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Lonely or Just Alone? The Difference That Changes Everything · Doctor Turned Health Coach

• 0:21
  Today, I'm at this lovely, lovely park going for a nice stroll.
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  The weather is changing. Fall is coming here to Bend, Oregon.
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  And I see a lot of people out and about. I see people walking together.
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  I see families together. I see kind of walking by a dog park.
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  There's a lot of socializing. There's a lot of social interconnectedness.
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  And Bend, Oregon is a small town. So when I go for a walk, I see the same people,
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  and I see people waving to each other who know each other.
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  And I thought about a podcast episode that would be very relevant to how we
• 1:03
  feel our health, our emotional well-being, specifically loneliness and being alone.
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  Being alone doesn't have to be being lonely.
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  Being alone can sometimes mean that maybe our partner passed away.
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  Maybe we went through a breakup or something happened in our lives,
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  and it's that chapter in our lives where we have to do a lot of other things
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  other than be able to socialize with a lot of people or be intimate with other people.
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  It's that chapter in our lives where the majority of things fall on us,
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  and we sort of have to just do it on our own.
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  There's maybe very little time to give to other people.
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  That's being alone. But you don't have to feel lonely because the connection
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  that we get with other people,
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  that relationship that we develop with other people, it comes from not just
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  knowing somebody very well, living with them, romantic relationships.
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  It can also be being very close
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  to people in your community saying hello
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  to somebody if you go for a walk at a coffee shop you
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  can say hello to the same barista when you go get a sandwich you can you can
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  have little small conversations saying hello smiling at someone and of course
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  one of the best cures for loneliness is simply helping somebody else is reaching
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  out in your community and trying to help somebody else.
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  Now, you may not be with them for very long. You might just have a quick conversation.
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  But it is one of the best fixes for that feeling of loneliness.
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  And that feeling of loneliness can come often, and it often comes.
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  The source of it is when you see yourself as very different from people around you.
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  And the more different you see yourself, the more likely it is that you're going
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  to see yourself as some entity very different from everybody around you.
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  Right now in the US in 2025, we're seeing this a lot with the political climate.
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  People have strong political opinions for various reasons, for religious,
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  for moral reasons, for fear, for panic.
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  And these beliefs sometimes can make you feel so other compared to somebody
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  else that it makes it difficult for you to then connect with another human being.
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  And something as simple as somebody having a different religious belief or political
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  belief, or even in your own romantic relationship, somebody having a different
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  opinion than you can make you feel suddenly very lonely. And that's the truth.
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  The truth in many relationships that my patients who come into my medical practice,
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  many of them are in romantic relationships, but they feel incredibly lonely.
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  They don't feel connected to their partner and they don't feel connected to
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  their partner because they feel so different from their partner.
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  And that difference is not something they can overcome because they believe they're right.
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  They believe their opinions and how they are and who they are is so correct
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  that other people must be incorrect. And how could they be the kind of person
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  who's going to be friends with somebody who is that wrong, quote unquote.
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  But sometimes a good solution might be just changing that opinion,
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  changing that belief. You don't have to be somebody who is this individual who
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  has these firm beliefs and.
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  Feel so different about the rest of the world, has these strong,
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  strong opinions, you can be somebody who is a little bit more kind,
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  a little bit more open, a little bit more accepting.
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  And these things actually help with a lot of emotions, especially with the feeling of loneliness.
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  But in other ways, we can feel lonely when we believe that who we are and how
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  we are is only as important as the people who are around us who show us love.
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  For example, if your mother and father pass away and you get divorced or you
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  break up with your long-term relationship, now you're on your own,
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  you might not have an identity.
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  You might not have something that grounds you and makes you feel like you're okay.
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  So working on that while in a
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  relationship is probably the safest and best thing it's
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  like it's like rock climbing with a rope you know you're
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  safe you're secure and you can you can practice taking
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  some time away for yourself doing things on your own especially
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  letting your partner be who they want to be letting them just have their identity
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  without feeling that it's going to encroach on yours those are some of the topics
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  and ideas that we discuss a
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  lot in my health coaching practice to help my clients with feeling alone.
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  Feeling sad, feeling the loneliness that comes, especially with age.
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  As we get older, especially in our senior, as seniors, it can feel,
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  the whole world can feel so different because it's going to move very rapidly.
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  While you're a little calmer, you're a little calmer on the inside and you see
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  the whole world change rapidly around you.
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  You feel so different. You think the whole thing It's so strange that you can disconnect.
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  But if you can somehow find a common ground and connect, all of a sudden that
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  loneliness just might become being a little bit alone.