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87. Loneliness kills · Radically Genuine

• Welcome to the radically genuine podcast. I'm Dr. Roger McFillin. Today's topic is said to incur the same devastating effects as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. It's associated with premature death from all causes. It's so detrimental that it could be used as a form of torture and has been. The issue has gained. Much attention in the recent four or five years, starting in 2018 when the US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, proclaimed this to be a public health epidemic. Our modern ways of living are creating a pervasive sense of emptiness despite technological advances connecting people across the globe. People are reporting more loneliness than at any other point in recorded history. Loneliness is a subjective feeling or emotional state characterized by a sense of social isolation, disconnection, or lack of meaningful relationships. It's important to note that loneliness is distinct from being alone or being in solitude because you can feel loneliness amongst people. Really you start when you get into it, it doesn't necessarily mean the experience of being isolated. It has to do with the meaningful connections that exist. we're facing unprecedented challenges in modern living. One that deserves time to think through and investigate in a way of better understanding humanity and the direction that we are all heading as a society. Welcome Sean and Kelly to the podcast today. Good morning. It was a Memorial Day weekend. I've been looking forward to this because Mondays through Fridays, I am so lonely. And getting in this room with you guys on a weekend is the highlight of my day. Can I just say that I'm not experiencing loneliness. I'm actually experiencing way too many people in my life right now with coaching and doing all of those things. I was going to ask you that about that. Because when we start talking about that experience of loneliness, you know, one thing that you kind of get into when you start reading the literature is it doesn't necessarily mean being away from people. So you can actually even feel more lonely amongst a crowd of people, depending on whether that environment like fits who you are. So you're into coaching right now. I love it. You love it. I do. Having a good time. Yes. Okay. Cause sometimes I've talked to you at different times and it, it feels like a burden. When you're winning, it is absolutely the most amazing experience when you were losing, then it becomes a little bit different and your thoughts change. Right. So I do want to ask us to have some degree of self-disclosure today. Um, maybe to reflect subjectively on your own experience of loneliness across the lifespan and I'm actually more interested in maybe how you've responded to that, how you've coped with it. Is there any time of your life that stands out where you experienced that loneliness? And then what did you do in order to kind of overcome that? Well, I think for me, it was maybe the last couple of years with all the strange behaviors and things that happen with COVID and then thinking differently than maybe the vast majority of people. And I think that again, those those types of thoughts where you feel as if you don't have a voice, that the people that you used to be able to connect with, you could no longer necessarily connect with because You had to keep everything because like being you is allowing yourself to flow freely your thoughts and just let them out there. And so I felt that other than with this podcast, there were moments where even with certain family, even with friends, you had to kind of stay isolated with your thoughts, tread carefully on whatever you were going to say because you were afraid that you were going to get backlash. And I believe that maybe that's an experience of loneliness. with those types of thoughts. So how I overcame them or am still doing so is just don't be afraid to share what is really in your mind because you can't really be afraid to offend people if your thoughts are rooted in things like research or you have information as long as you're not trying to just put people down, just share them. And I think that that, I don't know if that's the science of loneliness, but part of that has to be the thoughts behind what we go through. Sean, do you remember when we moved to Pennsylvania? Yeah, I was young though. I was first grade. You were probably third. I was third grade. So eight years old, I think. I remember distinctly that feeling when you don't know anybody and like where to go and sit at lunch and trying to figure out where you can sit or who you can be around and that feeling of being on the outside. That was a sense of like emptiness that was very difficult, I remember. When that transition from having all the friends that we had and the lifestyle we had and where we lived in South Jersey to coming to a new environment, new culture, new people and not really kind of fitting in. And you see this in like middle school, high school students, the ones that have a difficult time finding a place to... fit in and sit at the lunch table and feel connected and that profound sense of social disconnection is really toxic to our own experience mentally and physically. How about you? Any experiences of loneliness? Yeah, of course. You use the example of, you know, going to school or moving to a new area, but that's it's repeated throughout your entire life. You go to college, or if you go to some other school, but eventually you have your first job. When you go to your first job, you'll be the new person and there's already relationships that are established and little clicks that might exist. You need to find a way to, to get involved and establish your own relationships, friendships. When I moved out to Los Angeles, I remember I had a, a sense of fear around loneliness and isolation. I've always had roommates went to college, had roommates, even after graduation was living in Philadelphia, had roommates, and then the idea of moving. to an entirely another state where my friends weren't. And then trying to find an apartment, I was lucky enough to, through a friend, get set up with another guy who was looking for a roommate. So I had that, but I only lived with him for a period of maybe two to three years before I decided to get my own place. And that idea of getting my own place was something I embraced it because I had concerns about being lonely, but... There was things that I found enjoyment in, more independent, having my own space. It forced me to go out and do other things, the hiking, but everybody feels lonely. It's just how you respond to it. There's a case to be made for the evolutionary value of loneliness. So why do we experience aversive emotions as we do? How have we evolved and adapted? So the evolutionary theory of loneliness suggests that the pain of being alone motivates us to seek the safety of companionship, which in turn benefits the species by encouraging group cooperation, protection, and of course, procreation. So a lot of people approach their life with a strong fear of loneliness, that it drives a lot of behavior, some of it pro-social, others... very non-adaptive or non-social. Sometimes people make bad decisions out of a fear of being alone. That can be from staying in bad relationships, even abusive ones, making connections for economic security versus social value or connection. And the question is, are we now more lonely? and isolated than other points in recorded history. So right now the data shows that over a quarter of the US population, and 28% of older adults live alone. More than half of the US population is unmarried, of which 20% have never married. Further, approximately 40% of first marriages and 70% of remarriages end in divorce. While these demographics are somewhat crude indicators of social disconnection, someone can live alone and still have a strong social support network. They nonetheless represent kind of robust predictors of health outcomes, ones that we should take seriously. For example, the average household size has decreased. and there's been a 10% increase in those living alone. The number of single occupancy households worldwide is now greater than ever in recorded history. Further demographics, as I mentioned, show these reductions in marriage rates, their smaller household size and increased rates of childlessness. So there's fewer familial supports, family supports. Decreased community involvement is evidenced by falling rates of volunteerism. And over the past two to three decades, the average size of social networks has declined by one third and have become less diverse. Additionally, there's changes in religion and being connected within religious communities. And there's no doubt then that not only are we living alone, but the way that modern society is being set up through the connection of social media has now altered the way we interact. and experience each other. We are bombarded with messaging and the messaging that exists communicates the nature of human beings. And when the manner in which we communicate and interact shifts so dramatically in such history. we're experiencing something that is unprecedented. It is such a rapid shift in the way we relate to each other that there's going to be a profound adaptation period. And so the challenge we have in our discussion is to evaluate that and understand it from the perspective of increasing quality of life. but viewing loneliness and social disconnection as a public health epidemic of the highest proportion in recorded history that not only influences depression, anxiety, but our physical health. It literally will kill us slowly. Not to mention that quality of that life will be diminished. So let's start by talking about what one of the biggest issues which is that technological paradox. I mean, we're, we're supposed to be living in unprecedented connectivity, where we can go on and not feel isolated and alone yet, these virtual networks are seemingly causing I would think the problem. So start with that. Why is it that, yeah, I can just go on my phone, I can text you guys. That's not, you know, I'm not alone. I could go on a video chat. I can do everything and connect with thousands of people if I want to, but yet I can still feel alone. I want to talk about that specifically right now because I think that's the biggest problem. You can look at somebody's picture and see what they're doing, but it's just not a substitute for that real connection of sitting across from somebody watching those nonverbal cues reading or catching things that an image doesn't represent where then you can start connecting with somebody on a more emotional level by asking questions and finding out what's really going on in their lives. That only happens in face to face interactions. I speak, I think you're speaking to the shallow nature of the relationship that develops through social media and internet. So or evolves to more shallow because you can have really close relationships with people in the physical world. But then that relationship ends up migrating over to the online space and you just don't see those people anymore. But you think you still have a close relationship with them. But the reality is you do not. Yeah, I think that's accurate. So the three of us can text each other, right? But it's also balanced by... Well, not anymore, I block Sean. That explains it. But it's balanced by in-person connection and depth of conversation. This podcast drives that. So there's a difference between the three of us sitting here with each other and engaging in this conversation versus texting something back and forth on a similar topic. And the communication style becomes a shorthand and one in which there's more nuance, right? There's less, I'm sorry, there's less ability to be able to interpret the nuance because of the lack of nonverbal cues that are presented to us, tone, inflection. Yeah, you could fire off a text to me that's maybe five words. And I'll be like, hell's this problem. But the reality is. You could be in the car. You can be context is everything in the middle of, uh, walking to grab a client from the, uh, the front and you're like, I need to adjust this really quick. He fired it off and then shut your phone down. You're talking about when you send your heartfelt messages to him and then he just replies K or just taps it with the thumbs up. Yeah. It's context. You know, we did talk about, remember, was it the social media episode where we talked about even online dating and things like that? Just imagine individuals talking to each other, meeting online, and they're excited to meet each other. And they're just like, the dopamine levels are up, they're getting excited, and all of a sudden they go on their date, and now they have to look at each other. I actually think that it gives this complete misperception because you're completely different online than you are in person. And we are missing that. connection in person. And oftentimes, I think that's why dating apps don't work. And I think the communication through text and social media has now disrupted people's skills, impaired their skills to be able to have conversations that are more in depth. There's a different relationship that is being developed with younger people. We're like the generation that has been able to experience both, right? We've been able to experience the time before. cell phones, text messaging, social media, and even internet. And now we're fully embraced in it. So I think we're much more attentive to it. I notice it when I walk through a college campus, when I'm on my daughter's campus and walking through that, where everyone has headphones in or is down staring at their phones. And that was a big shock. In 2009, I was at Temple University in Philadelphia. doing a clinical internship in their counseling center. And that was the first experience I had of walking on the campus and everyone being disconnected from each other with their AirPods in and looking at their phone. That was a shock to me because it's like 2005 happened, 2006, and then bang, just like that, everyone feels more disconnected. And it's only intensified since then. To the point where we'll be at like a party with my son and his friends, they're still interacting via the phone, even though they're next to each other. And it's really uncomfortable for my generation and parents to look at it because they might be sitting all together looking something and then they're, then they're engaging, then they're looking up at each other and they're talking about what they're engaging in that cyber world, but their ability to connect and communicate is different. And with that constant stimulation of that phone, there's less unorganized play, which was the value, I think, of what some of the things we learned in a pre internet social media era, because you, when you're bored, you have to figure out how to entertain yourself. So you would develop unstructured play. Unstructured play would create a social hierarchy that would be navigated, right? That's not fair. You didn't touch me in tag or whatever that is, or the splitting up of teams to make them even, right? Somebody becoming the leader, right? And then others then having to follow, social cooperation, communicating your feelings, figuring things out, getting in a fight, making up, repairing relationships. All of that, I think we're handicapping a generation that is actually leading to Two things that I think are important. One is superficial relationships. So the lack of depth of which we're talking about as a way to be able to be more intimate. But the second thing is the ability to repair relationships that have been harmed. Yeah, because you can ghost somebody and just flat out reject them. Ghost, that's new. Yeah, right. That is new. Ghosting, that whole idea is ghosts is just, somebody does something that you don't like. Or you no longer want to engage with that person. You drop them. You ghost, you're no longer alive. It's weird because it's starting to migrate over to the professional world. For example, our center receives applications for jobs. You contact people and they just don't respond. That's weird. How could you apply for a job and then just not respond to an inquiry a day after you submitted something like what? What happens? Why? It's weird. I just don't understand it. What about professional integrity and concern about reputation? You know, all these things that were, that might've concerned us at times. Like I would never, I would never, especially a center like ours, I mean, we're pretty successful. We have a pretty good reputation. I would at least respond and say, my circumstances have changed. I apologize. I'm unable to. please keep me in mind, I'll reach out in future times. Something professional. We'll remember that name, right? We will remember that name. Yeah, I stumbled upon a little, to your point, Roger. It was in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships found that today's teenagers spend approximately an hour less per day socializing with their peers compared to teenagers who grew up in the 80s and 90s. So you take one hour per day and you compound that over those formative years. The skills. that you learn and develop in terms of interpersonal relationships. They're formed during those, those years of 14 to 22 before you go into the professional world and you're missing out on hours and hours of opportunities to thousands of hours over the course of adolescence. Yeah, it's just, it's, it's, it's leading to this, this big problem. So this year, every year you have to make a goal basically like Pennsylvania and everything. And I focused solely on communication. So the way I went about it was to create every class, put a Socratic in it no matter what. So you know, you have your intro, you have this. And then the beginning of the year, I had them take a survey, because I wanted to measure. And about 55% of them, I think, said, basically, they don't like speaking in classes, they don't like teachers who force them to speak in that and so on, right? They don't like speaking. Yeah, they don't like speaking. So over the course of the Can I text my presentation? Right? So over the course of the year though, and I did it again in the middle, I took the survey, numbers went up at the end of the year, and then at the end of the year, 85% said they preferred speaking or at least having the opportunity to have a voice. So you can get them to understand that that kind of connection increases dopamine levels just as much as when you're staring down at your device. Much more. Much more, right? Much more, right? And the benefit of doing hard things. Well, yeah. that we've mentioned before. Have you guys heard of the term fubbing? What is it? Fubbing. No, spell it. P-H-U-B-B-I-N-G. How about you, Kelly? No, really? Oh my goodness, okay. Fubbing is a term that refers to the act of snubbing or ignoring someone in favor of using one's mobile phone or other electronic device. So it's a combination of the words phone and snubbing. Fubbing. So, fubbing occurs when individuals prioritize their digital devices over real life social interactions and conversations, often by constantly checking the phone, texting, browsing social media, or engaging in other activities on their devices while in the presence of others. Fubbing can have real negative consequences for relationships and social dynamics. When someone is fubbed, they feel neglected, unimportant, disrespected. It leads to frustration, annoyance, hurt. It hinders meaningful conversations, creates barriers and genuine connection contributes to feelings of isolation or disengagement. And then what, what I'm seeing is this is really altering marriage dynamics. So you're an example would be, I get in an argument with my wife. I come back downstairs. She's sitting on the couch. I sit down next to her in the past. We would have to. look at each other and then engage in a conversation. But now, she might stare at her phone not make eye contact with me and we never end up addressing the issue. Is that what phubbing is? That's phubbing or you could just be day to day, right? So we know how many people are in two income families, like we're busier. This is part of the modern factors that are contributing to loneliness is that in a home environment that there's more time that's devoted to career and work. So you come home and we have a low tolerance for boredom. It's different than at other periods in life, right? Boredom again would drive social connection. But when you can be automatically stimulated by images and stories and Twitter, you... can get lost in that phone. And online shopping. Online shopping. Some people would just play games on their phone. Totally. Right, and so you are now creating an environment in your own home where there's people there, but you're still lonely. So when I first walked in here, Sean, and you were here, he wasn't yet. Do you remember me? I pulled out my phone right away. I fubbed him. No, but it's, no, seriously, that's an interesting. That's fubbing ridiculous. Yeah. I'll tell you. That makes so much sense that you're now. So you're basically saying, so I can then use my phone not to experience any negative emotions. Like, in other words, if I know I'm going to have to talk to somebody and it's going to be uncomfortable, I all I have to do is pull my phone out and it's perfectly acceptable in our society. Everybody's like, oh, you're on your phone. I won't bother you right now. Yes. Do you know what also contributes to fubbing? Social anxiety. Based on fear of missing out. So I was going to say based on. not wanting to appear lonely. So when you talked about being on the college campus and everybody's looking down at their phones, I would imagine they're alone, they're by themselves. But instead of sitting there and maybe appearing as if they're all by themselves, they pull out their phone to act as if they're almost engaging with somebody through the device. I think only a 40 something year old could think about it that way. Okay. Right, because you've experienced kind of both. But I think with the change in human relations, Um, it's like alter it's entering into a virtual environment versus a reality environment. So if your social world is virtual, the fear of missing out is like the, the definition of this, right? It started actually like in the nineties. It was FOMO was a nineties term, but it's really evolved in the psychological literature. FOMO can be defined as the sum of an individual's negative and persistent feelings that other people have a better life. These individuals feel a desire and obligation to constantly follow the content that others share on social media. It's been revealed that this situation affects the life of the individual negatively. Additionally, fear of missing out. can be a persistent anxiety or concerns experienced about being absent from or missing socially rewarding experiences that others may be sharing on social media. So you increase your engagement on your phone because you don't want to be not involved in a text stream or not involved in a... some form of interaction like Snapchat. So if you are engaging socially virtually, then your fear of missing out would lead you to keep checking your phone. It's a whole nother world out here. This is why I talk to you guys about transhumanism as a future podcast episode. It is becoming the matrix that you can become disconnected from what is real. and you are entering in to an alternative reality. That alternative reality is that virtual world and that virtual brand that you decide to present for yourself. Referring to social anxiety, you can present yourself on social media with filters. The whole online dating aspect of this is you are presenting yourself in a a way that enhances your attractiveness. And now you have to meet that person. Like you've only engaged with them virtually. And now you have to meet up with them in person where it is going to provoke all your natural anxieties. You cannot filter yourself in real life. And because social comparison is a major problem with social media, there is a... certainly a decrease in self-esteem. People judge themselves to be less attractive because you look at yourself in the mirror, but you look at others through social media. You automatically believe that you are less valuable and attractive compared to other people based on your own comparison to the lives that they're living. So if you are looking at all these content influencers and all this fakeness that is out in the world, your idea of yourself has been altered, which also... leads to feeling lonely and empty. What was that? Cerno, the Bergerac, what was that book, right? It was, you had a person who was ugly speaking to, I don't know if I'm remembering it correctly, I'm probably looking at the Steve Martin movie version of it, but then you had a better looking person You're so old. Speaking, I know, right, speaking the words that the other person is saying. It's almost like that's migrated over to this, the online. version of your kind of creating this, you know, idealized version of yourself, where you're always using filters, right? So then eventually you're right. You have to meet the person face to face. There's gotta be a term out there with those kids of meeting somebody and seeing what they really look like and, and quickly recognizing that that's not them. Somebody's listening to pot of scott. podcast right now who's yelling out the term. Yeah, I know. And I don't know what it is. But it makes me think of the Cyrano de Bergerac situation where you fall in love with somebody. And then you meet. You find out that that person is not real. And there's just like this click that happens. Well, there was the famous story about that with the man title. Oh, yeah. And is that called fishing catfish? Yeah, yeah. So it's like And that, you know, you live through that character and that social world. And that's where transhumanism kind of comes in. It used to be like you would experience that through video games or certain like virtual games online, where you kind of create this alternative reality. At what point does it get where our actual real life is so much more painful that everyone escapes into an alternative reality created through. Technology. But I mean, that's intentional too, for the tech businesses, right? I mean, that's where they want people to move. So this is a big problem. And how do you resolve it? How do you get, I guess, the only way to resolve it would be to try to try your best not to buy into the media message of you need a phone, your kids need a phone, you know, and try to break free from that concept. They don't need one. They're going to be fine. You're going to be able to, you don't have to know where they are every single moment of the day, but that would be the only solution to this. And that's just probably not realistic. When you think about the totality of time in which human beings have evolved on this earth, this industrial age, post-industrial age into this technological age is like such a small like bit of time on a timeline. It's like, boom. snaps and it's here. So that level of transformation is not anything that we're used to. And I think there is a mismatch between what were evolved and adapted to do versus what the lives that we're currently living in right now. So from the neoliberal capitalism perspective, right, has pushed this idea of materialism. Materialism is this excessive pursuit of possessions and wealth. which can also impact loneliness. 2021 study argued that materialism creates a sense of being disconnected from others, as well as being in competition with them. In ways that feeds feelings of loneliness and social isolation, and an increase in materialism has also been associated with loneliness, and tragically in this logic, we buy stuff that makes us lonelier, right? So when you feel bad, you turn to material goods to try to feel better. And this is the scam. The scam is that if industry can provoke negative emotions in you and insecurities, and then sell you the idea, the fantasy that living that life with their product fills that emptiness hole. then you are more likely to buy that product. but it makes you feel horrible, right? There might be an initial feeling, that dopamine hit of something novel and that experience, but it dies, right? It dies a quick death. And now you have accommodated to it and it no longer provides any of that happiness. And then you seek out the next thing to try to make you fulfill that feeling of void. when it's a never ending cycle that is just going to breed more loneliness and emptiness, which is a different feeling. Yeah, would that be considered like buyer's remorse? Like you buy something thinking it's going to solve your problems. And ultimately, you're right, it doesn't. And then you have this thing that's just sitting there and you're like, why did I do that? And just in the moment, you maybe felt that dopamine rush and it pushed you towards buying it. Yeah, it's never gonna work. And it's why there's Why Hollywood actors and famous people endorse products. It's why we have influencers right now. That, that influencer or that Hollywood actor is selling you an idea of a better life and that better life is more materialism. It's more money. It's, it's new experiences. It's, you know, an entire life of. fame and fortune and you're going to look like that person, which is going to mean others are going to be attracted to you and you're going to be able to achieve power and influence just like them. Now, if that worked, right? If the more famous a person was, the more wealthy a person was, then we wouldn't see some of the things that we see within those communities, which are very difficult times sustaining families and marriages. high rates of substance abuse. In fact, there are a number of people who have achieved wealth and fame who wish they could go back. That you become more lonely the more wealth and fame you achieve. So even the fantasy that is sold to you is one that is just fraudulent. It's just absolutely fraudulent, because you're entering a world of inauthenticity. Yeah, it's a lot of superficial relationships. Because you can't trust another person, because you're afraid of being used. Which brings to my next point about this, is that one of the reasons we feel lonely is because of what I call the attack mind. What's that? The attack mind is when your mind, if you can observe it, and a lot of people have a hard time determining the difference between reality and what their mind creates. But the attack mind is when your mind is creating things about how others might be against you or the bad things that could happen, and now you are trying to defend against it, right? So your mind creates, all right, I gotta prevent that bad thing from happening or that person is dangerous or that person is judging me this way. I have to change their impression of me. So it leads to excessive impression management. in order to get this idea that people like you. But it also leaves that feeling of social disconnection because I'm in competition with that person or I'm trying to defend myself or protect myself, whether it's my job, whether it's the relationship I'm in, whether it's at baseball and this other kid is getting more opportunities, that mind of constantly feeling or being a... tact in it can create an entire experience of loneliness because that connection that we need and we desire is just inauthentic, it's fear driven now, and we're further disconnected. I feel like that is the dangerous road we're on, and that is fueled in social media, that's fueled in divisiveness through political affiliations, and the manner in which people can communicate on social media. which if you are anonymous, then you attack others, right? So I think these are all factors that are influencing the higher rates of loneliness. You went into the mind there, so I wanna bring that up, talk about thoughts, and it reminded me, I think you introduced me to this book, it was called Conversations with God. Yeah. In that book, there's an excerpt where it talks about thoughts and thinking and how The initial thought of a person, say they wanna make change or they wanna do something in that, there's the initial thought, but then there's something that, in the book, he called the sponsoring thought. There's always a thought behind the thought. And this sponsoring thought is the thing that drives people. So you can have this good thought, I'm gonna make a change, but there's this sponsoring thought that is, I guess, the best way to describe it is that's the real thought, right? So if I want to... go out and say, I want to, Hey, I don't know, Sean, I want to go meet him. I want to meet him face to face. I've only talked to him online. I'm going to go meet him. And then we meet up and I get there. That sponsoring thought might be completely negative. You know what I mean? Like it could be completely like, you're going to mess up. You're going to do, you know, it's this, it's this thought behind the thought that people have. Can you talk a little bit about more about like thoughts, like how people that has to play into loneliness, it has to play in isolation? create our own realities, right? Our mind, what is created internally, becomes our reality, our truth. And I am in this fascinating process of self-improvement through this book, A Course in Miracles, where each day it is deconstructing my idea of reality in a way that really serves my development. I'm gonna give an example of what we're dealing with right now at the practice. The insurance world that we live in, the United States use of health insurance as a way of funding our ability to get quality health care or in mental health care, I think is an industry and an institution that needs to crumble. It needs to fail because it's failing all of us. I'm going through a walk with my wife the other day and I said, just imagine. all the money that we spend on health insurance. If we just decided not to spend that on health insurance and we instead just accumulated it in a money market account, right? Do you know how much more money we would have? How much more wealth we would have? We started doing the numbers because we don't spend a lot of money on healthcare because we're healthy, but it goes up every year. The problem if you're working in that system, is the reimbursement of that from the health insurance companies to the providers is no way connected to performance. So if it doesn't begin to increase with inflation, it's just a matter of time before your business actually crumbles, it's unable to function in an environment in that way because you're getting paid less. and less for the work that you do, and everything costs more. The only way you can survive in it is to work a lot more and increase the amount of people that work for you, decreasing the quality of the care. So when I was looking at like how our negotiation with one particular company, I started viewing attack thoughts. I started to create in my mind. And luckily now I'm so much better at observing this because I'm doing this training. I'm like, I had to tell myself and convince myself, you know, that's an illusion I just created. I created that. That's my mind, that is not real, right? And then I re, I chose to think about it differently. I chose to think about it as a blessing or a gift. The gift is that we now have an ability to create opportunity. We have now an ability to create something better. That reality serves me. My mood changed. I became more creative. And that's a great example of thoughts influence mood, behavior, and your experience. Why go into business in any business, right? Now we're in the mental health care business. So what drives our business is helping people. So when I start thinking about the money part of it, the business part of it, and trying to survive and thrive, I don't like where that sends me. That's why I'm glad Sean's here and he gets to deal with a lot of that stuff. Cause it allows me to focus more on these things, but I'm proud of like where our quality of care. But the problem is that the system for us to thrive in it financially, we would have to eliminate all that. We would have to have everybody see more clients. Under the current paradigm, the current system, the current system, but if the system is to evolve, and we continue to do the things that we're doing to run a very successful practice with quality clinicians. In theory, as the system migrates over to something that makes sense, because you're right, it doesn't make sense right now. There's a lot of money being spent on healthcare. That's when everything will click into place in terms of who's providing the quality work, who are the low performers, who are the high performers, figure out a business model where those people are. It might be dead by the time they get there though. So. I don't know. I believe that. the enormous amount of data that exists and utilizing that data in a proper way will ultimately lead to an evolution of the system. Uh, and I don't think it's 10 years away. I said that 10 years ago. Yeah, but I would, I what's happening right now in terms of AI and analytics and, uh, data platforms is making it significantly easier to, to come up with. I hope so. And then that changes also like our strategy in how to do things. And the other thing is it only takes one other industry to adopt a certain method like that, which then migrates over to all other industries. I just think it's it's not sustainable, Sean, because everyone's getting sicker. Yeah. And so if everyone is getting sicker, we're living in just trying to treat symptoms to try to prolong life. And that impacts that industry. And so I just think it's multifaceted, but I want to get back to the- You were deviating from the- Yes. The thoughts and the thoughts thing is interesting because it's- forget healthcare, but it's happening in our national budget system right now with the debt ceiling talks. They're both going into it trying to win, make the other guy feel like they gave up too much, instead of approaching it to make things better. They need to- each party needs to come out of it and say, we won. but that's not how things are supposed to work. Yeah, and so the greater point when it comes, I think, to loneliness, and that's where you're speaking of the terms of the competitiveness of neoliberalism, is that you're trying to win something and that other person becomes your enemy. And so that's really problematic. But the other thing that would be very distressing, when you talk about cognitive dissonance, something that could be very distressing is the realization that... that every person that exists in your life is a creation of them in your own mind. And that we actually work within that construct, actually. So the idea of Kelly is a, is an illusion in my mind that I've kind of created. And the idea of Sean is the same way. The problem that exists with that is when you have negative ideas of somebody and you attach to that as if it is truth. So it is the disconnection from truth. You end up then relating in a way to that person which they have no idea what's going on. But they will interpret that interaction through their own story. And so when you think about what our minds have evolved to be able to do, we become more disconnected with what reality is. Here's the problem with social isolation. You don't have enough opportunity and your communication isn't strong enough for you to be able to challenge that reality. If you feel less motivated to repair relationships. Because the world in which we have evolved is you can go on to like a site, social media, and you can scroll and swipe left or swipe right or whatever that is. And then click another one from the people store and then grab another relationship that is superficial, maybe even like sexual until that one dies out. Oh, you're not fulfilling all my needs anymore. Let me go back to the person store and find another one. It's just a constant sense of. of emptiness that feeds emptiness. Yeah. I'm glad you're bringing it back to online dating platforms because I think this is something very relatable to a large percentage of people, but just the, the structure of that platform sets you up for failure in relationships because there's so many things that from a human perspective get in the way of establishing a meaningful relationship through that platform. For example, Um, in marketing, there's that idea of the paradox of choice. So like if you went to whole foods and your wife said, pick up some strawberry jelly, you go down that aisle and there's a hundred strawberry jellies. You're going to get it wrong. Whatever you decide is not going to be good enough, or you're going to think there's probably a better strawberry jam out there. And that's what happens with online dating platforms is the initial reaction is so superficial. That. You're scrolling and tapping, I like this person. I don't like this person. I liked this person. I don't like this person. And then when you finally start engaging with them, it's such. Through text or through email, or maybe you speak on the phone, that image that you're creating in your mind of who that person is, is not the reality. Eventually you're going to sit down and meet that person face to face. And it's never going to live up to what you created in your mind. So you are set up for failure, unless you skip all that other stuff, you finally just meet face to face and then see if something can develop from there. So this also gets into conversations around intimacy. So there's a difference between trying to get that dopamine hit and having another person make you feel good, verse what is genuine intimate connection, because in that you have to see the person for who they truly are. And that is they are flawed. And we are all flawed. That means you're going to make mistakes. You're not always going to do things that are attractive. There's vulnerability. You're going to have a negative reaction to that person. And... We see this in the deterioration of marriages because the idea of marriage is being distorted. Again, I believe by ideas that are trying to make you believe that you deserve something, it's fueling this narcissistic kind of approach to living that everything is about fueling your own happiness. And if you're not happy, well then it's that person's fault. So you externalize it, which is really problematic, right? And we see that... has the breakups in family. And I think what ends up happening, especially of children of divorce who witnessed that type of disconnection from their own parents and the loss that's experienced in the fighting and the conflict that was observed is they're handicapped in a couple of ways. They don't learn that you can fight, be upset with another person and make up and be okay. They don't get to observe and learn how to work through things. And relationships become inherently threatening because you can connect to somebody and then there's the ultimate fear of that loss of them because nothing is stable, right? And so that drives a sense of loneliness and disconnection. Why, why attach to anybody if they're just going to hurt me and leave me? And that is dangerous because then you don't enter into an authentic relationship where there's vulnerability and authenticity because it's fear driven, right? And you're ultimately going to destroy that relationship. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of self-destruction. Because of your own fear of actually being hurt or being abandoned by somebody, you act in a way that pushes somebody away and provides you that sense of control. And, you know, that fuels this emptiness that is part of our society. And we have to shift that. And that might be also part of, and sometimes the value of, uh, of connection through religious means and other things and family through generations, because you communicate those messages that are really important. And if those messages aren't passed down, the ones that are from generation to generation, then you, what are you vulnerable to the messaging of the moment? That's a modern messaging that is trying to drive a certain reality of you. And that's the concern with that narcissistic appeal of self-love and a number of the other factors that your purpose of your life is kind of hedonistic in that way. It's to try to obtain as much pleasure as possible. And guess what? That is a fraudulent way of trying to communicate the human experience. It will lead to emptiness. It will lead to depression. Trust me on that. It's funny because there's another online, maybe not funny. Ashley Madison is another online website, but it's for people who cheat. And there was a study that came out, got served to me, um, maybe from doing this research, but. It only looked at that audience of Ashley Madison. users. So that's a certain group of people. So, you know, you're, you're starting with a group from a certain mindset, but it was interesting because it was just like a longitudinal study, but you would make the assumption that people that are engaging in that platform are unhappy with their current relationships, but the data was showing something else. And I just think it's because of those type of users that choose to go on that platform have a certain idea of what cheating may be for them or what purpose it serves in their lives. I'm with you in terms of like, I don't think it's just going to create more problems and ultimately you will be lonely. You know, eventually everything will catch up with you and then you'll you'll be lonely. It's just a matter of when it's going to happen. But that the data as I was reading it, because I was expecting to find something interesting about loneliness in there. And it was nothing like that. So It could be a particularly skewed, uh, Ashley Madison advertising push, you know, to try and get people to engage with the platform. But it was, it was just weird cause it threw me off. It wasn't what I was anticipating. Well, what was it? It was that people were happy that it was fulfilling their lives in a meaningful way. That's a lie. Yeah, but it was, but remember, it was only people on that platform. It's not real. I have a hard enough time dealing with one woman, my wife. I'm not going to complicate the fact that you might give me more. I'm watching the television show Succession right now. I watched it. Yeah. And that is kind of an expose into the life of the rich and powerful, right? And you know, you see how money and wealth and fame can create such levels of disconnection. and attack thoughts. You know, like there's so much about the developing storyline for where I am is, you know, it's about to protect what you have and to try to obtain power. And then you see how disconnected all the family relationships are and how that is, you know, provokes such degrees of distrust. But there's a discomfort for me when I watch it. And I don't know about you, Kelly. Yeah. It's hard to watch the way that they treat each other, the way they react to each other and the lack of empathy. The lack of empathy is just gone. Yeah. And that's why I've always had myself personally, I'm very like attuned to the groups that I'll feel comfortable in. And anytime I'm kind of put into a group that almost the purpose of that group is networking or the purpose of that group is to try to. I don't know, make business connections or other things like the country club crowd of that. I could never have joined a country club, you know, and just to view everything through the lens of an alliance. That type of social dynamic and interaction with me is so aversive, right? I almost want to like blow the whole thing up by just like saying things that offend people. But like I'm much more comfortable in like a working working class people, right? And maybe that's like our family kind of has grown from working class mentality, right? Even though we're now professional class, what I feel comfortable in is more blue collar working class, right? And that's because there's more of an authenticity, I think in the development of those kind of connections and relationships. Just the communication style allows you to know where you stand with somebody, right? Yeah. And I feel as if the, the, the working class that you're talking about, I don't feel as if they experience lone, the loneliness we're talking about as much as let's say those individuals that rise to the top because they have community families important to them. Those are all things that I love and I embrace. So I feel the same way. Like I, I love blue It gives me then a sense of community. I don't know that I would ever fit in in a country club. Yeah. I don't think I could ever, no matter what. I don't know. You definitely couldn't. No. Well, I was playing tennis with my advisor the other day and we were sipping on some cognac discussing the political climate, but the, the, how you were going to rule the world. Yeah. No, I, I think the reason why that, I don't know, we'll call it middle class blue collar seems, I don't know. When you're at that... Shouldn't be labeling, no labeling. Yeah, I don't like labeling. When you have that elites, they're trying to maintain that status. So maybe they put on a false impression or they just feel like they have to act a certain way. But when you're, you know, people like us in the middle class, we're just honest, direct, and you know, we don't care. You know, can't get pushed down. You can't get really pushed up. You just be who you are. That's why it's so real and it's just easier. That's why I think we're losing that we're seeing more of a economic divide in our country. And people are doing poorer economically and it's more problematic. And I think it can actually feed more of that competitiveness to try to get ahead. And I think we see that in community sports. You know, that's one thing that has kind of shifted because again, they're trying to sell you something. The idea of a free education and the way of a free education is through scholarships. And that's why I see some, you see some of the anger that exists in youth sports. You know, there's fighting. It's such a high stakes game now that has its own dynamics that you've experienced. And I've experienced and Sean will experience potentially at one point, unless he jumps off the grid and heads to Costa Rica and raises his son in a. That's my social comparison, by the way. It's the people who've jumped off the grid go to Costa Rica. and enter into that lifestyle. Like that's my social comparison. We're all like, well, maybe they know something. Well, now the algorithm feeds me. Right. So like, I'm like following people who, you know, you know, basically they're getting up at the sun, they're going to the beach, they're learning how to surf, they're forging all day naturally barefoot. That's, that's an image in your head. No, that's a lifestyle that forging on barefoot. No, they walk barefoot to ground. Oh, yeah. To nature. Right. That's they get they pick the fruit. They live on meat and fruit. Right. These are these are influencers though, because so they're rich, right? So they're they have these podcasts where they're talking about how modern society is creating you are just feeding into their stories. I am and it's that's my social comparison. But I've observed the story. Right. And I've been able to disconnect it and connect to what's important here. I guess this is our point where we start to wrap up here. Yeah. One more thing though, that I think is important to talk about with, with loneliness is that it does affect not just mental health, but actual health, cardiovascular disease. There's, there's studies upon studies that show that that happens. And then your body starts to crumble. That's even worse. So it's something just quick mention that and talk about that. The mind body experiencing is so critical. So we'll try to put some science into this. Just think about the effect of mild stress, attack thoughts. Your brain releases stress-related hormones to activate you in a fight or flight response. It creates inflammation. Inflammation is a killer. It raises your blood pressure. impairs your sleep. And the experience of being in mild stretch is aversive. So it increases your likelihood to turn to other behaviors that are also health deteriorating, substance use to relax, right? Turning to food to try to change the way you feel kind of fuels an obesity epidemic. Stress is a killer, absolute killer. And that's why you see the pain of loneliness. is also the idea of a broken heart. That's real from a physical perspective. And you see that from when there's a death of a loved one, a spouse that you've been with for, you know, extended period of time, a high percentage of their partners then die within a certain period of time, right? The idea of a broken heart loneliness. So this is a health epidemic. And this is my problem and why, one of the reasons why we speak out on the the detriments of our sick care system and the oversimplification of human problems. When you go into a healthcare setting that only looks at symptoms, you're not addressing the cause. Mental health is a great identification of that. Someone is socially isolated and lonely. You're not going to solve that with a pill. You're just not. If somebody is addicted to their phone and that internal world created by social media, Their ill, their ability to focus and concentrate outside of their head on the present moment, being connected to the reality that exists outside us in the physical world will be diminished. That's not ADHD. That's a phone addiction. That's technology addiction. There's nothing wrong with you. There's something wrong with your behavior and you can change that your brain will adapt. It is quite nefarious to try to say that that person has a problem with their brain. No, you have a problem with the way you live. We are not meant to live in screens. We are meant to be active. And so it's gonna be so much more difficult to sustain concentration and attention in that world. And what is it driving? It is driving Adderall use. And with the supply chain challenges that exist, what are we finding? People are running out of their Adderall. There are way too many people on stimulants. Podcast for another time, the long-term negative effects of Adderall abuse. but you're always trying to change your reality. Nothing is ever good enough living in that way. The change to this, the adaptation that we have to make is we do have to disconnect from our technology. We do have to increase community connection. We have to cultivate a culture of connection with values of kindness, respect, service, and commitment to one another. Because if you don't, you'll stay in the attack, thought, mind. Because that competitiveness... And that disconnect from another person out there to harm you is going to fuel an early death. No doubt about it. It is up to us. It's up to us to change. Right? We know that industry and government is going to be motivated to control us. They're going to be motivated to sell us things. They want to use, they want to achieve more power. There's a percentage of human beings who are just sociopathic. That is a complete disconnect. But I do believe that the light is more powerful than the darkness. And I do believe in a collective consciousness. A collective consciousness is around a unified and united idea of helping each other and surviving cooperatively. And that we become a more evolved species through that experience. I think we're going to argue in future podcasts against transhumanism and the dangers of technology, the surveillance state, AI, and all the things that can interfere with the evolution of humanity. We have to understand the rising statistics of depression and despair and substance abuse and suicide as a good indicator that we are not evolving. Right? This could be the first time potentially in all of humanity where we're not adapting and evolving to our circumstances that we've been hijacked. Our brains have been hijacked. But there's enough time to course correct. And when I think about the power of therapy or in the job that I do, it's more about that social connection that's developed and then driving people to get out of their heads and to live a life of value and purpose and relationship and service to others. That's what makes people happy. The modern way of living is only breeding social isolation and loneliness.