Another summer season seems to be slipping through my fingers. There are never enough days to cross off the bucket list of hikes and adventures. My husband and I recently found ourselves arguing about this exact issue. Both frustrated by how we struggle to have time to actually spend time together. From what I can tell and from what I’m hearing, we’re not the only couple in the valley with this problem. There are plenty of you among us! 

Between work obligations, family visiting, weddings, baby showers, volunteering, we barely have a few long weekends left to be out together exploring these mountains. We share in the disappointment but usually look to the other person to give up a commitment verses volunteering to let go of one of our own…

Some might call it a catch-22. But I see this as nearly too common of an epidemic. We just too busy to connect. Multiple jobs, the kid’s constant activities, additional obligations, including that race or marathon you have to train for, all get in the way of our relationships. 

Think about this: What if this time was committed back into your relationships? 

Being busy has nothing to do with being productive or fulfilled. Busyness is merely distraction wrapped up in convincing packaging. We over schedule meetings, draw out long to-do lists, add another activity, another event, all to make ourselves feel good for having so much to accomplish. But the research tells us, being this busy actually defeats and drains us. Taking a significant toll on our mental and physical well-being. 

Without time to rest, slow down, and to be present, our bodies and minds are in constant over drive. We’re overstimulated and burning out. We rarely ever pause to reflect on what we’re doing and why we do it, persistent to keep moving on to the bigger better thing. It’s honestly a compulsion and it may even suffice that many of us are addicted to staying busy. 

To have meaningful connection with others and to build solid relationships, we need time. Time to experience each other, to talk, share and listen. We even need time to prioritize each other. This ended up being at the heart of that argument my husband and I had. Neither of us felt like we were much of a priority to the other.  Which wasn’t an intention of his nor mine. It’s merely the result of when we put too much ahead of relationships. 

When we can begin to prioritize our families and our friendships, we also begin to practice saying no. No to what is extra. No to what is getting in the way of being able to slow life down and to spend more time “being” with each other - rather than “doing” with each other. I’ve been personally practicing saying no to work and reducing my overbooked schedule. It a tough exercise because I love what I do! But it is important. Because it is a practice of beginning to say yes to the relationships that matter most to me. 

Vail Relationship Institute is locate in Vail, CO and specializes in healing relationships. The highly trained team of therapists provides couples counseling, family therapy, and individual counseling to help them address deep disconnection and emotional pain. We also provide community events and online courses, all because we believe relationships matter most.