In this episode, Lily addresses the feelings of loneliness that can arise during the holiday season, especially for singles. She provides a three-step framework to help listeners navigate their emotions, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and acknowledging feelings, finding comfort and belonging, and choosing accessible positive thoughts. The conversation encourages self-compassion and resilience, offering practical advice for managing loneliness and fostering emotional well-being.

You’ll learn:

• Recognize that loneliness is a hard moment and allow yourself to feel it.

• Emotional granularity helps in understanding and processing feelings.

• Self-soothing is essential for immediate comfort during loneliness.

• Reaching out to friends for support is crucial, even if they can’t always respond.

• Creating a joy-building plan can help combat feelings of loneliness.

• Choosing accessible positive thoughts can shift your mindset.

• It’s normal to feel lonely, especially during the holidays.

• Building resilience helps in managing future feelings of loneliness.

• You are worthy of love and support, regardless of your current situation.

• Your desire for connection is valid and can guide you towards it. 

Links:

✨ Register for The Late Bloomer’s Guide to a Confident Holiday Season

Show transcript:

[00:41.154] Hey, gorgeous friend. Welcome to another episode of the Date Brazen podcast. I’m so glad that you’re here. You are finding me. We are finding each other today on November 25th is when I’m recording this 2024. You are listening to this in the first week of December 2024. And I wanted to make this episode for you because it can be a lonely time. It can be a lonely time, especially if you

are single, especially if you are one of the only single people in your life right now, especially if you are watching your friends get engaged or have babies or do their thing that you want to be doing in your life, maybe in comparison is creeping in. And then, you know, like there are holiday gatherings where it’s a bunch of family members and the undertone is like, my God, you’re the single one at this party, whatever it is, I have been thinking about you and remembering for myself.

what it was like to be single during this time. And it can really fucking suck. And so this episode is for you. It is your loneliness action plan. It’s your loneliness fix so that you can listen to this episode whenever you’re feeling lonely and if ever you’re spinning out about it. pausing bananas.

[04:58.156] And before I get into the episode, I did want to remind you that my live free training, The Late Bloomer’s Guide to a Confident Holiday Season is coming up so soon. It’s coming up next week on December 10th, 2024. And inside this training, you’re not only going to get my scripts for badass boundaries at any holiday gathering when you are being asked nosy questions from your relatives, you’re going to learn boundaries that you can set to protect your peace this holiday season as a single badass.

You’re also going to get my step-by-step dating plan so that 2025 is the year that you bloom in your love life. And so it’s totally free. Inside this live training, your socks are gonna be blown off by the content, right? Everything inside is going to be so applicable to the next month of your life to step into this season feeling as confident as possible. And you’re gonna be prepared as hell to step into 2025 to get more of what you want, especially in your love life.

So you can get your seat saved at datebrazen.com slash holiday. Again, that’s datebrazen.com slash holiday, and I cannot wait to see you there. And with that, let’s get into the episode.

[06:14.998] So as I mentioned, this episode is for you if you are feeling lonely, especially around the holiday season, but really anytime. And I’m gonna tell you how to feel better, okay, with three simple steps. Number one, recognize that this is just a hard as fuck moment. Literally recognize it, acknowledge it, right? Don’t gaslight yourself into thinking, shouldn’t be feeling so big about this. Allow yourself to be human.

with feelings and allow yourself to notice that this is hard right now. This is one of the pillars of self-compassion as defined by Dr. Kristin Neff. one of the pillars of self-compassion is mindfulness. Just noticing, my God, I’m having a really hard time and I’m having a lot of hard thoughts about it will ease the suffering. Because what’s happening currently is you might be feeling lonely and then you’re judging yourself for how big you feel.

or you’re feeling lonely and you’re having a lot of thoughts on top of it about it’s never gonna end, I’m always gonna feel this way. And then on top of that, you try to toxic positivity your way out of it like, no, that’s not true, right? Just come to yourself and acknowledge this is a hard human moment.

[07:33.184] Emotional granularity is an amazing tool for this hard human moment. Emotional granularity is a term coined by Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, who found that the more precise emotion words we have to describe our human experience, the more effectively we’re able to move through that human experience. So just Google emotions wheel, feelings wheel, and look at that feelings wheel and define like which of those feelings you feel right now. It may be loneliness and despair or loneliness and frustration or

judgment or whatever it is, notice the different shades of the feeling. This moment is distinct from any other moment. So just look at that feelings wheel and get granular with how you feel. Those feelings words will give you more information that you need to move on to step two.

[08:25.962] bananas, bananas, bananas, bananas.

[08:32.544] Now, the thoughts that you might be having about loneliness are really tough thoughts, right? It’s never gonna end. I’m gonna be stuck here forever. This is evidence that I’m broken and nobody wants to be with me and nothing is ever gonna happen outside this moment. Those thoughts are understandable because your brain’s job is to keep you safe at all costs. So when you’re in a moment of pain, your brain’s job is to future cast how to protect you from pain in the future. So it’s like using this moment as an eternal now.

It’s saying everything from here on out is gonna feel like this. When in actuality you have a lot of evidence from your life to prove that feelings shift and change, that there is no such thing as an eternal now. Things move and change. So even acknowledging like, wow, my brain is really dressed for her seeing the worst case scenarios. Whoa, my brain is thinking that this moment is gonna last forever. I have data to show that it won’t, right?

[09:33.784] having the feeling of loneliness and noticing the thought sort of sparking that feeling or noticing the thoughts underneath the surface of that feeling, whatever the case may be for you. It’s sort of like when you’re feeling that loneliness, being in a cramped New York City apartment. I talk about this in my book, Thank You More, Please, but being in this cramped New York City apartment is being in the either or. And the either or is either I will feel this way forever or I would have found a relationship by now if I wasn’t gonna feel this way forever.

that cramped New York City apartment, first of all, it’s a studio. It is filthy. No amount of scrubbing those windows is gonna get them clean. There’s newspapers stacked up everywhere around you with evidence that you’re always gonna be here, that you’re single and you did this to yourself because your personality is too much or not enough or whatever, like evidence stacked up around you that like nothing ever is gonna happen and this loneliness proves that. And there’s only one tiny little path to the bathroom. This is like a hoarder nest.

that you’re hoarding like evidence that, I’m gonna be lonely forever, see, it’s never gonna go my way. Okay, that’s either or. Either I’m gonna feel this way forever or I would have been in relationship by now. Whatever the either or sentence is in your brain. And that just exacerbates the loneliness. So what we’re gonna do together in this episode right now is I’m gonna pull up a moving truck, okay? Pulling up the moving truck. If you’re watching this on YouTube, you’re seeing me do little motions. LOL, ridiculous.

pulling up the moving truck. Together, we are gonna move everything out of that either or tiny cramped studio apartment. Gonna put it in the moving truck. You’re gonna sit in the passenger side window, passenger side with me, and we’re gonna drive to the most beautiful gleaming airport hanger that you’ve ever seen in your life. Think the airport airplane hanger from Crazy Rich Asians, okay? This airplane hanger is ginormous. It’s huge. The door is open, the sky is blue outside.

You just like, feel like, my God, there’s so much space to breathe in this place. And we unload the moving truck that we just took from your studio apartment that was the either or brain. And we put all the stuff in the airplane hanger and it exists, right? These hard human experiences that you’ve had in your past moments of rejection, know, things that are tough. We put them in the airplane hanger and what you’re gonna find is that it doesn’t take up so much space when you move into this both and, okay?

[12:00.972] The stuff from your apartment can stay and there’s more room in this airplane hangar. There’s more physical space for you to gather new ideas, new experiences, new opportunities, new, there’s an airplane over there and there’s the Muppets over there and there’s the Gilmore Girls universe. This both and has space for all of it. So moving from an either or, which is either it’s gonna be this way forever or it would have been different by now or it’s gonna be this way forever or.

Or I don’t know because whatever eternal now Moving into the both and both. This is a really hard moment and it’s gonna pass both I Want to be coupled and I’m not right now and I have my back. I’m whole right now Both this of course. This is a hard season right giving yourself the benefit of your context. I’m seeing all of this stuff around me

And of course I would compare myself to people around me. And loneliness would be a normal feeling that came after that. And I’m not gonna feel this way forever. And it might be my turn this coming year. And it might just take one person. And I’m not alone, right? Do you feel the difference between the either or and the both and? That’s step one of like acknowledging where you’re at is a difficult moment and moving from an either or to a little bit more of a both and.

just to add some more space to this conversation. Now that’s number one. Number two in the loneliness fix, what I’m calling this framework. Number two, bananas.

Number two is get yourself into comfort and belonging ASAP. There is a difference between self-soothing and self-care, future self-care. Self-soothing is like in the moment triaging support for yourself. Self-care, future self-care is setting yourself up for success in your future, right? The difference between wrapping up with a blanket for self-soothing and then when it feels available, going on a walk.

[14:06.862] to care for your future self who wants more mobility or stretching to care for your future self who wants more mobility. Going to the gym to care for your future self who wants to be able to really pick up and play with their nieces and nephews or just to feel better in their body, whatever it is. Self soothing, self care, different things. Comfort and belonging, step two, includes both of these things. But first we gotta do the self soothing, okay? So if you’re feeling lonely,

Get yourself into some self-soothing. What do you need in this moment? List out in your head. I need to close my laptop and plop on my couch and put a blanket around me and put on a Harry Potter movie. Or for me, Gilmore Girls, whatever it is. I need…

[14:52.734] I need to give myself a hug. Even like giving yourself a hug, the physical nature of that and squeezing yourself can make you feel a tiny bit better, give you a tiny bit of self-soothing in the moment.

[15:08.47] You could even imagine everyone that loves you, who’s in your close inner circle, like imagining them in your mind’s eye and seeing them love on you can bring in a moment of belonging and support. I want you to triage support for your immediate needs once you’ve acknowledged that you’re feeling lonely.

[15:33.582] Calling a friend, right? Texting a friend. I think that this is a really underrated piece of support. I call it putting up the bat signal. What if you texted your friend, hey, I’m kind of low right now. Can we chat on the phone to connect in the next couple hours? Ask, let them tell you no. So many of you are not reaching out to your loved ones.

because you’re afraid they’re gonna say no, or you’re afraid they’re not gonna answer the phone, and you’re afraid of what that means about their lack of capacity for you and your needs, especially as the only single one, quote unquote. Let them tell you no. Prioritize yourself enough to ask for what you need and allow them to show you what they have in that moment and trust that it’s gonna be bananas. Ask for what you need, and if they can show up for you with you,

Great, and if they can’t in that moment, bummer, and you have other people in your life who you can rely on. Now, a question that I would ask if I was hearing this episode is, Lily, what if nobody answers the phone? The other day, I was having a really hard moment, and I put up the bat signal in my friendships and with Chris, my husband. Chris was out of town for work, he was doing this big movie shoot, he’s an actor, he is so talented, but that is a side note, but he only had like five minutes in the day, because he was on set and shooting.

and I knew that I couldn’t rely on him for emotional support in that moment in the way that I needed. And so I called him, I called a couple of my closest friends, like I tapped my closest people and none of them were available on the phone. Voicemail, voicemail, voicemail. Texting, no text back within the immediate future that I really wanted. I wanted to text back in the next 20 minutes and they were all busy on this Saturday.

And so in this hard moment when I felt really lonely and I was really struggling, I did number one, I acknowledged it imperfectly. was like, this really sucks. I’m sad that I’m here. This really sucks. I went into like, this really sucks and I’m not gonna feel this way forever, both and. Then I triaged support, I sent out the bat signal. My friends didn’t text me back. I had to choose in that moment to turn toward myself with compassion.

[17:54.454] and to come back to step one, acknowledging the thoughts I had about my friends aren’t answering the phone. What does that mean? It doesn’t mean anything. They love me. They’re just not available in this moment. And I trust that they will show up for me when they can. And I trust that it will be okay when they do. And then when they were unavailable, I triaged my immediate needs. I sat on the couch and I got a blanket and I got a cup of tea and I got my journal and I put some music on. I did a meditation. I stretched. I didn’t feel better immediately.

but I felt better than I would have if I just pushed it down and expected myself to get over it really quickly.

[18:36.214] And then another piece of self-care, future self-care, is to make a plan that sounds joyful for your next week. Make a joy-building plan. Go with somebody, go solo. I just want you to put something on your calendar that brings you joy if you are recognizing right now that you’re in a moment of loneliness.

Step number three, third and final step for the loneliness fix is to choose an accessible positive thought. What I mean by that.

[19:12.394] is that when you’re in loneliness, when you’re in a hard human emotion, it’s very, very normal to wanna skip to a positive thought. That’s toxic positivity. Because all of us wanna feel better. It’s good to feel good. It’s sucky and shitty to feel bad. So, what do we do?

Bananas, bananas.

But the problem with a really aggressive opposite positive thought, which is, don’t need to be lonely, my life is full right now, I’m okay, shut up loneliness, shut up difficulty, I don’t wanna feel this way, right? The problem with those aggressive opposite thoughts is that your brain is not going to integrate them as truth. Your brain’s gonna be fighting itself. That’s the cognitive dissonance that you might be feeling of like a seesaw brain. On one end you have.

I’m lonely and it’s never gonna end. And on the other hand, you have, shouldn’t feel this way, I don’t need to feel this way, my life is full right now. Seesaw, seesaw, seesaw. Your life is full right now, your life is amazing. Both and, you’re a human with human feelings and you want something, maybe a relationship that isn’t here yet. And the holidays can be a very activating time if that is the case for you. So get off the seesaw, get off the seesaw of positive thought, negative thought, positive thought, negative thought into an accessible positive thought.

And the way that you do this, did an episode a few episodes back about SOFT. SOFT, self-compassion, owning your needs, feeling your feelings, and thoughts, facts. And we’ve been doing this sort of unofficially in this episode, right? Self-compassion, owning your immediate needs and getting them met. Feeling your feelings, noticing where it is in your body, using emotional granularity. This is the thoughts, not facts work, right? You need to choose an accessible positive thought or a little bit more positive thought that feels useful and true right now.

[20:57.72] to start practicing, to care for yourself, and to build a new neural pathway that is more supportive of opportunity. Because what happens when you’re stuck in an old neural pathway of, I’m lonely and I’m always gonna feel this way, is that that thought creates hard feelings that then creates actions like getting stuck, not moving forward, not asking for support, whatever it is.

and then the result is you don’t move forward. So I wanna help you build an accessible positive thought that creates a new emotion that then creates a little more momentum and actions that move you forward and that creates the result of I move forward, whether that be in your dating life or otherwise. So here are a few accessible positive thoughts that you could start trying on for yourself. Acknowledge the first default hard human thought of I’m feeling lonely and it’s never gonna end or whatever it is.

Do steps one and two and then come to step three of accessible positive thought. Here are some options. It might be possible that this is just a hard human moment. It might be possible that this feeling will pass.

I’ve moved through loneliness before, it will pass.

It might be true that most people feel this way at one time or another during the holidays. This is really normal. You could also choose like, it might be possible that what I want exists. It might be possible that it only takes a little bit of, go ahead, bananas.

[22:40.588] It might be possible that I’m normal and that nothing is wrong with me. It might be possible that what I want exists and this is just the beginning of me finding it. So step number one, acknowledge with self-compassion that this is a hard fucking moment. Loneliness sucks. Number two, own your needs, Comfort and belonging. What do you need right now? Send up the bat signal. Triage support for yourself right now. Plan something joyful to care for your future self.

Number three, choose an accessible positive thought. Starting with the sentence starter, it might be possible that, or it might not be impossible that, or just create a thought for yourself, a sentence in your brain that feels useful and true right now, that is a little bit more positive, accessibly positive, that you can practice out loud and often. This loneliness fix does not mean that you will never feel lonely again. Unfortunately, that is a hard part of being human.

both and when you have a process that you follow like a standard operating procedure for when you feel lonely or when you feel shame that is very kind to yourself and that isn’t gaslighting yourself and that has proven in practicing to help you move forward, whether that be in an hour or in a day, then when you have this process, you can turn to it in hard moments.

and build resilience. Build resilience in the face of hard human feelings so that they don’t shut you down, so that you can bounce back quicker. My clients talk about how this work that we get to do together is like building a better surfboard. It doesn’t mean that waves won’t come. It just means that you become more and more equipped to ride bigger and bigger waves. Sometimes you might wipe out, but that’s part of surfing.

Right, that’s part of life is feeling big hard feelings and sometimes feeling under the waves of those. But you’re building with this process a better, bigger surfboard to ride these waves with like an expert. And that’s why I’m so glad that we’re here together.

[24:52.908] You deserve care and support. You are worthy of what you desire. You’re whole right now. You can’t say the wrong thing to the right person. You are for the few, not for the many. And if you don’t believe any of that, bananas, and I believe that your desire for the right relationship, for the biggest, best life that you can imagine, whatever that includes, your desire gets to be evidence that it exists. And if you don’t believe that,

then I’m over here in Brooklyn believing it for you until you can believe it for yourself. Talk to you next week.