Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
It’s a Monday morning happy start of the week to you. Today, in this podcast, I started with a question that has come in from a very long-time listener of this podcast and also a seminar attendee, a workshop attendee of mine, and also a very longtime listener of my radio show. And the question is Srini, what are your recommendations in dealing with isolation? And loneliness? Phenomenal question. I think everyone can relate to this question in some shape, or form. Because all of us have experienced loneliness and isolation. At some level, you are super successful in everything that you’re doing, you have a certain kind of loneliness on the very top. If you are yet to become successful, and you’re left in the middle, you have loneliness, you may have some isolation.
So we have experienced this at some level. And the truth is this. In order to create any level of success, any level of happiness fulfillment, there has to be an element of you developing a deep affinity towards isolation and loneliness. That means you fall in love with it, you can’t isolate it, you can’t say, How can I avoid this, when you avoid it, it means you are depending on something external to you, or you’re depending on something else. So these things we cannot avoid, these things can be put on us or these things can eventually develop the tennis, this isolation, and loneliness. So I would rather fall in love with this idea. Yes, at some point, I will be lonely. Yes, at some point, I’ll be isolated. So let me build that muscle within me that courage within me to deal with it. I would start with that, with that mindset. Now, I have had people ask me this question. I wish I had a better network. I wish I had a bigger friends circle. I wish I was spending more time networking with people. Maybe I could have avoided the situation? Through? Yes. If you spend a lot of time with your friends. And if you build up a good social presence and things like that, yes, it’s possible that you will feel less isolated, less lonely. But here’s what the data has shown. People who post on Facebook every day, and people who are very active on social media are equally as lonely as those who are not doing it. So I don’t know the answer to that. Right, just being socially more present, will take away loneliness. But the counter to that is that nobody, not nobody should ever go through life alone. And at any point in time, you should have a list of people who you can call and kind of rest your concerns and your challenges on their shoulders. In other words, cry, right? You should all of us should. And that is why one of the recommendations I have is every time somebody calls me and says I am going through this challenge. I’m going to this problem. Should I do some hypnosis? Should I do counseling and all?
My recommendation to them is, first of all, did you talk to someone who is much higher in your perception? That means you give them a bigger stage in your thinking. Maybe your parents, maybe somebody who is much older, seen life and has better wisdom, according to you? Did you talk to them about your problem? And then they’re like, yes, some people say yes, they did. And some people say they don’t. And they will not. And my second question usually is do you have a friend with whom you share this problem? Some people say yes, and some people say no. And then well, if you have difficulty sharing with your friends, you have difficulty sharing with people who have a little bit higher leverage. When it comes to your life, then yes, maybe it makes sense to go talk to a professional at that point. But usually, the majority of our issues and concerns go away, if we have these social structures in place. So yes, it helps. So that you feel less isolated, less lonely if you can get your emotions to result with people who you love and care about. And primarily, if you have friends who can help you. That’s awesome. It’s a great place to start. Now, the question is this. Let’s say you don’t have these things in place. Let’s say you are very lonely. Do you understand that? Yes, these things need to be in place. But then you have not done that yet. Where do you go from here? How do you restart this? Well, one of the recommendations, and again I’m making that here on this podcast.
First is, that you need to talk to at least two family members on a weekly basis. Not your immediate family, extended family. Family is someone who you may probably meet they live maybe once or twice in their entire lifetime, they’re extremely far away from you make an attempt to connect with them. And I do this, I did that throughout the COVID. Last two years, I reached out to so many people on WhatsApp and you know, friends and faraway friends, and just had conversations with them just kind of went back revived some old memories, and kind of told them that I’m there, and kind of got an assurance from them that they are there also do that at the family level, but also at friend level. Some friends whom you have not spoken to, for many, many years, reach out to them and have some conversations with them. This is not to get something from them. That’s not the point. The point is, that you are learning to expand your social presence. So your social network has to grow for you, or it has to grow, and then you need to feel good about yourself doing it. So it’s kind of a practice for you to do it. without expecting anything. That could be many secondary gains from this, the primary gain is that you are engaging in an activity that is expanding your reach. But the secondary gain would be that you will end up getting a best friend out of it. Or you may get some, if people get some referrals, people get some business, whatever all that’s all those are unnecessary, at least in this context, not something that we need to talk about. But then there, there are always some gains. And there could be losses too. But that’s not the point. The point is that you are connecting, and you are getting into the habit of connecting, that’s the most important part.
Now the good friends you have, we all have friends, the good friends you have, most of the time people don’t do, which is having a real-time connection with good friends. That means they only tell a few things, peripheral things they say they say they never really get to the depth of any conversation. And if you do find yourself in that situation where you are not really carrying on, call your friends, your friends, but then you know that you’re not having deep conversations with them. That means it’s not a real contact, you’re not making real contact you’re contacting but not real contact, that needs to be fixed. That needs to be addressed. And you need to have real-time contact with them. And that has to be steady over a period of time. So make sure that the people who you talk to, you’re driving conversations deep. And you’re doing that frequently. And over a period of time. Hopefully, this helps.
Now, again, if we expand this conversation, see you have some passions in you, you have some hobbies in you, maybe those have not been explored. Or maybe you do that in isolation. Why not go join a club or create a band, let’s say you, you do music, create a band, spend some time once a month, right with your friends. Again, the idea is to expand the social circle, not to really become you know, amazing in the activity itself and meet other people, like-minded people. And then you take the same concept and go into a neighborhood. There are people in your neighborhood who are like-minded, and whom you do not know you never met maybe, maybe you need to have a conversation with them. The goal here is to find common interests and do things with them that otherwise they love doing and you also love doing and finding that commonality. That’s the idea behind this. Now, you do these so you take your activity into the neighborhood, you take your activity into some clubs, you take your activity into your family, you take this activity into France, the hope the only activities that you are trying to become more social. If you do this there is no way you will find yourself lonely. And you do that real, not for the sake of doing that means you drive it deep.
If you do it, I don’t think you’ll find yourself lonely. That would be my advice. That would be my suggestion. And again the are so many such things you can do in each segment of life, for example, I’ve seen this happen. And my clients tell me this to people, they hike with some of their friends, they go on vacation with some of their friends, they go to movies with some of their friends, none of these friends are common. Like, they don’t do the same activity with all their friends, there are different groups they do this with. Fine. That’s how it is. That’s how it is, right? Whatever it is, the more you do this, the more frequently you do this, the more depth you drive into this, and the lesser the chances that you’ll find yourself lonely. Now, I’m not saying this, because you can completely avoid loneliness because this is a state of mind. And you could be in the greatest of company and still find yourself lonely anyway. So I would rather build my friendship but the loneliness, I expect the loneliness. I expect isolation. But at the same time, from my side, I will do everything to make sure that I’m reaching out and building my network and I’m acting social and accommodating other people in different aspects of my life with an idea that I’m doing my part. I’m doing my share.
Hopefully, today’s podcast is helpful. If it is do me a favor, read it, write a review, and share it with your friends and family. You have a question for me 888-818-0404 is the number where you can call you can text and I will use your question as your voice question as I’ve watched drop in my podcast and I’m going to answer your question. That’s all you are off to a great start for Monday. And I will see you tomorrow. Tuesday. Thank you Take care. Bye now.