Episode 70: Loneliness: what to do about it
7/31/24
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You are listening to the Life Reconstructed podcast with me, Teresa Amaral Beshwate, grief expert, best-selling author and widow. I’m so glad you’re here because in this and every episode, I shine a light on the widowed way forward.
Hello and welcome to episode 70. In this episode, we take a close look at loneliness, what to do about it, and how to catch any unnecessary suffering that may be attached to it.
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Loneliness. I looked up the definition of it. And here’s what I found: sadness because one has no friends or company. Well, that definition misses the mark.
If you’re a widowed person, loneliness is much different. It’s that deep aching for your person. It can happen at home when the silence is deafening. And it can happen in a crowd when you find yourself longing for them, and when you catch yourself searching for them.
It can happen when you see a couple living out the life that you had planned.
Some days loneliness feels like a gut punch. Other days it’s more like a dull ache.
It’s the day to day experiencing the void that is the exact size and shape of your person, and everything they mean to you.
Like all feelings, loneliness comes from the thought you’re thinking. For me, it’s thoughts like, “He should be here,” or “I miss his physical presence so much.” Or, “This is something I would share with him.” Or “I wish he were here.”
Loneliness is a difficult feeling to experience. We humans are hard wired to not be alone. We’re designed to be in community, to have connection, to share our life with others.
Back in the day, there was safety in numbers, and to be alone meant certain danger and death.
So it makes a lot of sense that feeling lonely is an extremely vulnerable feeling.
And like all uncomfortable feelings, we quite naturally try to avoid it, resist it or react to it.
We try to push it away, or numb it somehow. But what we resist….persists.
The more I tried to run from loneliness, the bigger it got, and the bigger it got, the more I feared it.
What I didn’t know then, and what I want you to know now, is that actually feeling it - processing it - is the best way to manage loneliness. It’s the most efficient way through.
Chapter 3 of my book Life Reconstructed, and episode 4 of this podcast, walk you through how to process any feeling. It’s a game changer in life after loss.
So while loneliness is a feeling that comes with the territory of losing a spouse and should be processed, I want you to be aware of an important nuance.
Loneliness is often contaminated with a layer of suffering. Often when we feel lonely, we also think that we’ll always feel this way. That loneliness will always be this debilitating. That we’ll be alone forever. That it will always hurt like this.
Does your brain offer you that? Mine did, and many of my clients’ brains do, too. It just isn’t true. Our experience of loneliness, like grief itself, is every changing.
So, when your brain adds extra suffering to loneliness, here’s what I want you to tell yourself:
“Right now, I feel lonely for my person, and that’s okay. How it feels right now is how it feels right now. It will change. It will become more manageable. The more I process it, the more I’ll be able to allow it to come along with me as I learn to live my life fully. I’ll be able to carry it well.”
You will likely always miss your person. I’ve created a full and happy life for myself. It’s incredibly good. And I miss my late husband. I’m lonely for his physical presence. I’ll always long for him and that’s okay. It doesn’t stop me from creating a life that I truly love. A life that’s full of love and meaning and purpose. It all coexists, and in such a beautiful way.
There’s a beautiful life waiting for you, too, with a unique mix of feelings that coexist. It may be hard to envision it right now, and if so, you can lean on my belief. I know it’s true.
If this episode was helpful, please share it with a widowed friend. And if you’re listening on Spotify or Apple, please rate and review it so other widowed people can find it.
Remember that I believe in you, and I’m here for you. Take care.
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If you’ve found this podcast helpful, I invite you to check out my best-selling book, also titled Life Reconstructed. It has helped many thousands of people and it can help you, too. If you buy it on my website, you’ll also get the accompanying journal, plus a 3-part video series to help you feel better, starting right away. Simply go to https://www.thesuddenwidowcoach.com/lrbonusbundle to get started today.
