Loneliness Crisis??

I don't think so...it's more meaningful than that

I moved house 23 times by the time I turned 22. 

All that moving shaped my character in some interesting ways. I got very comfortable with change. I learned to adapt quickly in new environments with all new people. I learned to be ok alone until I made new friends.

Unfortunately, I also got used to saying goodbye to those friends. I missed out on the benefits to body, mind and spirit of having the same people in my life I could consistently count on and relate to. 

I know how important real connection is, to me as a human and us as a species, because I know the devastation of not having it. Because of this, I’ve worked to create close connections with others my entire adult life. And it’s this experience I fall back on with the topic of ‘societal loneliness’ now currently making headlines. 

Let’s look closer at the relationship shifts we’ve experienced these last three years.

The pandemic created a pattern interrupt to relationships we’d had on repeat. 

For many of us, we came to realize that even though we’d been communing pre-pandemic with others, it was just a facsimile we pretended was true connection. Even in our so-called close relationships, we were sometimes lonely, enough so that by the end of enforced quarantines, we didn’t feel compelled to reconnect with those people. 

We realized they didn’t truly know our hearts. Partly because we didn’t openly share it with them (from fear of rejection, judgement, etc.) or they weren’t capable of meeting us at a heart level. In many cases, what we had was disconnection masquerading as connection. 

These dynamics require effort to reconcile, and in some cases, simply can’t be reconciled.

As a population, many are making the choice to be alone more often rather than make the effort of true connection with old friends or showing up authentically with new people.

Hence, the upswing in loneliness.

We have new choices to make around community now as a society that may be challenging to stretch ourselves into. 

If we’re not content with surface relationships, if we can’t tolerate fake interactions, the alternative is going deeper. And deeper, for many of us, is unchartered territory. 

We’ll have to embrace vulnerability in order to find true heart connections. 

We’ll have to get clear with what we want and act according to our true values.

We’ll have to decide how we want our relationships to function and do the work to create it. 

We’ll have to say what we need out loud and be prepared to not get it. 

In this in between time, we’re learning to be ok alone, self-sufficient, and self-generating our own happiness. We’re learning not to project our issues onto others and instead do the deep work of owning our sh*t.

This is the under the radar work being done by many on the planet. It takes time and conscious effort. It may present as loneliness on the surface, but only until we’re ready to re-emerge and show up differently. 

Some of us are coming to this work quicker than others. I believe that most of us eventually will.

So, in my opinion, we don’t have a loneliness crisis. 

We have a new paradigm shift toward people gaining more self-responsibility, deeper connection with themselves and others, and better partnerships of all kinds. This is the work of the North Node in Aries and South Node in Libra that won’t be complete until January 2025. 

We’re going through a massive transformation on the planet and this is good news! We’re fixing something that’s inherently been broken but didn’t become obvious until we were forced to stop doing what we always did. 

Question the mainstream narratives. This is actually an amazing opportunity. 

Let’s make that the headline.