“Loneliness is a byproduct of the way that we’re focusing on the things and the people that are either in our life or not in our life.”
Left un-tended, loneliness can become how we identify ourselves and be pervasive. In this episode, Joey explains how to combat loneliness and line up a new way of being that gives us access to connection.
“When we're feeling lonely, it's not because we're necessarily alone per se. It's because we're focused on it.”
If you’re looking for tips on how to manage loneliness, this episode is for you.
Watch the video to get the full training.
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Full Transcript:
[The following is the full transcript of this episode of Joey’s Performance Tune Up With Joey Klein. Please note that this episode, like all episodes, features Joey speaking unscripted and unedited. This video is captured in one take.]
Hey there, Joey Klein here. In this video we're going to talk about loneliness and essentially what conditions and drives loneliness. So many people think that what drives loneliness is the loss of somebody. And although if we have a loss of someone, you know, like a death in the family or a breakup or maybe we're not friends with somebody anymore, or a good friend or relative moves, or something like this, that byproduct of the absence of those people in our life tends to be loneliness.
Or sometimes a lot of times people will get caught in loneliness because they believe they have nobody in their life and therefore they're alone. And loneliness is this sort of response to the absence of people in our life. In actuality, loneliness is a byproduct of the way that we're focusing on the things and the people that are either in our life or not in our life. And so it's totally okay to obviously feel sad or to feel a little bit of loneliness when we're noticing that we're missing somebody. Like that's normal and that's healthy and that's fine, but it's not so great if we start waking up to loneliness and months are passing and years are passing us by.
And sometimes all of a sudden, loneliness can be defined in our life as a way of being. It can become sort of how we identify ourself and all of a sudden pervasive. And now we want to know how do we get out of loneliness? How do we get out of this conditioning? Because all emotions are conditioned and trained and we just have to understand, well, what are we doing to condition the emotion, in this case, the loneliness? And what can we do instead to train and condition a different emotion, a love based emotion that we would rather not only experience, but also is going to support us to perform better in our life and bring the best version of ourself to our life and the people that we love.
And so if we look at loneliness, we tend to be focusing on the absence of somebody in our life. We focus on how they're no longer there. It's interesting because you can have all kinds of people who love and care for you. You could have friends in your life who love and care for you, who you see regularly. And you might work with people who you're pretty close to and go to the office. And you're surrounded by people who care for you in your workplace. And you might have family and extended family that love and care for you. And you might have a beloved pet in your house who just adores you. And you have all this love and support all around you. And all it takes is the focusing on the absence of one person and all of a sudden we can start telling the story that we're alone and that we feel alone and that we don't have anybody in our life.
And it's like we had a breakup, right? We're no longer with our significant other, and all of a sudden we can sort of move into this space where you believe we have nobody in our life and we're alone, and we have all the support in the world, right? I'm sure you've had that experience before. We have all kinds of support, but it doesn't seem like you have any support. It doesn't seem like anybody's there because the absence of one person can just kind of gut punch you. And if we accidentally focus on and obsess about how this person's no longer in our life, it can seem like there's nobody there. And that might be a best friend, it could be a significant other in your life. It might be a family member, something of that effect. And then we start telling the story that we have nobody.
And so what we want to do is just start paying attention. When are we focused on how a person is no longer there in our life and make a distinction, hey, the relationship with so and so has changed, right? So it's like, let's say I have a breakup. Hey, my relationship with my significant other has changed and evolved. We're now becoming friends. We're now acquaintances. We're now moving into a new phase of our life. Focus on what the relationship has become instead of the absence of a relationship.
And this can even work when we're experiencing grief and a deep loss of somebody that we care about, like inside of a death or a transition where we focus on the absence of a person. We can focus on the presence of them because we're always thinking about them, even years after they pass away or they transition. We can focus on what they meant to us and we're focused on the presence of something, or we're focused on what the person meant to us, or the great times that we shared, or the wisdom that we learned from them, the lessons we took away from engaging with them, or the newfound appreciation that we have for life because their transition reminded us that life is so special and sacred and can just transition so quickly.
And so there's always the access to what's present for us if we can remember to focus on the present, right? And so if we're focused on the present, we're not lonely at all because we experience that presence. We experience the presence of love, of connection. We experience the presence of support of the people in our life, and we just have to remember to acknowledge those things. And so in the case where, like,one transition, one relationship transitions, we can acknowledge what that relationship has become.
Number one, what is the relationship to us now? What is it becoming? Right? The transition into where we're going with the relationship, which is the focusing on a presence of something and then we can also focus on and remind ourselves of all of the beauty and all the relationships that are still in our life, the friends that we have, and the family and our acquaintances and our work buddies, right? Our work family, so to speak. And if we start paying attention, we have all these people in our life.
And if it's like, man, I'm going through a period in my life where maybe I just moved and I don't have a lot of interaction with people right now because I moved states or moved countries, and I've not yet found my new community of people yet. Well, you can focus on the presence of the universe supporting you or how you're part of the whole and how you are connected with everything in life. Right. You can always focus on the presence of something if you remember to do so.
And so when we're feeling lonely, it's not because we're necessarily alone per se. It's because we're focused on it. And we got caught placing our attention on the idea of what we've lost or what's no longer there, or the absence of the person or people in our life. And so if we remember that and we take note of that, yeah, we can feel sad for a minute or maybe a few days, we can feel that loneliness. But then when we're ready to start training a sense of connection and feeling support and safe and joy, then what we want to do if you want to focus on the presence of the people in your life, who you have in your life, the support that is there in your life.
And if we're willing to start putting our attention in that direction, we'll see that it's always there. Right? We always have people around us. We always have support, even if it's a more kind of universal sense. Like, the universe is supporting me and I'm supported by life. I'm alive, I exist, right? The air is supporting me, I'm breathing, right? The more you focus on how you're supported and the more you focus on what's available to you, the less you're going to feel lonely or focus on the absence of things, and the more you're going to feel the presence of things in your life, such as love, such as connection, such as safety, such as support.
And so enjoy. Take a few moments and just focus on who you have in your life and the support you do have there and the way those in your life are there for you.