Your Loneliness Makes Sense || By Catherine Dockery, MA, Conscious Aging Facilitator
When we meet someone for the first time, chances are the first question asked is, “Where are you from?” Our deepest human need is to belong. And that includes not just our ‘kin’ but the land we are from. Our city, our region, our landscape, our country.
We may not always consciously notice the natural environment we live in but it is intrinsic to our being. The smells, humidity, the weather. It’s our environment we live in. We belong. Maybe even take it for granted. We just are here.
But increasingly, as the land is paved over and built upon, and the natural species of birds, animals and insect are increasingly thinned out. We begin to lose that connection to the land and feeling that we belong. We start to lose our sense of place. Our sense of home.
Nomads. We’ve become a bit traumatized living in modernization and separation from land. All mammals have emotional circuitry for grief and when we are without our kin, our village, our land, that circuitry goes into full alarm (anxiety, sadness, depression and loneliness are all related symptoms). And then we may shame ourselves for our perfectly natural response to the alienation from the modern world.
We have convinced ourselves we don’t need each other, but in reality our mammal bodies are made for relationship. This is an expression of a deep truth: all of life is relational. We exist in interdependence. We seek relationship from the earliest moments of life and our lives unfold and take shape relative to the nature of the relationships we encounter and create. In fact, all life forms down to the single most cell seek to connect, because we are inter-relational.
We think the world is linear, i.e., that we are going somewhere. Our culture values the heroics of the rugged individualist, In that viewpoint, it’s not ok to admit we are lonely. Loneliness is when we don’t experience being seen for who we are, understood, valued, remembered, or cared for. The linear worldview finds its roots in Western European and American thought. It is logical, time oriented, and systematic, and has at its core the cause-and-effect relationship. The belief is that if we understand the cause, we can find the solution.
Yet, the linear view is narrow. It inhibits us from seeing the whole person. A more holistic viewpoint would see the world as relational. Problems should be seen in terms of its relationship to other events, circumstances or people around them. We have a mosaic of feelings that indicate when our basic needs are being met or unmet. For example, when our need for care is met, we may feel love, affection, calm, happiness, etc. Conversely, when care is not met such as when we lose a friend, we feel grief, sadness, even physical sensations of emotional pain.
These feelings can be common for us when we don’t have real relational understanding. How do we find a way to be seen, understood, valued, remembered, and cared for? That is the inner work we are faced with. So how do we get that connection we’re longing for? What needs to exist for us to feel belonging?
I first learned to validate my body sensations, feelings and needs. I learned this through working with a Nonviolent Communication (NVC) practice group. NVC was started by Marshall Rosenberg in 1984. Here is where I learned my feelings made sense. They weren’t something to get rid of, they were there for me to listen to myself and what I needed.
NVC created a new way of processing and communicating with ourselves and others. It educated us to weed out our cause-and-effect language. Searching for causes makes us a very blame-based culture, i.e., “Whose fault is it?” We want to let go of cause and look for the needs that are either being met or not met. Only in that way can we resolve the feelings we are having. We had to reframe blame from:
I feel _____ because you _____! (blame!)
Reframe to:
I feel _______ because I _____! (ownership of feelings)
When we reframe our communication, we have greater understanding of what we need and can ask more directly to get our needs met. This is the best way to hold ourselves with more understanding, connection and love.
About the author: Rev. Catherine Dockery, MA, is a People House minister and a trained facilitator in conscious aging, nonviolent communication and resonant healing of trauma. She has an MA in Public Administration and BA in Communications both from the University of Colorado at Denver. Catherine started The Center for Conscious Aging in 2015 where she conducts workshops, personal coaching and support groups for older adults helping them to understand their developmental changes and transform their lives. She has 10 years of experience in individual and group facilitation and presents on aging topics throughout Colorado. To learn more about Catherine’s services please visit www.centerforconsciousaging.org or email consciousaging1@gmail.com
