Latest / In The Driver's Seat / Why Do I Feel Disconnected From Everyone?
Transcript
- Lisa French: I have a confession to make. I have been a little less social than I used to be. Not in some dramatic way. I mean, I still have friends I love and I do things with them. I go out and about, sometimes just on my own, to explore or whatever. But it's just a big contrast to when I first moved from Iowa to Florida, which is a little weird because. When I moved here, I didn't know anyone. I didn't I had never been to this part of Florida. So everything was new and I had to make friends. But working from home kind of makes it easy just to stay home. ⁓ you know, when you work in an office or wherever outside of your home, you can easily tack on other things to do while you're out and about. So ⁓ go grab dinner with friends after work or whatever. You know, it's so much easier to like, well, before I go home, I'll go do this. So working from home makes it easy for me to just stay home. Living in a town that has tourism, the traffic during, especially this time of the year, makes it easy to want to just stay home. And the fact that I'm already just kind of of a comfortable in being alone. I don't need to have company or have ⁓ social interactions. I'm just I'm totally fine, you know, just in the quiet and peace by myself. However, I'm the type of person that's always kind of looking at my life and evaluating ⁓ are habits and what I'm doing, is that taking me to where I want to go? Is that keeping me on track? So I have to ask myself, is me being less social me choosing peace and simplicity? Or am I kind of starting to drift, getting off course, not living with intention? I know I'm not alone in this. I mean, we live in a world where we are more connected to everything than we have ever been. But there are people who are saying how lonely they feel. So how is it possible to be connected and disconnected at the same time? That's what this episode is about. So we have multiple ways to connect to others outside of directly talking to them face to face. We have traditional methods like TV, ⁓ news, we have radio, now we have internet. Which then brings us websites, social media apps, video sharing apps, podcasts. We have phones, which not that long ago, phones used to just be tethered to our homes and you maybe even only just had a couple of phones in the house, one in the living room, one maybe in a bedroom or something. Now we take our phones with us 24/7. And we're not just calling and talking to people. In fact, that's probably the least what we do on the with our phones. We text, voice message, we photo share. ⁓ think I am very thankful for FaceTime ⁓ keep me connected with my family, especially my grandchildren. ⁓ but I believe these are the things that are now causing we have anxiety and isolation are at record highs. And now we have this term of loneliness epidemic with in particular males. Fear and anger sells. And I've worked it for two different newspaper companies. So I know the headlines are generated to hook people in. And that's two of the biggest ways to do it is through fear and anger. Now with that on being on the internet, that's how they get you to click and that's how they make their money. So that once you interact with that, whether you're just stopping even just to read it, a a post about it, or you actually click on it, interact with it, like it, share it, comment, whatever. Now the algorithm's going to show you more of that to keep you on the social app, social media app. For a longer period of time. So like I said, we even navigate our lives, our daily lives differently. ⁓ hardly anybody wants an actual phone call. They will avoid a phone call. They text me instead. ⁓ But it's in a phone call when you actually have a meaningful conversation. You really can't have a very meaningful conversation in text, or at least it's a lot harder. We now have thanks to COVID, there is a plethora of ways to have your food delivered right to your doorstep. Where before it used to be maybe a pizza place would deliver or Chinese might deliver, but now it's like you can have anything delivered. And now these apps are even not only delivering you know your food that you order from a restaurant, but it they're also going to deliver, ⁓ do you want them to pick up something from CVS while they're bringing you food. You I mean you just there's so many and you you could del have your groceries delivered from the store. So now people are avoiding crowds altogether. They're avoiding they're they're getting less and less ⁓ a human contact at all. And I'm not saying this to be judgy, because obviously I as I admitted, I'm ⁓ of falling into that myself. And sometimes these boundaries are we need them. We need them for our own well being, for our mental health, for our emotional health. But we are designed to have interaction, human interaction with each other. That is that is core to our our being. So you need to ask yourself, are you choosing the disconnection for short-term purposes or are you slipping into an unhealthy phase? like there are numerous ways to be connected to information and people without seeing them face to face. And somehow we have never as a society felt more alone. So as I said earlier, when I moved here to Florida from Iowa Somewhere I had never been, I had actually been anywhere in the panhandle. So I didn't know anyone here. I didn't know anything about this area. But I made a conscious effort, like, okay, now I need to meet people and how am I gonna meet the people that I would really like to meet? So I joined the chamber of commerce because I wanted to meet, you know, b business minded people, people that were probably involved in the community. And when I went to out to restaurants to eat, I would often position myself like in a place that would make it easy for me to to talk to someone there. What mostly I was usually picking, ⁓ if they had if there was a bar that you could sit at the bar, I would sit at the bar and order my food there. And because then there was always usually somebody sitting on one side or the other, or maybe both sides or whatever, talk to the bartender. But I I met some of the coolest people. in just finding fun ways of striking up a conversation with them, ⁓ by observing other things that were good happening around us and just kind of making a comment about it. ⁓ was just so fun for me. So before I knew it, I probably was only here maybe around six to eight months. And people started asking me, How long have you been here? Because you to know a lot of people. There were people who thought I had been here for years because I was so connected and and knew so many people everywhere. Especially in ⁓ chamber of commerce was very active in networking events. So that was where a lot of my social activities were. ⁓ But then I started to notice ⁓ I needed to change my pattern, ⁓ because The chamber was so active and there were so many things. I was going to ribbon cuttings and and you know different celebrations for different businesses, as well as the after hours type things, which was great. Don't get me wrong, but I started realizing that it was disrupting my day, my workflow. So I'd be working on something like, ⁓ we got a ribbon cutting, and I would stop what I was doing, go to the ribbon cutting, and you know, it was never very close. very often was very close to where I lived. So it was just a big disruptor of my day. And so I became conscious of that. And like, well, I don't really want that anymore. So I and then eventually I just kind of decided that ⁓ the purpose of of me joining the chamber and I did generate, you know, business leads and that sort of thing. But I realized like, okay, I know I'm shifting inside my business, ⁓ my objectives were changing. So it really just wasn't a fit for me anymore. So I was no longer a Chamber of Commerce ⁓ So that whole social ⁓ connection disappeared. So as I saw less people and my particularly the friends that I made through the chamber, then there's less conversations of like, ⁓ hey, let's make a plan to get together, you know, doing this or whatever. And so it just kind of accidentally snowballed. And in reality, I was fine with that because I would totally fine to just be home too. ⁓ I didn't consciously make a decision to be less social, but that was a byproduct ⁓ ⁓ me kind of starting to drift in that part of my life. And you've probably noticed as a society, we're really good at giving disconnection a name. ⁓ Like you'll say, an introvert, or I'm just not a people person. prefer dogs over humans. ⁓ So maybe people say that now. ⁓ I'm an empath and my social battery gets drained really fast. And one of those things really might be true for you. You could be an introvert. I know I used to be very shy, which is probably hard for some people to believe. I also know that being around certain people can be very exhausting and I'll need extra recovery time after spending time with them. But there's a difference between honoring how you're wired and taking care of your well-being versus using a label as a pass. We can come up with some real doozies of reasons for why we want to stay home. And that's not a judgment, but it's something you should notice which category you're falling into. The drift into disconnection can be subtle, like it was for me. It can look perfectly reasonable. Sometimes it looks like a personality trait. All of these things makes it hard to catch. There is a specific time in my life when it really hit me how when a large group of people were cut off burying themselves in their phone and how the end result was everyone having so much fun. I moved here to Florida from Knoxville, Iowa. ⁓ Knoxville, Iowa is ⁓ home of the sprint car capital of the world. It is has a premier dirt, half mile dirt track. That's where I raced sprint cars in the early nineties. ⁓ they host the nationals every August. So ⁓ actually ⁓ span over 10 days. They have two different weekends, but the the big weekend is is the four ten nationals and it's a four day race. Everyone started asking me 'cause I moved here after the Nationals in 2018. So when the Nationals are coming back, starting about coming back around, we're getting close within a month or so and my closest friends are asking me, Are you going to come? Are you going to make it back? And I'm like, I don't really think so. I just didn't think I was going to be able to Swing it financially with my new business and that sort of thing. And when everything kind of fell into place and I was able to go, I decided, you know what? I'm not going to tell them I'm coming. I'm going to let them believe I'm not going to be there and I'm going surprise them. So when I got there, my plan was I had it all if I was fortunate enough to know that they were all kind of in different like locations when I got there. And so I could go. surprise them each individually. And I videoed their reaction to seeing me show up. So it was really, really fun. And but then after I take these videos and I want to share with other people, like, hey, I'm in Knoxville and I want to show these fun videos, I couldn't upload them. Like the whole, you know, forever spinning, not doing anything, thing was happening. And I thought, ⁓ my gosh, there's so many people here, which was weird because that had not I lived in Knoxville and that had not happened before. So I don't know if that I think that year probably maybe sold out. So ⁓ anyway, that for whatever reason, the towers were just overwhelmed and we could not get beyond just the videos, it was nearly impossible to connect on the internet, pulling, you know, going getting on Facebook or Instagram or whatever your choice ⁓ app was. So for the first day or so I would still randomly like I'm sure I just out of habit, I would try to check like my social media apps or whatever. I'm like, ⁓ like it's taking forever. So everything's super slow or can't connect. ⁓ so I just kind of finally realized I just got to the point where I wasn't even trying to get on these apps anymore. But then I started noticing something. The atmosphere, like the nationals is always so fun because you see people from all over the country. There are people even from other countries, like Australia, New Zealand, Canada. ⁓ and so you this is the one time of year that you we all come together and see each other. Yeah, I mean, sometimes you might see them at other if you travel and go to other races, you might see them elsew elsewhere. But For the most part, this is the one place everybody kind of can like comes together. And I don't know why, but I just kept thinking, this just seems more fun this year. Like everyone really just seems like they're without a worry. Like we're, you know, we're just all laughing and connecting. The the happiness just seemed amplified. Then, so then the races end on a Saturday night and Sunday morning when I woke I realized that my phone was working for the first time since I had got there. ⁓ ⁓ of a sudden it hit me like all the people cleared out of town, and now I have phone connection. And for whatever reason, it of just hit me that people weren't distracted by their phones. We were all just present with one another. in that time. Not by not by a conscious decision, but we were forced to and we had the best time. Because we were just living in the moment. So a real connection always has required presence. And I'm not telling you this. I'm not at saying you ⁓ you need to delete all your apps. You need to stop watching the news. Although I will tell you, that's probably one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. I used to be an absolute news junkie. I don't know why, but I would watch I would turn it on in the bedroom and watch the news, have the news playing while I was getting ready for work. ⁓ I would as soon as I got home. There was ⁓ I believe we had a 4 30 news segment that would go into the five o'clock and then I mean I was watching news all the time and then cable news in the evenings after the ten o'clock news. I mean it just never stopped. I was always watching the news. And then when I started being more conscious about energy and like there's never anything good on the news. Like it's always talking about bad something bad happening. And so I became more picky about where I get my news and now I can barely even stand to hear it. Like I can't barely stand to be in the same room with somebody wa ⁓ the news. So really what you need to do or you should do if ⁓ you want to more connected is just to ⁓ one, just be ⁓ of your habits. You know, when is the last time you just put your phone down and connected, ⁓ had a quality conversation with the person you're with? When was the last time that you picked up the phone and called someone instead of texting them? When did you show up so to somewhere that you didn't have to be Real connections are still available. You just have to, you need to choose it over the comfortable habit of just staying home. So if this episode resonated with you and you would like to ⁓ have more things like this in your life, I do have a newsletter that goes out every Tuesday. It's called Hello Possibility. You can subscribe to that at LisaFrench.rocks forward slash newsletter, or the link will also be in. the show notes. And also please subscribe if you're watching on YouTube, subscribe. If you're follow ⁓ listening to this on a podcast app, ⁓ follow so that you won't miss another episode. And I thank you for spending time with me. I really appreciate you being here. So until next time, just know that you are always in the driver's seat of your life. I'll see you next week.