00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 160, "Being Single and Being Lonely." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:20 

Alright, hello there, my friends. Welcome to the podcast today. I'm happy to have you here. I'm going to go on a bit of a rant today. So, at the beginning anyway, and I just wanted to talk to you about being single and being lonely. Now, some of you are not single. That's okay. This is still going to apply to you. I'm just going to be coming at this from a single angle since I'm single. And I want to talk about how this works in my life and how I work through this process of feeling alone sometimes and managing this and times that I also feel lonely. And I think it's important that we look at this, because all of this is going to apply if you're married or if you're in a relationship, but I want you to just look at this. So bear with me this first little bit while I go on a bit of a rant, because I'll tell you what, single people, if you're single out there and you're with me, we can get a little bit whiny sometimes and we can feel a little bit sorry for ourselves because we're single and we don't have anybody. And you know what? It's okay. Let's take a look at this. Right? 

01:32 

So we are people and we are created to feel connection to other humans. Humans need this for our emotional development. Remember that movie that Tom Hanks did several years ago called "Cast Away?" And he found himself on a deserted island by himself. Well, he finds this volleyball that has the name Wilson on it and he turns this volleyball into a person, technically, that he can communicate with and talk with, and it just goes to show how deeply our instinct is to connect with other people, to have someone. But there are times in all of our lives when we feel very disconnected, and I think shortly after a divorce it can be very easy to feel disconnected to other people, sometimes disconnected to God, disconnected to ourselves, disconnected to other people. We can sometimes feel very isolated and this is totally normal. 

02:35 

But here's what I want you to understand. Your primitive brain will start to panic a bit and it will start going into worst case scenarios. It will start pushing you toward depression or anxiety. Okay, it's inevitable that this is going to happen occasionally, because we are humans after all, and our human brain does what it does. Our primitive brain is queued for survival instinct, protecting us from being outside of the tribe. Because in caveman days, if we were outside of the tribe, guess what? We were probably going to die because we needed that tribe to help keep us safe from all the dangers that were in the world. But in our day and age, it's kind of counterproductive and it actually ends up isolating us more. For example, let me put it in a thought model for you. When I think the thought "nobody loves me," how do I feel? I start feeling isolated. I start feeling lonely. And then how do I act? When I feel isolated and lonely, I start pulling back from other people. I start isolating myself. And the end result is I don't seek out connection with other people. I don't seek out people to love and people to love me. And then I end up feeling more isolated. I create this cycle, right? When I think that nobody loves me. Feeling disconnected and isolated or lonely is a feeling. And the feeling comes from our thoughts. It does not come from the fact that I'm divorced. It does not come from the fact that I'm single. My feeling lonely comes from my thoughts. Okay? 

04:17 

Now, I'm not saying that you don't want to feel lonely. Sometimes feeling lonely is what we want to feel. That's okay. But I just see so many single people swimming in this space of loneliness where, "woe is my life. My life is so hard." And then they start to shut down, which does not resolve the problem, which actually just exacerbates the problem. We have to start paying attention to our thoughts. How many of these have you thought? If you're married too. I mean, these thoughts come into play. How often have you thought "I'm all alone? Nobody cares about me. Nobody loves me. "This is my particular favorite because my brain loves to go to the worst case scenario: "If I were to die in my house, how many days would it take before somebody found me?" That's where my brain likes to go and I would imagine my brain is not the only one. But we have these thoughts. And the question that I want to ask is how are these thoughts serving you? "I'm all alone. Nobody cares about me." I'm going to offer that these thoughts are not serving you. They are just exacerbating a problem. They're keeping you isolated. 

05:36 

But I'll tell you what, when you are struggling, it can be really tough to manage your thoughts. But managing your thoughts is vital. It is necessary for us to reach out and connect with others if we're going to stop feeling lonely. But how do we do that when we're having thoughts like "nobody cares about me? Nobody loves me. I'm all alone." It is so hard to put that in the thought model. We put those thoughts and then we have the feelings of more isolated and disconnected and lonely. And then our action is that we pull back and we isolate ourselves more. We have to start paying attention to our thoughts. So how do we do that? 

06:18 

We have to create a regular protocol of being aware of our thoughts. We have to do thought downloads on the regular. That's one of the most important things that I can suggest that you do. Become aware of what your go-to thoughts are. Where does your brain usually go? Now, I'm going to be straight up. It's easy for me to go to a positive place. It always has been my whole life. I've tended toward more positive thoughts, but I have clients and I have friends who tend toward more negative all the time. They always have and they probably always will. But regardless of whether you tend toward positive or negative, you can learn to be aware of that. And you can learn to be like, "aha, brain, I see you. I see what you're doing. I see how you're moving toward the negative." And you can choose to intentionally make a switch towards something more positive. 

07:16 

Now it may not come so natural. You may have to pay attention to it. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with intentionally managing your thoughts. In fact, my friends, if I can suggest, there is everything positive and amazing about intentionally managing your thoughts, paying attention to what's going on in there and finding out whether those thoughts are serving you or not. If your brain tends towards the negative, fine, not a problem. Just know that it does that. Once you see it, once you are aware of it and can acknowledge it, then you can start making adjustments to make it work for you better. So look at your thoughts, questions your thoughts. Are they serving you? Are they helping you move in the direction you want to move? And I will tell you as a single person, it can be easy to move in the direction of isolation, no doubt. 

08:12 

Because here's what I found: people are busy. People have lives. People have spouses. People have siblings. People have children. People have jobs. People have extracurricular activities they like to do. People, surprisingly, have other friends. People are full of amazing things going on in their lives. And sometimes people get a little bit lazy as well, right? Other people outside their immediate family are not always at the forefront of their minds. And I can't control that. I can't control whether people call me and ask me to go out to lunch or to go on a hike or to go do something, I can't control that. But you know what I can control? I can control whether I do that or not. I get to control my interactions with other people, because guess what? I can ask. But here's the thing. A lot of us move from this married space into this single space, and we think that everybody should be thinking about us all the time. Everybody should be feeling bad for us because we've gotten divorced. Everybody should be aware that we're struggling and that this is tough. Everybody should be aware that I'm up to my eyeballs in yard work and housework and managing things and I'm struggling. And we think everybody should be aware of that. 

09:37 

Let me tell you what, my friends. People are amazing, people are good, and people don't pay attention. It's not that people don't care. There are some people that pay attention. I'm not trying to make it seem like it's all doom and gloom. But most people just don't see. And it's not because they're not loving and kind and compassionate people. They just don't see. I don't see people's stuff. I get so busy trying to keep my lawnmower and edge and my garden growing and keeping my raspberries picked right now, and all this stuff that I've got going on, that I just don't see what other people have got going on. And it's not that I don't want to be kind. It's not that I don't want to be compassionate. It's just like everybody else, I have a life going on. Now there are some rare amazing individuals who have this incredible capacity to see outside of themselves on the regular. I have one particular friend that comes to mind immediately who does that. And I always just stand back in awe at her and I'm always like, "oh my gosh, like how do you do that? Like how do you see other people's stuff?" I think she's worked on it a lot and she's practiced it and she's done it her whole life. And that's how she's choosing to be. And I think it's brilliant and amazing. But guess what? I'm not really like that. And at some point when we move from married to single or in a relationship to single, we have to get over the drama of thinking that everybody else should be thinking of us, that they should be reaching out to us. We just have got to get over that. We have to realize that people are people. They're not going to reach out and not because they're unChristlike, not because they're unkind, because they're people who have a life, who are busy. 

11:24 

And this is a brilliant opportunity for me to start learning how to take care of my own needs. This is something that I have found in my experience. Now, I'm not brilliant at too many things, but one thing that I figured out a long time ago, even when I was married, was that everybody is waiting for somebody to ask. A lot of people, they love to do things, they want to do things, they are quick to move into it when asked. But most people, and I have no idea what numbers would be on this, but I'm going to throw out a number because I just want to make something up. I'm going to say that 80% of people are standing around waiting for somebody else to ask to invite them. And if we're all waiting for somebody else to ask, nothing's ever going to happen. So I decided a long time ago that I was going to be the one to ask. If I wanted something to happen, I was going to make it happen. I was going to create things and experiences and things to do and invite people. And I can think whatever I want about that. I can think that if I have to ask people, that it makes me needy and desperate. That's a thought, but it's just a thought. I can also think that my being willing to ask means that I'm a leader and that I'm a mover and a shaker and that I create life in this world. I create opportunities for people to connect. It's all about my thought. My asking somebody to do something is 100% neutral. But I can think that that makes me weak and needy and desperate, or I can think that it makes me assertive and exciting and fun and a mover and a shaker. I get to think that. And guess what? I choose to think that I'm a mover and a shaker. I choose to think that I'm somebody who helps people live better lives. Because I ask, because I choose to make things happen. 

13:30 

And some of my greatest friends have come from this space of me being able to be willing to make things happen. I have a group of coach friends that I meet with every Sunday morning. We have a call together and we get together and we play. In fact, we've got a play date scheduled this week. We're doing things and guess what? I'm the one who started all of that. I planned a working retreat, put it out on a coaching website and said, "hey, any coaches want to come to this? We're just going to rent this Airbnb. We're going to have a schedule of working. We're going to have food. We're going to have these activities that we do and we're just going to work all weekend." And there were six of us that ended up coming and those six of us are now tight, amazing, good friends. People that know me like nobody else knows me. But that didn't happen just because the stars aligned. It happened because I said, "listen, I want to do this thing. I'm going to do it." I have reached a point, and I think I did it a lot of years, I mean my marriage was tough and so I think I learned how to do it in my marriage as well. But realizing that I have to take care of my own needs and not expect other people to take care of them for me. 

14:48 

Now, is it great when we have people in our lives who help us out and who are there to assist us and, oh, absolutely, absolutely ,that's a great benefit. But if I am waiting for somebody else to take care of my needs, I am giving up my own power over my own life. I'm giving up my power and I cannot be fulfilled until somebody else does something if I'm waiting for that. And guess what? That's ridiculous. Fulfillment comes from me choosing to be fulfilled. I get to fulfill my own needs. Stop waiting for other people to fulfill your needs and make it happen for yourself. This is where we take back our power. Now, it doesn't mean that we don't reach out to other people when we need things. It doesn't mean that we don't create the intimacy that comes from needing other people. But we can't depend on other people to fulfill our needs. When other people are there, that's brilliant and that's amazing and it's an incredible blessing. But if I'm standing around waiting for other people, it's not going to happen. 

16:06 

Last summer, I decided that I really, really loved kayaking. And so I went out and didn't buy just one kayak for me. Guess what? I bought two kayaks. There's only one of me. But what good is one freaking kayak going to do me? I will go out by myself and feel lonely on the boat in the middle of the lake by myself thinking, "nobody wants to kayak with me. I'm here all by myself." No! I bought two kayaks. And every time I go kayaking, I guess unless I want to be by myself, which sometimes I'm sure I'll want to, I haven't yet. But I, every time I go, I call a friend and I invite a friend to go with me. Right? We get somebody else and we load the kayaks on top of my Subaru and we head up to the mountains and we go to this great beautiful amazing lake and we kayak for hours and just enjoy each other's company and we chat and we talk. And I will tell you what, I have yet to have a friend call me and say, "hey, you've got these great kayaks. Can we go kayaking?" No, they don't do that. When I let go of the expectation that other people were going to call me, my life got so much happier because expectations that other people are going to fulfill my needs does not leave me in a good place. Expectations, believe it or not, are not the healthiest space for us to be in our lives. Learning to let other people live their own lives and the only  expectations I have are for me to take care of me and to do what's healthy for me, which means I reach out to other people. For me, that's what that means. 

17:54 

But now I don't sit around and wait for people to call me asking if they want to go kayaking, I call them. And sometimes I'll have a couple of kayak dates set up with people or lunch dates with people because I have to get out of my own way of thinking that other people should know what I need and that they should fulfill those needs for me. I gotta get out of my way. I gotta stop thinking that other people are going to save me, that there's this knight in shining armor that's gonna ride up on a white horse and he's going to do that thing they do in the movies where they grab an arm and they swing you up and it's all like cutesy and lovely. Would that be great? Absolutely. Is it gonna happen? Probably not, right? And if it does, it's gonna happen once. And then you'll start dating and then he'll go, "yeah, get your own horse." Alright? Which is okay too, because I love to be on my own horse. I wanna have control over where that horse goes. Would it be super fun to ride around on a horse with somebody else next to me? Absolutely. Chatting and laughing and enjoying that experience together would be great. 

19:08 

But when I'm waiting for other people to step in and take care of my needs, I become a victim. And it's hard to manage my thoughts thinking that "other people are not doing this. Other people are not taking care of me," because I'll tell you again, very often other people don't because everyone is busy juggling their own lives. Stepping into the amazing space of empowerment means that I stop sitting on my sofa waiting for somebody to knock on my door, give me a call, send me a text. It means that I say you know what I want to hang out with somebody. Let me call somebody. Let me make some plans. It means that I meet my own needs. I make my own plans. Can we be single and and lonely? Absolutely. I think being lonely is part of it. Sometimes I feel lonely and very often I feel alone. Like a lot of times the enormity of what I'm doing here on my own feels really big, and I'll be honest, I know that. It feels big. Sometimes I'm just like "I don't have anybody else." I don't have anybody else helping me plan for retirement. I don't have anybody else like stepping in to help with things when I need them. If I want somebody to come do my lawn, I have to pay somebody to come do my lawn. Right? 

20:46 

But I can sit around and whine and complain and feel sorry for myself about that, or I can do something about it. I can just decide, "hey, I'm gonna hire that kid and have him come over and do my lawn. I can call a friend and invite them to come over." It's easy to get stuck in this thought that nobody's sitting with me at church. I'm sitting here all by myself. All these other couples are sitting there that's so easy to move into that space. And I've been there. Just a few weeks ago. I was sitting in church and looked up and saw, this makes me emotional. Saw a couple and they were sitting close and he had his arm around her. And I just thought, "what if that's never me? What if I never have that? What if I never get to sit by somebody and have his arm around me?" Yeah, do I feel lonely? Absolutely. But at that point, I can get my butt up off of that pew and I can go sit by somebody else who's probably feeling lonely. Or I can go sit by some of my friends who are married if I want. It's not like they don't want me around. Every time I walk up to them, they're always happy to see me. 

21:55 

It's not like people don't like us because we're single. I think a lot of times people just don't know what to do with us. They feel a little bit awkward. Having a game night and inviting couples and, oh, what do we do with this one single person? Well, you know, so we don't get invited. That's okay. I can plan my own game night. I can plan my own game night and invite whoever I darn well, please. My friends, even if you're married, it doesn't matter where you are. You do not have to sit around and feel sorry for yourself. You can take care of your own needs. Is it lovely when somebody reaches out? Absolutely. Does it feel really good when other people reach out? It absolutely feels really good. But sitting around and whining and complaining and feeling like a victim because nobody is reaching out. That's my issue. That comes because of my thoughts. I get to invite. I get to take care of my own needs. That is empowering. And that moves me into a space that grows me and builds me. This is what we get to do. We don't have to stand around and wait for other people to take care of our needs. 

23:24 

If you are struggling with this, my friends, let's stop struggling. Give me a call. Let's talk about this. Let's talk about adjusting your mindset, your thinking, so that you can move into a healthier space. And that doesn't mean you're never going to feel lonely, that sometimes I want to feel lonely. Sometimes it feels really good to feel lonely for a little bit, and that helps me know that I want to connect with other people. And then when I feel lonely, I can go, "oh, maybe it's time for me to plan something. Maybe it's time for another kayaking trip." I get to do that. I get to have control over that. And when other people  invite me, oh, yes, it's amazing. And I love it. But I'm not going to sit around and wait, because it's too easy for me to drop into a space of "nobody cares about me. I'm all alone," right? Those thoughts do not serve me. Knowing that I get to control who I get to hang out with and when, what I get to do, I think that's pretty brilliant. And it's a healthy place to be, my friends. Stop whining that nobody's sitting by you at church and go sit by somebody. Stop whining that you have nothing to do on a weekend and call somebody. 

24:52 

That's where your power is. Your power is not sitting at home waiting. Your power is on choosing to live your life on your terms. That's where your power is. My friends, power up. Power up. Step into choosing what you want and making it happen. Stop giving your power to other people by waiting for them to reach out to you and you reach out to them. You've got this, my friends. I know you do. You've got all the power in the world to create what you want to create. Okay? All right, let's have an awesome, awesome week and I will see you next time. Ciao. 

25:39 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!