Solitude vs. Loneliness

The speaker discusses the importance of solitude and self-reflection in order to restore and renew oneself. They share their personal experience with finding happiness in being alone and engaging in creative activities. They also discuss the balance between solitude and loneliness, particularly in the context of the pandemic and its impact on mental health. The speaker mentions the psychology of loneliness and how it can affect one's behavior and emotions. They also highlight the beauty of the spring season as a backdrop for their personal story. this intentional hour or so to talk about what's on our minds and hearts and today's topic is So timely as you know, it's turning spring and it's all about light and beauty and color and rebirth and and feeling Truly connected in human in a spiritual sense. And so I feel like this topic is right on time so so I want to approach it from the discussion about kind of some of the differences between actual solitude or being alone and then where you might get to the point where you actually start to experience loneliness or the loneliness morphs and lingers into something that feels like Chronic or aching loneliness that is a different sort of mental state. So let's go back start with this What about the good things about being alone? Let's first talk about the power of solitude That's the easiest part of this subject to tackle a lot of mindfulness experts have written and talked spent time understanding and explaining others Why spending time alone is a really important part of getting to know you who you are, okay, and Mindfulness experts and a lot of our gurus in the spiritual realm will tell us that being alone and this seems intuitive can be Restorative it can be enlightening and it can be even enjoyable I mean who of us doesn't cherish our alone time. I know I do I cherish my alone time miss Linda I know you do So one of the reasons That in the past in these podcasts I have talked about the artist way That is a book that is one of the influences in my becoming a life coach You know the practice that I have now of life coaching now on as my side gig to my day job and The artist way was one of the books that I read a decade or so ago that led to where I am now because Julia Cameron's book Helped me unblock my own creative urges What the book the artist way is about is helping us learn to set aside time to explore these? Creative urges or gifts and to develop them and you know I picked up some of her techniques like daily journaling and reflection and then Intentionally setting like one-hour dates with myself She calls them artist dates in her book and that you know thing that reflection in Creative time thing you know planned time alone to be creative With something I start pricing about a decade ago, and I still engage in all of those activities so I'm just sharing my story as I often do to try to kind of get people in this headspace I'm much happier being alone Like giving myself time and attention and space to create and express myself creatively. I am more happy being alone now Than I have ever been in my life So I just want to put that out there And I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this thing they feel the same way And part of that, I think is because we are over stimulated our nervous systems are over stimulated Because we feel like we have no place to go to rest and recharge because you know we're just overwired in every house of our life so Many of us are seeking this sort of self-imposed Solitude like literally with no cell phone or no Wi-Fi or I've even you know I'm off social media for a week or two at a time the self-imposed Solitude can help you regain like a sense of self It can help you renew harmony with nature It can help you escape from sensory overload, or it can help stimulate creativity Like the theme I started on and it can help awaken your spirituality right so You know many of us are actively seeking ways to find peace in a busy and demanding world but How Now that's part. That's easy right the solitude part. I'm plugging, but how do you balance? The need to be alone that I'm plugging that spending me time and all that how do you balance that? with the feelings of Loneliness that you can start to experience start to feel too disconnected. Okay hang on there for a minute Okay, are we good are we good? Are we good? So I'm on this little mental journey that like we do where I'm saying the premise is That you know we've learned how to be alone I think you know the whole spirit and practice of mindfulness That has been kind of trend in our lifetime that many of us have gotten on where we understand how to do that And that's been especially important to be able to do that as a human being to keep your balance in your Center While you're being over stimulated by the outside world if we if we weren't Doing these self-care techniques if there wasn't a whole industry Dedicated to teaching us how to do self-care We might be suffering mental Mental burdens that put us somewhere. We don't want to be Okay, we as a human you don't want to lose your balance because you don't want to feel too overwhelmed find over stimulated or over Demanding extra work because it's too important. We are spirit You know we are what is it? We are spiritual beings having a human experience though You know we really we truly are we understand that we're only in these bodies for a little amount of time And then whoo-poof we're gone. We're out of these bodies, so we're enjoying this now so That it's very human a very human experience to feel the need to be alone and truly connected with yourself, but to also Balance that with connections to other people so you don't feel They can be getting emotional So you don't feel truly alone if that makes Makes a lot of sense makes a lot of sense okay Softy because people experience loneliness in different ways Some people may only feel lonely at certain times I Happen to want to be one of those people fortunately. I don't feel lonely most of the time Okay I'm just going to put that out there again sort of relating my own personal Connection to this subject today But some people experience chronic loneliness loneliness, okay? This is like a deep feeling of loneliness that can go on for a real long time Where and some people report like you can even be around other people and still feel like you're alone I've never had I don't have that it's not a fiction. I have but it's very possible and it's Occasional I think it's periodic you know people can have episodes of that and then think oh gosh. How did I get here, okay? So that's a great segue for me to say this the psychology of This is the teacher coming out now like in the field of psychology the psychology of feeling lonely It is a huge field of study right now and especially post pandemic it has risen even more because of all of the imposed Solitary that people had experienced through the pandemic and you know some people some introverted people actually thought just by enjoying Not having the social pressure to meet with other people because they couldn't because we had the self and put the we had the opposed quarantine You know some people were relieved and then some people like fell into depression Like oh, they just couldn't be apart from other people in so many intense ways All at once and they it just affected their mental health so this the pandemic gave us this enormous Opportunity, I'm you know in the field of psychology to explore these evolutionary theories of loneliness and of course a lot of scientists believe that loneliness social scientists believe loneliness is part of our biology and Let me let me say a little bit about that real quick When I say that loneliness is kind of baked into us as human beings it's part of our biology There are some social scientists who say that You know, sorry Social oh triggers Do you see psychological and physical responses that affect your behavior? Yeah, like me talking about this makes me cry That's funny, okay So people describe thoughts and feelings of loneliness. Okay, let me fill in that field of psychology How do we as people describe these thoughts and feelings of loneliness? So let me let me report back what the science says is that after the pandemic people were using words like anxiety Fear shame Helplessness And I'm saying those all without judgment, I don't understand them, but I'm going to put the words out there Because a lot of people were reporting that they had these feelings and emotions. So these Emotions if you start to attach meaning to them like when you were going through the pandemic How you felt about your anxiety being some of the people how fearful you felt being alone or how shame Like shit. Oh, maybe shame would have come in the pandemic from Feeling like you let other people down because you couldn't be there for them and helplessness similar like helplessness like not being able to Help other people through the pandemic for people who you know felt stymied at that time. Okay, so If you went through any of that We're saying that the that your emotions not only influence how you obviously can change Kind of what you believe and how you act like what was you how you behave? And so we saw people after the pandemic going into these downward spirals Downward spirals where loneliness caused them to withdraw even further From family or friends or anything they were connected to before the pandemic Okay, so that Phenomenon has more recently has been expressed like just like an age of loneliness like all of a sudden. I mean psychologically we As human beings experienced a lot of loneliness in all of its ranges and stages During the pandemic. Okay. Here we are in the spring of 2024 and I'm sitting looking out the window in my home office in the southern part of the United States and In a southern state where everything is blooming. We've just gotten past our last freeze of the winter Everything's green. There's pink flowers and purple flowers and my daffodils finally exhausted themselves. They're already done we had a burst of beauty and promise Over the past even last week and I took time off my day job So I have a whole five days that I can spend just With me time just alone time But what I wanted to say is I want to share a little bit more of my personal story because I think this is such a relative Topic that I really needed to explore right at this time Like I so often do with these podcasts and thank you Linda for letting me just talk them through out loud in my head from my head to yours Because I want to add something to all this discussion of loneliness And being in the season where everybody's happy and connected. I Became aware of this field of Communication, you know, and I come from a background in communication There's a field called positive communication And it's similar to sort of the field of positive psychology. We both have And it's similar to sort of the field of positive psychology We both have evolved in scholarship over this past couple of decades but I didn't know about the positive communication field until I happened to encounter the Idea of it at this new university that I work on the campus of it's not a new university I mean my job is a new job working on that campus Okay, so I work at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock campus where I'm a consultant for technology startup That's in addition to my side gig as a life coach. It's my day job. So my day job is to help these startups You know with all the resources they need to help provide financial footing so they can get their innovations off the ground and Because I work in the university campus again Post pandemic The College of Applied Communications has a program at ULR called positive communication and that was new to me. So I Looked into it a little and ironically. I was introduced to the whole community from the Arkansas based scholar Julian Mirabelle Who happens to be a professor who lives next door to my boyfriend? Okay, there's the connection so I became aware of dr Mirabelle's work at ULR and I attended his positive communication network seminar for an hour Last week. I had just an hour during my lunch break in my Consulting job to attend a little bit of this conference that is a bunch of scholars from the United States talking about, you know, these theories of positive communication and Dr. Mirabelle himself is the leader in the positive communication network It's the thing there's a real association that he and his colleagues have started to really build this body of work and to help encourage These messages in the world and dr. Mirabelle's author of the book the art of positive communication and Dr. Mirabelle hosted the conference through his position at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Now I'll say a little bit about positive communication just to help I've changed gears from you know talking earlier about solitude balancing solitude with Being wanting to be alone with saving off loneliness And so now we're going to talk a little bit about positive communication and the improved embedded into that discussion Okay, so positive communication promotes connecting with someone in a meaningful way Intentionally throughout your your day-to-day going fun Okay, so that whole field of positive communication is about How important connection is and so dr. Mirabelle suggests that one way some ways to do this are to offer positive comments and encouragement or to Listen deeply with our authenticity during the day, you know Don't just go walk up to somebody and say how are you doing and they go fine and then you leave the conversation there You know It's about if somebody actually wants to talk about how they're doing Then you would turn your attention with affection to listen deeply If they're going to share that with you, then you don't just pass that opportunity by or you know If you're like me You're trying to find a way to help that person open up to have a meaningful conversation to know how they really are Doing to see if you can connect with them as a deeply as a human being Anyway, dr. Mirabelle is a proponent of taking time to reach out and connect intentionally with a friend a family member or a colleague and he also says that happiness is found in the process of relating and I just love that that makes me smile happy. It makes me when another person I've met on the planet says Happiness is found in the process of relating I mean those words They resonate deeply with me because I do try to live and breathe that every day in my work with my clients with my former students because I don't teach anymore in my work in my Relationships with my colleagues in Mentoring the people that I choose to work with either as a mentee or a mentor or any of these More intimate relationships that I try to have with the people in my life At that conference in the hour that I had to attend I was Work one particular professor who spoke and this is still a communication conference So, dr. Mirabelle introduced me to the field. I happen to have had an hour that I could spend attending this conference You know, I heard a little bit of this guy's thought recorded and he's a professor of interpersonal communications at the University of Arizona he presented a brief segment of his work on the communication of affection in close relationships and How affection affects stress and physiological functioning and in the latest book Which he was fighting some techniques from the? There's only this cure six strategies bring real connections in your life and I felt like the whole universe opened up and went While I was sitting there listening to That he wanted to share with other people about how to find real connect in your life I thought this is the answer to so many things and I don't know why we're not talking about this Or why I haven't heard people talking about this in my everyday life, even though I know I kind of live This way I use these techniques but I was delighted to hear that there are people actually studying and Naming and talking about them and trying to teach people that we should be conscious of them. So You know psychology does study this but the beauty of the communications a psychology out of academia and put it out in the world and Yes, they're saying okay Yeah We're not saying it's a cure We're not saying there's a cure to lonely loneliness saying that you can proactively See and practice ways to attract More intimacy into your relationships in your everyday life. I mean, I want to say that again just because the way I I Wrote that I wrote some notes before we started. I thought what are we saying here? We're saying proactively speak and practice ways to attract more intimacy Into your relationships in everyday life. I think those are powerful words. Oh Yeah And why do I say that I Okay, I say that because why? people are hardwired for connection it is in our human DNA and I believe that and I believe with healthy practice and Healthy interpersonal boundaries. I will add You can save off the sort of self-reinforcing Spirals these downward spirals that we were talking about earlier. I Think you can save them off With if you change some of the things you think and some of the things you say and These are from dr. Floyd was saying this and his book is about this that these are not be-all end-all cure-all for every stage or every experience of loneliness, but Dr. Floyd Techniques that he talks to talk to her. They pulled out of this But they taught us about the other day the conference our ways that you can get Unstuck in your loneliness like you so here's some techniques and these are so basic I was like, yes, my man. You were talking life coaching language Can I borrow those and I don't have the book yet, but I was taking mad notes and I thought oh, yeah This is how you disrupt the cycle of loneliness and here he has inscribed it and it was Somewhere but I haven't read the book yet But he's just pulling from his research and explaining his very perfect Way from the data that he has studied what we need to do. So here it is Number one, I guess I'm going to give four things and these also I notice I recognize them I recognize them as coming from psychology to These are these are cited in psychological texts. But again, they're taking it out of the Communication field now and and examining it from their lens and they have other tools This is just a very brief list. There are tools within tools within tools on this list I want to say because that's how scholars academic scholarship works and the development of these techniques works, but on research base, I mean, so I want to say the four things if you want to write them down That would be our list for today like we do in this podcast. Okay, so number one Okay if you are wanting to disrupt the cycle of feeling stuck in loneliness and You're in your head and you're thinking Something's wrong with me I'm so lonely. No one wants to be with me. I I Can't make myself go out. I don't I'm not Worthy or no one feels about me like they used to go Okay, this is what I'm talking about where you're ruminating and you're getting into this horrible mindset Lonely like oh, this is terrible loneliness Dr. Foley says disrupt the cycle by one examining the evidence. Okay, the way you examine the evidence is you you say to yourself Where is the proof? Where's the proof to support the belief that you have? So let's talk about those beliefs again People people have cited that that they feel when they feel so lonely. They feel shame anxiety fear Helplessness not being not wanted being undesired being unworthy or whatever So he's asking that if you look for evidence in your life of those things Is there really any? Is there? Is there really any evidence for that look at yourself? Tell me is there any evidence that you are not wanted that you that you are anxious? So if you have need to be anxious or that that fear is warranted, let's look at it What is it that is making you believe that? or Are you? We're challenging now. Are you only looking at evidence that confirms your belief? I You're looking for evidence. So so I'm asking you to examine the evidence and you go There's not any or you go. Well, of course, it's all there at all. It's all true. Look at this like that You know, look at this. Okay, that's called confirmation bias you're just Reinforcing something you already believe by looking for evidence that it is true It's something we do as human beings. Duh. Okay number two. Yeah That change roles, yes number one examining evidence number two change roles We what I mean by change roles. You're we are often more generous to other people than we are to ourselves If you are one of those people that yeah, if you're second a cyclist, I'm lonely. I'm not worthy I'm nobody's no one You if you ever hear somebody else say that You might be able to console them or encourage them but you might not be able to do that for your own self Well, wait a minute. I want to what am I saying? I'm saying like if you ever hear a friend say, oh I'm so lonely, but I had to serve to be lonely Okay, how would you respond to that person? Well, I'm just saying I'm asking well, I'm saying this whole story out loud what's going on in your head Right. How would I respond to that person because I'd go back to that first word you said is change The change of the role and you know, my motto is when you change changes, okay? So that means and an individual That's always putting everybody ahead of you and And then putting yourself now or or or doing yes or making somebody else feel better when you should make yourself feel better So the point of changing the role is is is if you're in your own head thinking I deserve to be lonely Then you need to step back and say I deserve to be lonely You're awesome, just like you would tell a friend that Yes, you would tell a friend. 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Yes, yes it does. I hope I'm not sounding like a crazy person, but I'm trying to come around almost full circle I'm trying to come around almost full circle where the thinking, I know I tend to overthink, but the thinking is this that by thinking I enjoy my alone time and honestly I did start this whole podcast saying I enjoy my alone time but is there a point I'm asking myself just as much as I'm asking you is there a point where you treasure your own alone time so much that you become lonely and then the swing back is does your loneliness then become something of a deficit and drive you back because you want to avoid falling into the deep pit of loneliness, does it actually serve as a useful purpose to drive you back, not be lonely. Okay, I think that's awesome. Okay, so the last thing, number four is our boy says do a cost benefit analysis and he said that and I thought what does he mean by that? Well he went on to explain, he went on to explain that okay basically I want to challenge you how does it help you to believe that you deserve to be lonely what is the benefit you derive from believing that you deserve to be in the stuck lonely place, so for example let me give you an example, I want to give you an example because I had to research this a little bit to be able to talk about it, I thought well what does it mean when people say they have social anxiety, I've heard a lot of people post pandemic say I have social anxiety and I don't know what that term means and it's been stuck in my head because I was like what do they mean by social anxiety and I've been looking for examples of it and so I wanted to follow that thread a little bit, if someone is doing a cost benefit analysis, they're basically trying to determine like what is the payoff for me versus what is the cost to me and I hear a lot of people saying I have social anxiety, so if people say that I wanted to think about it in these terms then by this definition, okay if you say you have social anxiety what is your payoff for holding on to that and then I started trying to unpack what are the reasons people would do that, why would some of my friends who say they have social anxiety be wanting to have social anxiety and I thought of a few one is I thought well I know this person, they might be feeling a little embarrassed or awkward in front of people and they want to avoid that feeling and I have other colleagues where I'm like it's the pressure, friends and family members actually tell me they have the pressure of small talk and not knowing what to say to people, it's just something they want to avoid all together and I've had my dear friend, we went out for happy hour last night, we like to stay connected and start to miss each other if we don't see each other after a couple of weeks because we do have meaningful connection wonderful conversation, so he said last time he said, I said and I'll say his name is Fred, but it's not Fred, but I said Fred I know you don't like small talk and after the pandemic you said you had some social anxiety, but it was really not the small talk, it was more like, I'm going to tell you what it was it was that, I felt like it was a prerequisite to have to go through the small talk to even get past all that, to get all that chitchat and small talk to get to topics that are meaningful to you and he said it was just a struggle because he didn't want to have to, it wasn't that he, it was the pressure of small talk, it's just that the effort that it took to go through it to have these meaningful conversations that he just craved after so much isolation it just wasn't worth it, so it was, that was his cost benefit analysis, it just wasn't worth it and I know a lot of people had that same, I know a lot of people had that same experience so I just was, I'm so enamored with him and what he said that I said man I understand completely, I know and that is so true and so many people felt the same way because I will say we, those of us who want to have meaningful conversations like have stirring creative or existential or provocative or intimate conversations and those are harder to come by and because they are harder to come by you just hang back or you don't put out the effort or you might start to confine yourself as my friend Fred said that he had done which he admits at times puts him on the border of loneliness, oh my gosh, so there I've come there I've come full circle again, so I want to just say I'm getting close to the summary, it's hard to balance the tension sometimes between your desire to be alone and your desire to not be lonely and I think in that, in the expression of that we need to look at ways that that might be helping you or conversely how it could be hurting you and in life coaching language, how is it holding you back and I will add to that because this also came up in the study today if feelings of loneliness are important to distinguish as symptoms or signs that you can do something about and another finding from this research, your loneliness limits are different, they're not the same as somebody else's and I want to give a personal example of that and you know this is hard for me, I hope I don't cry again so I remember the first time that my boyfriend said to me I don't feel the need to be together as much as you do so shocked when he first said that because I personalized, I took it personal and I felt a little butthurt for a second, I was like wait a minute, did he just say he didn't feel the need to be with me as much as I feel the need to be with him, what did he just say there and yet that's not what he said, his actual words were I don't feel the need to be together as much as you do and then I started thinking about him and he's a very literal communicator and I thought wait, when he says the words he literally means he doesn't feel the need to be together in other words what he's saying is I enjoy my alone time a lot and when I heard him say that I thought wow, I don't need to be butthurt I need to be amazed that he knows himself so well and he knows how much alone time makes him feel whole and connected to his self and what that does for him and where he gets that in the world and I had been struggling with my own feelings of loneliness because I moved across country from California where my children and all my friends and family and students are and all that and my life, my whole network my whole network and web of intimate relationships was in California and then I left California to explore and start whole new connections and relationships in Arkansas and there was a deep chasm of loneliness and has been for years while I've been rebuilding those connections, right? So my boyfriend pipes up and says I don't feel the need to be together as much as you do, okay, so I felt like he was devaluing the time that he spends with me I'm thinking to myself when he says this word, well if you like being alone so much, why spend any time with me at all? I can find somebody who enjoys my company more because they want to spend time with me. I'm thinking that, you know, why don't you just stay single and why try to have an intimate relationship and then I realized when I was talking to myself in my head, I was thinking, oh wait, that way I'm thinking is all or none thinking. It's like I'm thinking that just because he doesn't want to, he doesn't feel the need to be together as much means he doesn't value the time he spends with me. Wait, that's not right it's just that he really values his alone time and he also, it's not an either or or an all or none, he also values his intimate time with me does this make sense? Yes Makes a lot of sense. Okay, so you're following my little personal story, thank you. So I'm thinking if my man loved me, he'd want to commit to spending as much time with me as he possibly can. Well he is, he's spending as much time with me as he wants to or needs to, but the challenge I'm having is how much more of his time do I want him to spend with me and also how much of my time that I enjoy being alone am I willing to give up in order to spend time, that intimate time with him that I enjoy so much Okay, stay with me. So I'm continuing my little story I've been divorced for 10 years and it's taken me a lot of that time and maybe even some years before my marriage to understand how much I do enjoy my alone time because I went from 30 years, 35 years of being single, 18 years of being married 10 years of being divorced and I'm still doing these chunks of my life where I'm trying to I've spent a lot of time with somebody, I've spent a lot of time by myself so I'm still trying to understand this alone time and how much of that I want because I'm now 64, I'm heading into my late years and I've been thinking that one of the reasons I enjoy this current boyfriend, he's close to my age, he's just a couple years younger one of the reasons I enjoy him so much is because he and I both know how to balance this struggle between need to be alone and want to be together a little bit intimately in a satisfying way with the connected time that we treasure with one another because we're so unique, our connection is so unique it's spiritual, emotional, intimate life together this is my thinking up to this point I think that we both live and dread that if we spent more time together, we would ruin that nice balance that we have and the reason that this is important is because he is now currently struggling with an impending move I mean actual move away where he has to decide if he is moving on to his own solitary life where the majority of his time would be spent enjoying his alone time or whether he stays more connected and either foregoes that opportunity to do what his first instinct is in order to give up some of that to have more of this and more of the real together, more real intimate time with another person that presumably he loves so think that we are not the only people that struggle with this kind of thing now obviously people who are married have made the commitment to spend more together and close connected time and in fact sharing their lives with one another but if you don't have a natural nature or financial reason, you know, like you want to have children you want to build a family, you know, da-da-da-da, if you don't have a natural reason to want to be married, there are many people that choose to partially connected so that they are balancing this need to be solitary but with the need to have intimacy and why do I say that? Because I think that is actually a very big trend. I don't, again, I don't think that the traditional, you know, long term one person one partner married kind of model really works for the way most people live in the world today and you know, divorce, pandemic, you know, financial gains and independence for women, a lot of trends have affected this, you know, over the past 30 years or, you know, the majority of our adult life so that, you know, I think that these challenges to traditional ways of being intimate and not feeling lonely are really being examined because we get to see what's happening really in the world because there are more choices to explore those things. So anyway, I wanted to kind of wrap up by saying that I think Dr. Floyd, the gentleman who's the author and professor whose book I quoted from earlier, his work and there are Dr. Mirabelle that I met through UALR who got me started on this track of thinking by attending his conference for an hour last Friday and other people in their positive communication network suggest that we should express our affection in a myriad of ways and that, as I've learned even just from my own examination of this, that your own motivation for not wanting to feel lonely could fuel your decisions and how you act on a minute by minute day by day basis. So what I'm saying is it can give you the motivation you need to communicate your, proactively, your need for connection to other people in a way that's meaningful, that helps you not only stay off loneliness but just stay in the human race. So I think that other listeners or readers who experience something similar or who have had a challenge they face, they come to a crossroads like me and my boyfriend are where we might be split still or we might try to negotiate the differences in our need to be alone and our need to be together. And who knows what that looks like. And, of course, for me it's been distance. I've been telling him don't move three hours away because that's a deal breaker. But anyway, it's definitely, I feel like it's a deal breaker. But I'm sure that other people have experienced something very similar. And I just want to close by saying I think that it's human. I think that we all feel and communicate experiences like this. And I did want to share before we, yeah, I want to share before we sign off, Linda, too. And I'm sorry it's taken me so long just to explain this concept. But the Positive Communication Network has a website that I wanted to share that I think I became aware of because Dr. Mirabelle shared it when he sent to the conference attendees, sent the follow-up email. He said you can join the Positive Communication Network community by visiting www.positivecommunication.net. And I don't want to sound completely like a commercial for them because I became aware of them and I'm not a member of the network. I just was appreciative of what they gave to me by this thought experiment that I've gone through and that I'm sharing with you today because they opened that door last Friday and invited our minds and hearts to step through it. And now I'm sharing it with you today. Well, you know what? I'm listening. I was listening and writing and I was connecting and first of all, before I forget, Dr. Floyd's book. What is the title of that book? Dr. Floyd's book is called The Loneliness Cure, Six Strategies for Finding Real Connections in Your Life. Okay, repeat that again, please. It's The Loneliness Cure, Six Strategies for Finding Real Connections in Your Life. Okay, I needed to get that and this has been so interesting and before I let you go, you know I was over here writing because we go back and forth but this was such a, when you say positive communication and the importance of having a dialogue. I don't experience, as you were talking, I was thinking, I don't experience loneliness. I could be lonely and don't know it but it comes from childhood, from your childhood and as you were talking, I was speaking and connecting and understanding and I was growing up, I was always busy and moving and they would make me take a nap every day because they called me Rosa and I had so much energy but one thing that I do remember is some days I could play with my friends in the neighborhood and some days I was not allowed to. I had to entertain myself and yeah, it was a structure there and I learned how to entertain myself and had my routine and I was always going shopping and my bicycle was my car and I'd get my shopping bag and anything you bought new and you couldn't find. If you could find my shopping bag, it was in there. I was always a shopper and that I would entertain myself so as I got older and got into high school and stuff, you want to be with the group and you want to be with the crowd. It didn't matter to me if I was with the group or the crowd because I could go off and entertain myself and growing older as an adult, when you say lonely, those teachings that was given to me, if I want to go to the opera, I go to the opera alone, I don't wait for anyone. Anything that I want to do, I didn't ever have that yearning to be a part of the party. Do you understand what I'm saying? So being able to mix and blend is a choice that I make. If I want to be involved in that, I do. If I don't, I don't but I don't feel lonely. Solitude and me time, I believe in. I can do that very well and because I can pull back and do that because I can do that. When you say happiness is found in the process of relating and I like to relate. I like to have dialogue. I'm trying to wrap this around my head. That's right, Linda. You're in the middle. You never have a way where you fall into that cycle of stuckness and anxiety and feelings of total isolation. You're not that person but I was pointing out that there are people, there's a whole range of impressions of loneliness from I don't have it to I'm in the deepest despair of stuckness. You just pointed like we do. You pointed out the exact. You are absolutely sharing your personal experience that this is how some people receive this information. I think that's good but the teaching that I was trying to convey from the scholars who studied it, they have been able to look into the lives, the data, the research that they do is to get real data from people real time who are having these deep human experiences where they're reporting these dramatic feelings about their own work as a person. This is helpful because as you're speaking I'm having some experiences similar to this and as you're speaking, see I judge, not judge but I deal a different way but this has been so helpful because like you said, we are different and I'm experiencing anxiety and I'm saying okay. You never tell a person I don't believe in that. You're going through something and people say get over it. That's the wrong thing to say to an individual. That's not a good thing to say because you can get over it. It doesn't mean that they can get over it at this time. This is okay for me to learn the techniques and those questions. There's this one question here I highlighted it. That cost benefit, that cost versus benefit and that number one where is the proof to support these beliefs? I always say the mouth is close to the ears and the ears is close to the brain so if you keep telling yourself you're not worthy and I'm this and I'm that, this is what's going to speak up and make that mental change. A hundred percent. That's what happens and I've seen it. I've been around it. I know persons that do that and this is helpful because not being a psychiatrist or anything but understanding that this stuff is okay so what do you tell the individual so what I do is go in with the positive. You can communicate. You can communicate and you can be a positive communicator. It doesn't mean you're a psychologist. It just means that you recognize the symptoms and you can use words to help bring something new into view for that person. At that moment. Yes and I've been experiencing this. A therapist said you should go into psychology. No, I'm more into the positive communication because my philosophy is that's the way I have to live my life anyway so these things are not fun to me. That's also in your podcast intro Linda. Every single time we do this it's recorded in there that we're connecting communication. I mean you say it. It's your mission. It's what you do. Yes and you know what's helpful for me. I knew you would like this topic. What's helpful for me Professor Bird is that as I'm relating positive communication to others it's a build up for me. It keeps me going. It works two-four. It's like no I'm not walking in your shoes but I can walk along with you. What is the best way and I'm finding we get emotion. You said something I haven't highlighted about the emotions. We get emotional. Those emotions get up in there. If you know who you are and you understand that persons have the thoughts of loneliness, the fear, the shame, the hopelessness, the anxiety, the fearfulness and if your whole being is about putting that positive out there even though you can go to the meth every now and then. You are medicine for that person. You are medicine for that person because you're not a psychiatrist. You're not a professor of positive communication but you your energy, your Linda McShann energy and the way you express it back, you double it back. If this is a negative energy over here you can double up the positive energy and give them back. We were just talking a minute ago about the cost benefit. Some people benefit by staying in that negative at some point. They can just the same benefit by giving up some of that negative and by absorbing some of the positive. What I do, I'm not cutting you off. I've been experiencing this. When you determine that you're going to keep it positive because when you keep it positive you make it happen. When you fall into the other side, negativity can draw you but you have to have yourself balanced and recognize what's happening here. Some individuals, that's all they know, that's what they want to say and that's how they operate but myself I have to take a step back and kind of understand them. I can't change them but when I change, it changes. How am I going to deal with this? I don't know if you can stop their spiral. I don't know if you can stop their spiral. That's their responsibility. My responsibility is putting that reinforcement that you can. I understand that's what my medicine is. I can take that needle and give them a shot. No, it's not that you can, it's that you will and you must and I don't even like the word have to because people say have to to me is like something I say this is what you get to do. That word have to and get to gives them another way. I always say this is what you get to do. It's motivation. It makes them feel a little better than saying you have to do it that way. This is what I get to do and this is what you get to do. It's something about that get and have that kind of brings another light bulb in there. Very, very careful and not only with them but with myself because I journal. I take care of everything. We have to work on ourselves over here and I make a point because I'm very strong and very point to the blank and most people will take my information or my suggestions as whatever but I have to watch myself because I need to speak in a healing tone When persons are going through stuff, okay, the more healing tones that you use, the better you can like penetrate in instead of being upset Well, that's true Linda. That's true but also people don't always know. They're not at the same level of enlightenment that you are. They may not recognize that you are giving them medicine because they need it because it would raise them up to the next level of not feeling that pain They may not know it yet. Speaking, how did you say? It's not just the words but it's with love and warmth. That's right and that's how you get better and that's how people can come to trust and believe you because you know that you exposed that vulnerability or you allowed that pain so you could get through it to the other side or you really looked at it and admitted that it did not feel good. What I find out through my experiences Professor, what I found out because I'm experiencing some things but what I'm finding out is that when you say I don't know exactly how you feel but I know you're going through a lot and I know it's not a good feeling and oh I'm this and I'm that. Yes, you're that and a whole lot more but that can all change but it's up to you. I'm experiencing it as we speak but I'm finding out a lot about you brought the perfect topic. Now, I need to go where is this, University of Arkansas? I need to get in there and positive communication is very, very important but my philosophy is we have to we say you keep it positive and make it happen. We say when you change, it changes. We ain't saying nothing about changing that other person because that's their responsibility and you get out there and you get to do what you get to do. That's what you have to do, what you get to do. That word get puts a different kind of spin on reinforcing. It's like an empowered word but you have to really, really understand. I love that. Yes, an empowering word for yourself. It's like, well, no, you have to go over here. No, I don't have to go over here. This is what I get to do. That puts it like it's your choice, your opinion and you decide if you're going to do it and we all have to do things that we do. A better example of that based on our discussion today and I've heard you say this a lot, think not what you have to do but what you get to do. If we're talking about trying to balance the people who struggle with balancing solitude and alone time versus the need for connection and intimacy and I know it's hard for you because you don't experience that you're way on the other end of the spectrum but back to the topic for today for people who struggle with it. If the problem is oh no, like my own example, I have to spend more alone time and be okay with that and not be with my boyfriend because he's moving away but to your point, a way to positively communicate is think what you get to do. Yes, you will be lonely but you will get to have more faith and time for other intimate relationships. You will get to open your heart up again if you have to lose this friend because he wants to move three hours away and that's too far for you to maintain a meaningful connection with him you will get to start a new life without him and yes, it will hurt because you valued that intimate time more and you wanted more of that intimate time with him but y'all never negotiated the two of you were never really able to negotiate how much of your alone time versus how much of your together time really was the right formula for you and also what the deal breakers were. I'm talking about my own experience. We still haven't discussed the deal breakers because the move is imminent. It hasn't happened yet but I'm hoping to have that discussion like any minute now so I do need to go because I am home in the middle of my little spring vacation. I'm off for five days and I thank you so much for giving me this podcast time as we do it's been way too long. It was early January last time we did this but I'm glad we got met together in March, late March actually the 20th. Is it the first day of spring? Well anyway, it's close to it and we are celebrating the spring season by talking about solitude versus loneliness and sort of examining with Ms. Belinda like we always do our mutual experiences and our very different experiences and taking the things we learn like we're both like little sponges with all the people that we like to learn from because she and I both are lifelong learners and that's how we met because I was teaching a graduate level class that she was taking at the University of La Verde, Southern California and we both just love learning and so that's why we have stayed together because we find meaning and connection in this cross country connection. And Linda, I love you, I cannot thank you enough I so appreciate the time to just unpack this and I will I've got some notes, I'll capture those and put them on my blog, my karenberg.com blog and then you will share the recording with me and we'll share the podcast out through our social media channels like we always do Yes we will and I want to say thank you, thank you go out and enjoy the birds, the flowers, I see your postings I've even started out in the spring thing, I'm doing spring cleaning, winter cleaning and all that, all the season cleaning here but I enjoy just getting out, just feeling the sun beating on my face, it is very necessary but before I let you go, I'm going to assign some homework to our listeners and that homework is if you're experiencing this, we talked about solitude versus loneliness, I want you to ask yourself this question as Professor Bird put it to her thing how did I get here? That's a start, okay, start thinking, T-H-I-N-K, you know how cross country goes connecting in with our Think Thursday, we want you to think out there to love yourself, think about you, stay safe, stay aware, stay kind but more so, start with you first it all begins with you and it ends with you, Professor Bird enjoy, enjoy your days off and we will be speaking we love you, we love you, we love you, thank you have a good one, calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page calendar, page