Are you truly lonely?

Loneliness versus boredom is explored in this transcription. The speaker shares personal experiences of feeling lonely and how it affected her mental state. She introduces the concept that loneliness is having purpose but no one to share it with, while boredom is having people but no purpose. The speaker encourages listeners to question whether they are truly lonely or just bored. She suggests using a thought process called "factor fiction" to determine if their feelings of loneliness are fact or fiction. The speaker emphasizes the importance of finding purpose and excitement in life to combat boredom. She provides examples of activities that can bring fulfillment and happiness. The key message is that individuals have the power to choose their own happiness and should not let feelings of loneliness hold them back. Welcome to coaching your inner self. I'm Amy Mallory and I am your coach Life is hard. Life is scary Life is messy Especially when you lack a sense of direction in where you want to go and who you want to be. I have good news, though You don't have to be lost You don't have to feel empty Everyone deserves the life they dream about I can help you find it. I can help you find your path and embrace it with happiness and with gratitude Let's do the work Okay, welcome, thank you so much for joining me this afternoon I Just love that intro. It just makes me so happy. Okay Today we are having the conversation about loneliness It's a pretty Heavy mental space to be in being lonely You know, I've all I've often felt that I was depressed sad lonely Felt sorry for myself. I Used to Use to sit on the couch and cry about how alone I was Completely helpless and out of sorts about it. I Would get on my phone and scroll social media To see everybody else having a grand old time in their lives and it made me feel even worse. It was like a vicious Cycle like quicksand that I would just lose myself in and It was really hard to get out of that loneliness feeling Even movies or like I would watch TV and try to distract myself But you know that then you would see something and that would make me feel even more lonely than I Had previously felt I beat myself up for years With this loneliness concept. I'm lonely. I'm lonely. I'm just so lonely I Hated it. I hated my life. I hated being alone. I hated the feeling of Going home to total silence and just the feeling of being lonely, I feel like it's almost a pandemic of Sadness and depression and hope not hopefulness, but a Lack of hopefulness, whatever that term may be that my mind is just not getting right now, but It's a nasty spiral to be in and it's it's common it's very common for people to feel lonely, but My question is are we truly lonely or are we bored I Came across this concept not too long ago that You know, there's loneliness and then there's boredom So loneliness is having purpose in life, but no one to share it with Boredom is having people in your life, but no purpose So we need to circle back to our feelings of loneliness and really Dig deep To solve the questions that we have Solve the question. Am I lonely or am I bored? Was I right for all those years feeling sorry for myself because I was lonely was I actually lonely or was I just bored? There's a process that I use for my thoughts when they get really nasty or really intense or really sad and it's called factor fiction and What it is is I kind of Zero in on the thought process that I I am stuck with For example, obviously loneliness being that one and I say to myself is it fact or is it fiction and If you're going with this with this Information that I just found, you know loneliness is having purpose in life, but no one to share it with Boredom is having people but no purpose. So if I'm Telling myself that I'm lonely. Is it a fact? Do I have purpose but no one to share it with not a single fucking individual on this entire planet? Where I'm really literally Alone, like I am the definition of lonely because I don't have a single person Is that a fact or am I am I telling myself fiction is this I'm lying to myself Because I do have people So being lonely and alone. It has a purpose You have a purpose But you have no people to share your life with I had people So when I asked myself when I felt that lonely feeling creep in is it fact or is it fiction? No, it's not fact I have people the majority of You guys listening out there you have people family friends siblings co-workers People that have the same hobbies as you your neighbors. There are people everywhere There are people that you can call there are people that you can bring into your life and bring into your Loneliness so that you are not alone because we are not actually alone It's really easy to just convince yourself that you're lonely, but you have to you have to call bullshit on yourself Loneliness is having Purpose but no one to share it with no people Loneliness is a lack of people. It's not true It's not fucking true It's just you making the choice of whether you're going to bring the people that are actually accessible Into your life in your life into your life so when I Had the feelings of loneliness start to creep in I had to call bullshit For so long I was allowing myself to feel lonely and I was feeling sorry for myself And it was making me depressed and I was just feeling like shit And I couldn't get off the couch and I was just poor pity old me because oh, I'm fucking lonely. I'm not lonely. I'm bored Because I have people but I have no purpose So you really really need to understand The concept of loneliness versus boredom We all have people But we don't have purpose a lot of us don't have purpose and that was what my Main issue actually was because I had friends everywhere I had family everywhere, but I had nothing getting me out of bed in the morning. I had no purpose I had nothing to drive me. I Had nothing to excite me. I was just bored But the good news is that boredom is fixable Boredom is a temporary state of mind And it's so easy to say and so easy to do and probably just sounds like a lot of work and pretty scary But it's not You just have to find something that drives you You have to find something to get you out of bed in the morning to get you off the couch to get you fucking excited Because you have the friends you have the family you have the neighbors and the co-workers But your loneliness is coming from a lack of purpose You're bored It's easier to say you're lonely And it and this is an ugly truth for me because part of me enjoyed that feeling And I know you guys are like what are you even talking about like being lonely is fucking horrible and depressing But sometimes it's a lot easier to just be sad and depressed and lazy and gross Than it is to actually go out and chase your purpose Mostly most lonely people are just bored It's temporary though There are so many things you can do to get out of that state of boredom you can find a fucking hobby you can open a book You can go to the gym. You can learn something new learn a new language I want to learn Italian because I want to go to Italy one day and and at least have some concept of what People are saying to me. You can get involved in volunteering whether it's at a Homeless shelter or a soup kitchen or a you know animal shelter Volunteer spend time with your family spend time with your friends But find something that gives you purpose Find something that thrills you and excites you for me I get an excitement I get an excitement I get an excitement I get an excitement I get an excitement I get an excitement I get an excitement I get an excitement I get an excitement And I get excited to get out of bed in the morning because I get to do this podcast And I get to interact with people and I get to hopefully help someone I'm not lonely anymore I'm not bored anymore because I always have this to fall back on when those feelings creep in you know when you go home At night, and there's nobody around and it's totally quiet except for you And maybe an animal or a roommate or something you know it's really hard when you're single to go home to a quiet house So you start to feel that loneliness creep in but it's not Loneliness and you need to remind yourself every day all day every day that you're not lonely you're bored So find something to do Find something that makes you happy The key is you have to make the choice to find that something you have to make the choice to find that happiness So what I want you to do is I want you to write down Every single thing in your entire life that you may have thought you wanted to do The books that you wanted to read the places that you wanted to go The hobbies that you wanted to start the things that you wanted to learn I want you to write down a whole list Of everything that comes to mind. It's called a brain dump of Everything that you possibly want to do or want to try to do or you want to learn how to do So that those moments where you think that loneliness is settling in which is really just boredom you have something To do something to excite you something to make you happy Don't let it don't let that loneliness and those blah sad depressing feelings Keep you down It's like quicksand and like I said before it's so easy to just be lazy To just lay on the couch to just scroll social media and then feel fucking sorry for yourself and feel alone You have to fight for your happiness. You have to understand and remind yourself No, you are not lonely. You are bored So find that purpose in your life Whatever it needs to be write it down write every single thing down and then every time you feel lonely Look at that list and say here is a list of 50 things that I want to try to do in my life and Then start at the top and do them learn them See them try them do all of The things because we have so much time and so much opportunity outside of our work life That we can do anything and you're single right or you're in a relationship and you have a lot of freedom Which is even equally as amazing But we have so much time to do so many things and we waste them and we fart we start to feel sorry for ourselves And then we get down in the dumps and depressed, but we don't have to that doesn't have to be an option Please remember and Please write this down Please write this down over and over again if you have to you're not lonely you're bored Fact or fiction have that conversation with yourself. I think I'm actually going to do a podcast episode About the whole concept of fact or fiction because I say that to myself all day every day, but it's true You tell yourself you're lonely. You feel sorry for yourself. Is it true? Is it fact? Is it actual fact or is it fiction is it just a story that you're thinking up because you want to feel sorry for yourself You're not lonely you're bored there is so much to life You don't have to be lonely. You don't have to tell yourself and believe what you're telling yourself That you're lonely because you're not Short but sweet and incredibly incredibly important, especially when you're living that single life, and you're going home to a quiet house After a long day at work, you know, it really can can that loneliness can dig in deep But you have to work at telling yourself. You're not lonely. You have friends you have family You've got neighbors co-workers Whatever you're bored Whatever you're bored. So find something find anything find everything To take up that time to to get rid of that boredom to make you excited To pass the time and make you happy You're not lonely you're bored Thank you so much for listening today, please leave me a review or shoot me an email if you loved this episode And as always please make sure that you're sharing this if you if you know somebody that's going through the same shit that you are Or if you think that it would benefit another woman in any way, please please please share this podcast The whole point of it is for women to help other women and you know understand that we all go through the same shit We all go through the same negativity, but there is a way out so share with your friends share with your enemies share with your neighbors and You know, let's help each other out. Thanks for listening