Latest / Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell / The Loneliness No-One Warned You About

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The Loneliness No-One Warned You About · Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate, a podcast covering all things relationships, separation, and divorce.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: How to create healthy, happy, fulfilling relationships without sacrificing any part of yourself.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Supporting anyone feeling challenged in their relationship or marriage.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: These are confidential conversations for you if you're navigating separation, divorce, or reorganising life afterwards.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Decide whether to stay or leave a relationship or marriage, divorce with less drama, and consciously choose what's next for you.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the War and Tree people of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I acknowledge them as the original storytellers of this land.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Hi and welcome to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate for this week.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's jump straight in.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to start with a story.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: A friend of mine recently went into hospital for a minor procedure, a day procedure, nothing big or dramatic, but still.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Her partner drove her in, waited nearby while she was in surgery, sat with her in recovery, drove her home, settled her in, had food prepped and ready, sent the messages to the all the group chats, the family, the friends, so she didn't have to, did all the things.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I was super grateful that she had that support, absolutely.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And also found myself thinking for a lot of people in my world, in my community, even some of those still in a relationship, there would be a quiet question that surfaces in a moment like that.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: That question, who would do that for me?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that question feels reasonable to you.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you are single, divorced, navigating life on your own terms.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, of course, you would think that, you would ponder that, you would think about that, right?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Who would who would I ask?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Who would do that for me, or who would offer to do that for me?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: But what I really want to talk about today is the next level of that.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little more loaded because that question, who would do that for me, isn't just a life after divorce question.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's come up, I've heard it whispered from people who are still inside a marriage, still in a relationship, still technically partnered.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I've been the girlfriend who went to pick up somebody after their chemo treatment.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: This somebody was still married, and this tells us something really important about the kind of loneliness that I'm going to talk about today.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a kind of loneliness that no one expects and nobody warns you about.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Not the dramatic movie crying on the couch with a bottle of wine kind of loneliness, right?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is a whole other kind.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a quiet, creeping, and sadly, I think a sustainable kind of loneliness.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's and it's a one that has a way of convincing you slowly, stealthily, that this is just how life is.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is just how life is now.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And next we're going to talk about whether it actually has to be that way.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because the thing about this particular type of loneliness doesn't appear as loneliness that's obvious or loud.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not dramatic.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't look, in fact, like anything very much from the outside.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: You don't fall apart.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that is part of the problem.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: That is actually part of the problem.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: You are so used to, or you become so conditioned to doing all the things, holding everything together.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: You are fiercely independent, you are high functioning, that you just keep going.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: You tick off the to-do list at home, at work, with the kids, with the pets, with the household, right?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: You are the person who handles it, and everybody just understands and expects that you will handle it.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow, somewhere, somehow along the way, you just can't remember the last time you were the one being picked up.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: You were the one being collected.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can't remember the last time you felt held, and this kind of loneliness sneaks in quietly, insidiously, incrementally, and you don't actually realize it's happening until you might notice in a small moment or afterwards, in hindsight, retrospect, or when a friend tells you a story like her story of going to hospital for a procedure and who was there for her.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: When someone asks you what you did on the weekend, and you realize the only person that you spoke to was the booster when you ordered your coffee at the cafe on Saturday morning, or it might show up for you when you have news, good news, hard news, any kind of news, and you're not quite sure who to call to share.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's no one waiting for you at home, and you're not sure who is the right person to tell.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know there are absolutely people who love and care about you, but you're never quite needy enough.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's never a crisis big enough or dramatic enough to actually call them in or for them to step in without being asked.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you just go on alone, getting things done, living a life.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, and sometimes this does happen when you're still in relationship, right?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Over time you become really, really good at needing very little.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: You get so good at it that you actually forget that you do need.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: You need connection, you need care, you need to be known by someone, you need to be seen and heard and held.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And people might look at your life from the outside, the job, the business, the social media posts, you with the kids, walking the dog, they might even look at your relationship if you're still in one, right?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: People look at that from the outside and think you're fine.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, you've let them believe that version of you.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: You've let them believe that story.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: You are the strong, capable, high-functioning one, the one who doesn't fall apart and maybe didn't fall apart even through the divorce.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: So they leave you to get on with it.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't correct them because I'm lonely, sounds a bit pathetic or ungrateful, I'm struggling, sounds weak.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you play that role of I'm fine until part of you actually believes it.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: You even convince yourself, you've even convinced yourself that this, whatever this is, is fine, that it's enough, that this is just how it is now.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: But inside, you know differently.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Deep down inside, you know differently.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Inside, you're exhausted, you're running on empty, you are actually tired of being the strong one all the time.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Tired of holding it together, tired of wondering sometimes if anyone would even notice if you just stopped and fell apart.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to speak specifically here to those of you who are on the other side of it, other side of divorce.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Divorce is done, or it's in the process of being done, almost done.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you've got your own space, new rhythms, new routines, and you are technically free, independent, all the things, and yet it's it's quietly sitting there in this new space, in this new version of your life.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, there is so much good in this chapter, and I'll get to that, I promise, but this is the part that often gets glossed over, that gets ignored because externally from the outside, you look fine, you are presenting that to everybody else the story that you're fine, and it's a part that nobody really prepares for you because you find that you are surrounded by people who love you, and you still feel lonely.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if this is where you're at right now, there's there's another element to it, there's another layer to it.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say there's one reason why, there's not, there's a whole lot of reasons why, but there is one element or layer to it, and that is that the people in your life, number one, are believing the story that you're showing them, presenting them, telling them, which we've touched on already, but secondly, they know a version of you that actually doesn't exist anymore.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: They loved you in a different iteration when you were wife, partner, half of that unit.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: They know the you who was shaped by that relationship, that life, by who you were, perhaps who you had to be inside it, and perhaps that's the version of you that you know best and identify with too, right?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is you've changed, you are changing, you are in the process of becoming someone else entirely, and that can feel even with all the right people around you, that can feel deeply destabilizing and profoundly isolating.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: There is also, let's talk about the reality of loneliness here, right?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's also the 4am reality.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Technically, yes, you've got people, you've got people who love and care about you, and people who might remain connected and check in with you, but there might not be anyone at 4am when you're lying awake wondering what that thumping noise was outside, or at 9 pm when dinner's done, the dishes have washed, and you realize that you might as well just go to bed because there's no one to sit with or talk with, or as I said earlier, when there's news big, small, good, bad, and you don't quite know who to tell.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: They are real experiences of a solo life, right?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a client who described it beautifully, and she said, in my relationship, in my marriage, I spent years lonely, I spent years treading water, waiting for something to shift, craving change, hoping, asking.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when it was finally over, when I finally had my own space, my own life, I thought it would feel different than this.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I was overwhelmed by the loneliness, the isolation, but overwhelmed mostly by a question.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the question was what now?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's you, if you're asking what now, please know that it is exactly the right question to be asking.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: It does not mean you are in a mess, it does not make you wrong, it is not a big problem, it is simply the right question to be asking.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: What now?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: But circling back to that loneliness, that you know, loneliness that's become normal, that's become sustainable, that kind that seeps in quietly and convinces you that this is all it is, all there is, this is just how life is going to be, that's the version I want us to push back on.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not, it's not just how life is going to be for you now.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's also the flip side, and I touched on it earlier, right?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: The flip side is that the freedom and the independence is also very, very real.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I want us to be able to hold both things at once because really that's where the truth of this chapter of life actually lives, right?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: I have another client, someone who spent her many years in her marriage acquiescing, deferring, keeping everything going, you know, from as simple as what would be cooked for dinner, where they'd go on holiday, how they'd spend a weekend, every choice was made with someone else's preferences woven through it.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And she didn't even realize how much of herself she quietly tucked down, tucked away.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a really different kind of loneliness, right?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: A loneliness within a relationship where you can't find your way, you can't find your way back to yourself.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: And as we worked together throughout her divorce, and then afterwards, one big part of the work was for her learning what she actually liked without referencing another, without referencing another human being, learning to ask herself what she actually liked, even in those smallest of things.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want for dinner?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Which cafe do I actually want to go to?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, the bigger things, where do I want to live?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And for her, it was where do I want to travel?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want my life to look like if I'm the only one deciding?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: If I only have to please and satisfy myself, and while there can be loneliness in that, there is also liberation and freedom, right?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Her partner had been happy after retirement, just potter around at home, whereas she had dreamed of adventure, of movement, of seeing the world, and that dream had just sat there really quietly for a few years, but not anymore.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: She's asking herself what next, and answering it with for her travel.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And there is something real and powerful and liberating about a life you get to curate entirely on your own terms, and there's research that actually supports this.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: People who are single and flourishing tend to have stronger social ties, wider circles of connection, and a richer relationship with their own inner life.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And in part, it's because they've had to build it, they've had to choose it, but they don't have to default anyone else in.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: But the key there is building it and choosing it.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just happen.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: That joyful, expansive mine or mine chapter of life after divorce is not, doesn't just land in your lap.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a passive experience, it's something you step into deliberately and choose consciously.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, what to actually do about it, particularly if you're in that loneliness space, right?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: If any of this has landed, if you've been quietly nodding, here are three things I want to offer you.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: First, stop protecting people from your need.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: You are so used to being the one who's fine, but that version of you that never asks, never reaches, never admits loneliness, is not actually protecting anyone, but she's disappearing.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it takes vulnerability.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it can be a bit scary, but choose one person, just one, and tell them the truth.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not a sanitized, palatable version of it, the actual truth.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if that is, I'm so lonely that sometimes at night I can't breathe, say it out loud.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Let it land.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Second, get curious, get curious about what you actually want and how you want your life to look and feel.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not what you've been told or conditioned or learned to want, not what looked like a reasonable or okay life inside that relationship, but what you genuinely, privately, secretly, hungrily want your life to look and feel like.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Is that travel, is that creativity, is that community, is that pleasure, is that stillness and peace and solitude?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Start there.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I would invite you to write it down and give it real space.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the third thing is find your people, and you may already be connected to some of them.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: So rekindle those connections, open up the communication again, get vulnerable.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, that can be hard if they're still in relationship, they've got families, they've got their kids all the time, and you've got yours maybe half of the time, and the kids with a connection.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: I get all that, and it is why I say find your people or reconnect with your people.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean here, people who actually get it, not people who love you but look at you only through the lens of who you used to be, and there will be some of those, right?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: People who know this chapter, who are in it, who've come through it, who've held you and supported you through it, and who understand what it means to be recalibrating, rebuilding a life and yourself, a version of yourself, right?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: On the other side, which brings me to something I really want to tell you about.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Later this year, I'm hoping to bring something into the world that I've been quietly building for a little while now.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: It is for those of you who are done or almost done navigating the practicalities of divorce and you're ready, you're ready to step into what comes next.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: A life that is genuinely, richly, and completely your own.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: A life built on reclamation and joy and pleasure and expansion, one where you actually feel alive again but also connected.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if this sounds like something you want to be part of, if any of this, any of this conversation today has even felt a little bit true for you, I would encourage you.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I want you on the mailing list.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: So head to the link in the show notes, get your name on there and be the first to know when this comes into being, this next iteration of Reflect.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're in the early part, you know, asking the hard, should I stay or go?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: questions, if your marriage feels like it's maybe crumbling around your ears, if you know you want out, but you're not sure what that means or what it might look like, even if you're in the messy middle of divorce or coming out tail end, what now place, wherever you're at, if the life you actually want for yourself still feels like it's somewhere out there, out in front, but slightly out of reach, that's exactly who I work with in my one-to-one coaching practice.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's a part that you don't have to figure out alone.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: So reach out, let's talk.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: But until next time, remember, yes, there can be loneliness during relationship, during divorce, after divorce, and that loneliness really becomes an invitation, an invitation to ask, what do you really, really want for yourself?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because wherever you are in your relationship journey, you really do deserve a life that feels like it's yours, and that life really is waiting for you.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, thanks for being here.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sally Ann Hartnell, divorce coach and strategist, and you've been listening to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow me on Instagram at Reflect Coaching, and if you can think of anyone who would love or benefit from listening to this episode, please share it with them.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also be so grateful if you would follow and review the podcast so we can get it in the ears of a whole lot more people just like you who are ready to reclaim and liberate themselves in life and love.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll join me next week for another episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Until then,