I Feel So Alone (Chronic Loneliness And Social Anxiety)

Why do I feel so alone? This is a question that I hear a lot. And if you're watching this video, you probably clicked on it because you are experiencing loneliness. And it's an incredibly uncomfortable feeling. It can feel very disconnecting and isolating. So I want to start by saying there's good news. And the good news is that you're here and that you're with me right now. And that sense, that feeling of loneliness is it doesn't have to be this way forever. It doesn't mean that you are permanently disconnected. There's no hope for you that something radical has to change in your life circumstances. And it's gonna be five years, or you have to get into a new marriage, or you have to. Something major has to change for you to feel different. The truth is, you can actually feel completely different and more connected way more rapidly than you think. And I'm gonna share another video. The key steps on how to free yourself from loneliness and feel way more connected than ever before. But this video is you being seen because you're not alone in feeling lonely. This has been an issue for increasing over the years, for many years, as people have gone into more suburban communities, living further and further apart or been more, you know, maybe even in dense urban areas. But there's a level of isolation or disconnection in environments like that where people are pretty absorbed in their own world. They're maybe even hostile to other people they see. And so whether you're in a big city or a small town, you can feel more and more separated from others. And that's only hockey sticked up since 2020 and the pandemic. In fact, there was a Consumer affairs report that came out in 2021 in which they said 66% of adults reported feeling more lonely now than before. The pandemic started in 2020. So 2/3 of people, and it was already people, were feeling lonely. So it's only gone up. And if you experience social anxiety, this makes things even more challenging, because social anxiety and loneliness go together like. Like two peas in a pod. I guess that would be the phrase for that. Right. So why is this? Well, because when you experience social anxiety, you instantly feel more disconnected. Instantly. And you could describe loneliness as the pain that we feel when we feel disconnected, when we're not connected to others. And that could be when you're literally not with somebody. You know, you're not with a friend or a pet or a lover or a parent or a child. You miss them, you feel lonely. But you can actually be Separate from people physically and not feel lonely. You know, maybe you're away on a trip or maybe your friends in a different city or a different state or whatever, but you don't feel lonely. Why? Because you don't feel disconnected. You're like, oh, yeah, they're in some other place, but I still feel connected to them. So connection is the key. If you feel disconnected, you feel lonely. If you feel connected, you don't feel lonely. And social anxiety, unfortunately, tends to lead to a greater sense of feeling. What do you think? More connected or less connected? Exactly. Disconnected. Why is that? Well, there's a couple reasons. One is because the pattern of social anxiety, the whole thing in a nutshell. I've been studying this for 20 years, so I know it pretty well both from my own personal experience and from helping thousands of people through it. The social anxiety in a nutshell is a armoring or a walling up of you from others. You can call it an armoring of the heart. It's if that isn't too poetically woo woo for you. Right, but it's a. I am not gonna be hurt here. I'm gonna create separation and disconnection from others. Well, how do you do this? Well, you can just observe the patterns of social anxiety. I imagine. What when I'm experiencing social anxiety, well, I'm imagining that you don't like me. I'm gonna preemptively assume that you don't like me. She's not gonna like me. They're gonna think I'm stupid, Not gonna speak up at work, not gonna ask that person out, not gonna join that friend group, not gonna walk with. Why? Because they're not going to like me. So I've already created disconnection even before I've even approached people. And then somehow if you override that and go try, usually what happens is people are running a very strong guarded pattern because they don't want to get hurt, I don't want to get rejected. And if I walk over to you and my primary focus is on A, for you to like me or B, for you to not reject me, how successful is that for creating connection? Well, if you've experienced social anxiety and trying to meet people, you'll know not very successful. It certainly wasn't for me. For all those years, I remained very kind of walled up and isolated and disconnected and didn't really try and didn't really put myself out there. And here is the final nail in the coffin. But don't worry, there's a way out of the coffin. I'm going to share it with you. I just got to paint the picture. So you see how social anxiety creates loneliness so you can shift and get out of it. But the last final piece in the puzzle is the social anxiety identity, where you then say, okay, they're not gonna like me. I'm not the kind of person who puts myself out there. This is just how it is. And that's where the loneliness becomes devastating. Because it's not like, oh, I miss my friends. They're in a different place, or, oh, my lover is out of town or whatever. Oh, I miss her so much. Like, you know, it hurts, but it's also kind of sweet, right? This is like I'm disconnected. There's something wrong with me. And therefore, I'm gonna be disconnected for my whole life. And this is where it can get really dark. You can feel real separation. And you might even have suicidal thoughts. You might even think, what's the point? And so if you're feeling that right now, listen to my words. This is a pattern. This is a story. This is smoke and mirrors. This is an illusion. There is a way out. This is something that's been created in your mind, in your emotions, in your patterns, in your focus, in your beliefs, in your behaviors. And you can shift this no matter how lonely you feel, no matter how permanent this seems. It is a transient state. It can shift. It can shift quickly. And I'm going to share in the next video exactly how to do that. In this one. Hopefully you feel seen, you feel like there's hundreds of millions of humans right now who are experiencing this. This is not some weird, isolated, there's something wrong with you event you are not alone. And here's the strange secret which you may or may not believe yet. But in the next video, I'll help you get there. You actually are connected right now, whether you feel it or not. And I'm going to share in the next video how to feel that and how to relieve yourself of that loneliness so you can actually start to feel more joy, more happiness, more connection, more confidence. So what are you experiencing as you watch this video? Share down below. We can support each other in the comments. That's the way to feel less disconnected, is to start to connect here right now by putting a comment down below. Until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon.