Unpacking Loneliness
Last month we started a new series, Unpacking Mental Health. In this series, I speak with mental health professionals (often my good friend, Ruth McNulty) about various mental health, personal development, and/or self-care topics.
Ruth and I met six years ago and have been travel buddies ever since. She’s an avid solo traveler who is based in New Zealand, working as a mental health nurse and health and wellness coach. I love talking with Ruth and learning from her experiences, both in travel and in mental health.
In this most recent conversation, we dove into loneliness. We’ve all felt lonely at times, while traveling solo, during quarantine, or just in everyday life. It’s important to remember to take time to process those feelings and find out why we feel that way when we do.
I hope you enjoy this conversation about our experiences with loneliness.
Ruth, can you tell us some of the important things to know about feelings of loneliness?
I want to start out with normalizing loneliness. It’s something that everybody feels. The most social and outgoing people that you know have felt lonely at times. I want to highlight the idea that it is possible to feel lonely when you're not alone, when you’re completely surrounded by other people.
And sometimes loneliness doesn’t stem from being alone. Sometimes you just don't feel right in the situation that you're in, or there's emotional stuff going on and you just feel disconnected.
And loneliness is completely, completely normal. It's part of what everybody experiences and part of being human. And it's okay to not be okay 100% of the time. It's a falsehood that everybody feels good all the time.
We’re going to talk about that, how to recognize it, and then how to manage it when you experience that.
That’s such a good point. You can be with a group of people and feel lonely, but you can also be completely alone and not feel lonely. When I say that you're going to experience loneliness in your solo travels, it’s not every moment. You will feel great at times when you’re traveling by yourself.
We recently had another post, The Secret to Making Friends While Traveling Solo. There’s a lot of good information in there, but I should point out that you don’t have to want to make friends while solo traveling. You very well may want to actually travel alone. Sometimes it’s good to be by yourself for a bit.
On my first couple of solo trips, it never occurred to me to want to make friends while traveling alone. I was very focused on my independence and being strong and being able to do what I wanted. I loved that experience of being alone. And in the occasional moments of loneliness, I was inspired by my ability to sit with it.
But then on a later trip to Italy, I unintentionally started making friends. They introduced me to the social aspect of solo travel. It started with meeting friends of a friend in Rome, followed by an incredibly social, but small, hostel in Ischia (where all the guests were constantly exploring together), then I went to Florence where I met the incredible Mary Jane and she taught me to revel in the moment. In addition to Mary Jane, I had a great roommate in my hostel who I ended up exploring a good bit with.
Three weeks into my trip, I realized I was exhausted and felt disconnected from myself because I hadn’t been alone at all on my solo trip. I was missing those quiet, reflective moments.
The following week I found myself in Camogli, a small village on the beach. I had to rent an apartment because there were no hostels. I went from loud, bustling cities with people around me 24/7 to completely alone. In the silence of this new space, the loneliness was quite loud. I had to remind myself that this wasn’t a new feeling and it was okay to sit with it and feel it. I accepted it was part of my solo travel experience and then I committed to not letting it ruin my last week in Italy. I was just going to feel that emotion, move through it, and remember what I had learned in the past — I am enough.
Ruth, can you talk some more about that idea of why sometimes when we are in a group we feel lonely?
Oftentimes we end up in social groups that are really superficial but can be fun. You can connect over a shared interest with somebody in the group, whether it’s a book club or class, or what have you, but that doesn't mean you're necessarily going to develop a lasting friendship. You might have great colleagues at work that you get along with, but that you’re never going to become close to. Sometimes in life you can find yourself with several of those superficial relationships, and very few of the real tight connections. So, you could be in many social groups and still feel lonely.
And sometimes you end up projecting your own stuff on to other people and because of that you automatically assume that they’re not going to like you. When I do that, I end up pulling back and feeling lonely because I'm isolating myself or because I'm not trusting people enough to be open and to show them who I really am. I think it’s because I'm too scared that if I show the real me, they're not going to like me and they’re going to reject me.
That’s something I did off and on for a long time because I wasn't comfortable with myself. And it took me a long time to realize that that's what I was doing. It took quite a bit of work over a long space of time to just slowly unravel, unpack, and build that confidence, and to learn to trust and show true pieces of myself. Once I was comfortable showing a little bit, I then felt confident enough to show a bit more, and gradually build to being my true self around other people.
What would you suggest for someone if they notice that they're isolating themselves?
The first thing to do is let yourself feel the discomfort. None of us like recognizing something uncomfortable. Nobody likes admitting that they put themselves in situations they don’t like; but sometimes we need to, even though it can be a horrible feeling.
Or it might be just sitting with those feelings and realizing that maybe you're in a time in your life where you don’t connect with people and it’s not your fault. You just don’t seem to click when you try.
Either way, those are uncomfortable things to sit with.
And that can be applied to all sorts of things, not just loneliness. Sometimes it is about just sitting down and letting yourself feel whatever it is you're feeling. We're very good at distracting ourselves from that, whether it's by pouring a glass of wine or three, or binge-watching TV, or making ourselves really busy with work. We can keep ourselves occupied so that we don’t have to think about those things because we know that when we do think about them, it will hurt, and we won’t like it.
But unless you're willing, at some point, to sit down and accept that it's real, you will not be able to work on it. Part of that is just being okay with it and realizing that the feeling isn't actually going to kill you. It's not the end of the world. It's uncomfortable. It's not nice, but it's reality.
And it's okay, and completely normal. And everybody you know has experienced those feelings before. And then they will pass.
But the first step is just allowing yourself to feel it, recognize it, and own it. And then once you've done that you can start thinking about what you’re going to do about it. You can't make a plan until you know what the problem is. You can't find a solution until you know what you're looking to solve. Once you know what it is, you can formulate a plan to solve it.
Some people can do that themselves. Other people might need to talk to a support person or connect with a life coach or a counselor to help them process. It’s completely okay to not know the steps to solve it on your own.
But I think once you start making some decisions, you can start to move forward, because it's really important not to wallow. It's really tempting to feel sad and to feel sorry for ourselves. It’s okay to have a moment of that. We all need to indulge in that now and then, but it's really important not to stay in that place, and to find a way to move forward.
If you’re not careful, you will get stuck in one of two places: the “I’m too busy to face this,” or the “I’m wallowing and don’t have the energy or motivation to face this.” Those are the two common extremes -- finding that middle ground is the key.
I don't think you ever get immune to the feeling of being outside your comfort zone. But I think what happens is you get used to those feelings of fear and recognize that although you feel vulnerable in the moment, you know that in a few minutes you will feel safe and comfortable, and you will feel like you conquered something. Eventually you will get to the point of knowing that it can be rewarding to take the risk of feeling vulnerable.
We talk a lot about taking baby steps into solo travel. It’s the same thing with becoming vulnerable. Start with the little things like taking yourself out to the movies or out for dinner or for coffee or going away overnight. You don't have to do it all in one go. But if you realize you can survive going out for coffee on your own, you know then that you can build on that confidence, so that you can then go off and do the other things as well.
Let's talk a little bit about situations where we felt lonely. We talked a little about the solo travel experiences but there are also the lockdown/quarantine experiences so many of us have been experiencing. Or in my case when, on top of quarantine, we move far away from our friends and family. I want to keep in touch with my people and catch up regularly. And I always enjoy it when I do video chat with a good friend but it’s been hard to get myself to actually schedule these calls. I have been experiencing some sort of mental roadblock there. Unless someone says to me, “How about this day and time?” I don’t do it.
I’ve started straight up telling my friends, “I don’t know why but this is what I’m currently struggling with but I do love you and want to talk to you. Please keep reaching out and feel free to just put times on the calendar and call me.” What works for you?
I'm a big list person. I’ve realized that I will forget about anything if it’s not right in front of me. So last week I went and bought myself a big magnetic whiteboard to stick on my fridge. And I've got a pen that sits next to a list of things, which now includes phoning home, setting coffee dates with friends, sending those emails to reconnect.
I find that those visual prompts remind me, and without them, it’s very easy for me to get in that headspace of “I’m too busy for that.” I’m not too busy for a 20-minute phone call. I just need to schedule it.
I love how what works for one person is different for others. I’m a big list maker for professional stuff but my personal lists just get pushed to the next week. Putting “Call Meghan or Call Natalia” on my to-do list doesn’t work. I just get overwhelmed and move it to the next day, week or month.
We talked earlier about how sometimes when we're lonely we should sit with it, and sometimes we should do something about it. How would you help someone to figure out when they should sit with their loneliness and when they should be proactive?
I would say, stick with it for as long as it takes to get an idea of what you need to do with it, until you can see a solution.
You've got to feel it long enough to find a way out of it, whether that means realizing you need to call someone, or speak to someone nearby, or whatever it may be that will change the situation.
We need to be able to identify our loneliness, right? In life we can stay so busy that we don’t have time to acknowledge our feelings. But this beautiful thing happens when you're traveling alone, which is that you ultimately run out of distractions.
And when you run out of distractions all of a sudden your emotions just rush in. If you have no experience with that, it can be very overwhelming. This is another reason to take baby steps both in dealing with your emotions and with solo traveling, especially if you're not as self-aware. It will be really intimidating to all of a sudden be hit with that wave of emotion. But if you've experienced that in smaller doses already, it will be easier to handle.
Before you can sit with it, you have to be able to identify it. For someone who's maybe not as in tune with those emotions, how would you help them to be able to identify them?
What I like to do, and what I know a lot of people find helpful, is to just get away from other people at that point. Maybe just go and sit in that coffee shop and have a coffee and a bit of a timeout. If it's a nice day, go and sit in the park, and just have some time and breathe.
And then I would recommend to just write whatever is in your head in that moment. Just brain dump. It doesn't matter if it makes sense or not. It doesn't matter if you jump from topic to topic. Just get it written on a piece of paper. Nobody's ever going to read it. You can rip it up and burn it or whatever you want afterwards, but sometimes just getting it on to black and white paper can help identify some themes, and that can help get it out of your head.
You've got to clear your head to be able to then process; what was it that triggered those feelings, what memories did that bring up that I'm still dealing with? Is it something that I'm worried about later on in the trip that has me distracted? Is it the fact that I didn't sleep well last night because somebody else in the dorm was snoring? Or is it that this is the first time I've been on my own for quite some time, and I'm not used to it, and I'm not comfortable?
And once you can get that out, you can start to figure out what the problem is and how to solve it. Maybe it’s to just call home and talk with someone who knows you and the background of the situation and get their advice.
Or if you haven't got that person to talk it out with, email us. We're always happy to get those emails from people who are away and struggling and want to connect. We're always happy to help you unpack some of that stuff in the moment, if we can.
But when you keep everything in your head it just feels so overwhelming. It just goes around and around, and it may actually be half a dozen things, but it feels like a thousand things. You keep thinking about it and every time you think about it, it gets worse and then it grows arms and legs and then it becomes bigger and bigger and bigger. And it’s metastasized. At that point it feels way too overwhelming, so you shut it out and ignore it, and you get busy again.
We are used to having so many distractions surrounding us, so when we finally do get out of our normal space and we’re traveling, the lack of distractions can disguise itself as boredom. You’re not really bored; you just need to start taking action and process your feelings.
I think journaling is a great tool. There’s something to be said for seeing your thoughts out in front of you after you’ve put it to pen and paper.
It can be helpful, too, to look back at your progress. To say, “I've done this thing, how would I have handled this six months ago?” And you go, “Oh, actually, I've done really well. I might still not be at the place where I want to be, but I did so much better than the last time this thing happened.” So you can see that work that you've been putting in and how that has changed you and how that has helped you grow.
And you can track that path of where you're heading. Track your progress and take a moment to stop and review every once in a while. To see that you’re on the right path and that you can keep going.
That’s so good.
Ruth, thank you so much for digging into and unpacking the idea of loneliness with me. I appreciate you being vulnerable and sharing your experiences. I look forward to our future conversations about travel and unpacking mental health.
For anyone who wants to know more about What It’s Really Like to Travel by Yourself this link is a great spot to check out insights from other solo travelers.
We're always looking for ideas that would be helpful to these conversations. If you have other aspects of mental health you'd like us to unpack, please send us a message or leave a comment below.