Teresa broke up with her boyfriend about six months ago and whilst the feeling of being heart broken had disappeared she was still in a lot of pain. Like many of the single people I coach, Teresa was often caught out by her feelings of loneliness. It really came to a head for her on January 1st at about 2am in the morning. What she found to be especially painful was the fact that she’d just spent the last 6 hours partying with her favourite friends after a day on the ski slopes with them.

Loneliness is one of the reasons I insist my clients agree to a ‘man ban’ during the first couple of months of coaching with me. Feeling lonely is such a powerful pain that people will get into the strangest relationships in order to avoid it. If you’d like to know how to come to terms with loneliness then please read on.

I’ve been coaching people long enough to know that feeling lonely can happen in a multitude of circumstances and ways; having to go to a wedding on your own because you’re only allowed to bring a ‘significant’ other and then returning to an empty house. Trying to organise a girlie lunch or a boys night out and having your friends bring their partners along. Being continually surrounded by happy, laughing couples having their perfect relationships all around you in the street or out shopping. And then you have the pain of shopping for one and then carrying it all home on your own. Added to all that you have got the agony of pretending that everything’s fine because you’d hate anyone to know you’re lonely because it’s so unattractive – that only adds to your sense of isolation.

The first point I make about loneliness is that it can’t kill you, you won’t die of it. It is only ever going to be a feeling. It is a particularly insidious one, but you’re always going to be far bigger than your worst feeling. It’s no excuse for getting yourself into yet another pointless relationship because it’s better than nothing.

That emptiness you’re feeling is the new found space in your life that’s opened up for you to explore. Right after a break-up you’ve got heart break but eventually it just feels like you’ve got a hole in your life. That hole is a space that you could grow into. Being single is said to be a luxury we often fail to notice in our desire to get back into a relationship.

Different people handle the experience of being single in different ways. For some it’s very painful and for others it’s a cause for celebration as they get back out into ‘the game’, knowing they are one step closer to winning. Bare minimum they now have enough free time to catch up with their friends or upgrade their wardrobe.

In order for a situation to be really, really painful you must believe three things are true of it. You must believe it’s permanent, personal and all pervasive. Teresa was busy telling her self that she’d never find another man as nice as her ex because she was totally depressed and always would be. She was miserable because ‘everyone’ she knew had a great relationship so her failure really was (as far as she was concerned) personal to her. Added to which Teresa told herself that no one really cared about her situation and her friends were all sick of her whining. She’d taken to drinking on her own at home whilst singing along to an ‘All by Myself’ type sound track a la Bridget Jones with no hope of being rescued.

You may be lonely but you’re a long way from being alone. All over whatever town or city you live in are people just like you feeling lonely and worthless because they aren’t in a relationship. The irony of course is that the reason Bridget Jones was such a hit is that everyone could identify with it. Even the men I coach, their loneliness may look a little different but it’s just as painful. Loneliness is not personal to you, you’re just not that special.

Teresa realised fairly quickly that it really wasn’t a permanent state. Through her day there were certain hot spots like going to bed, waking up alone, sitting down for breakfast or as she was putting on her running shoes which were all things she did with her ex. So we came up with some ways of breaking up those feelings. This is a fairly well kept secret but getting your self a cuddly teddy bear, giraffe or even elephant will help you get over that empty feeling.

The scientific term is ‘transitional love object’ and they really help with not feeling alone in bed. You could of course get a cat or dog if you can deal with the responsibility and your lease allows for it. This has worked so many times I could write a book on it but it’s not what I want to be famous for . Get yourself something cuddly!

The other thing about permanence is that it’s clearly not true. You’ve been in love before and you will love again, that much is a given. There are thousands of people out there desperate to get to know you better. The more interesting challenge is setting up a relationship that both parties feel is worth making permanent and that I can help you with. You’re a grown up. Yes, your last love may have been amazing but trust me, once the hormones kick in again you won’t spend too much time looking back.

Teresa had gone a long way to convincing herself that all her friends had gone off her and didn’t want to deal with her sadness. Her lack of love was now all pervasive. As a result she’d started staying home on the weekends and had got herself into a vicious circle. This was very easily interrupted by Teresa phoning her closest friends and making an arrangement to go to the cinema with them and then building on that connection.

It’s really that simple, if you’re feeling bad you’ll be telling yourself that at least two of the terrible triad are true. Is your situation really permanent, personal and all pervasive? The faster you can dismantle that particular piece of internal dialogue the better you’ll feel. So what are you saying to yourself that’s making all of this so much worse?

Tips on Dealing With Loneliness

Do something physical that involves other people
Learn how to rock climb which will teach you to trust people again. Learn Ceroc or some other partnered dance which will at the very least mean that someone you like will hold your hand at some point in an evening. All of these things get you out of your head and back into your body.

Become one with yourself
Tai Chi, Yoga and meditation could also help but they lack a sense of connection to others which can be important when lonely. The up side of these practices is that you may learn to get your feelings into perspective and stop having to run away from them. That’s no small thing.

Plan ahead
Try to arrange things to do with people well ahead of the times you’d normally get sunk in feeling lonely. Don’t leave it until Friday night to start planning for your weekend.

Get something to take care of
It’s a funny thing but sometimes the thing we miss most is having someone to care about. You could buy yourself a plant, a pet or even take me up on the cuddly toy idea. Be careful about the pet though, if you’re not careful it could well become a long term reminder of how lonely you felt.

Best wishes

Michael

I don’t know if you’re already aware of this but I’ve spent the last 3 years polishing up my training in marriage counselling with Terrence Real in Boston. Terrence Real is a truly gifted therapist and author of ‘The New Rules of Marriage’. His marriage counselling is so good that couples fly in from around the world with him in order to get the relationship help they need. It is the opinion of many that if Terrence Real can’t fix your marriage no one can!

I’d been doing my best to assist people with their marital problems for years before finally giving up as it seemed to be remarkably unfulfilling. My results in marriage counselling were less than inspiring, couples just kept breaking up. I wasn’t the only one having this experience; people who do work in marriage counselling have developed a joke that couples only come to marriage therapy because they want to break up more elegantly. In hindsight this is clearly ridiculous, every couple fell in love for a reason and my experience, with much better training, is that they are desperate to recapture that feeling.

It wasn’t entirely my fault though as a lot of traditional marriage counselling is badly flawed. On my last trip to Boston I managed to set up a video interview with Terrence Real (I’m aware I’m using his full name a lot but if you knew about how search engines worked you would too). I had him talk about the difference between traditional marriage counselling and what he teaches people to do which he calls Relational Life Therapy (RLT).

You can find the video half way down this page in the box, http://www.therelationshipgym.com/couples_therapy.htm It’s pretty obvious, I’m sat on a the couch and the other guy is Terrence Real. In the video he outlines the 3 major points that make RLT different from other forms of marriage counselling.

1. We are taught to that it’s OK to take sides, not all relationship help needs to be 50/50. Sometimes it really is about one person being totally unreasonable. Take a look at the video, Terry gives a really good example.
2. We are taught to tell the truth (respectfully and with compassion!). If the issue is that Jack just refuses to stop screaming at Laura then we are trained to tell him it has to stop in a way that he can hear.
3. We are taught to then show Jack the difference between right and wrong rather than forcing him to take the next two years to figure it out for himself.

Now that might not sound like much but let me tell you it’s light years on from a lot of what passes for marriage counselling. That first point about taking sides is hugely helpful. In traditional marriage counselling the therapist is actively discouraged from ever taking sides. One of several reasons this happens is that in one to one therapy, the therapist is generally working on raising someone’s self esteem in the name of personal empowerment, which is all well and good because that’s what a huge amount of people come to therapy for. To pretend the same is true of couples seeking help is plain stupid. Generally at least one party isn’t thrilled about being there and really isn’t looking for help with his or her self esteem. What a huge percentage of couples really need is for someone to help them out of the power struggle they are entrenched in. Very loosely put, at least one person is always feeling ‘superior’ to the other in the relationship and it’s causing huge problems. The solution has nothing to do with raising their self esteem and everything to do with bringing down their grandiosity.

Terrence Real is big on the truth. You’ll find often times that in marriage counselling the therapist is being very careful not to frighten one party off, and it’s generally the man. The party least invested in the relationship has all the power which can be a real minefield. So for years therapists have gone very gently on the husbands hoping to build enough rapport with them to eventually tell them that all the shouting or storming out of rooms just isn’t helpful. This left marriage therapists in the same position as a lot of partners, hoping not to offend the offender. Turns out that in order for marriage counselling to be effective I have to be willing to take on the more offensive partner. Men in particular hate being handled, as much as they pretend otherwise they’re very good at changing once they’re clear on what changes need to happen and why.

The next key difference Relational Life Therapy has over a lot of marriage counselling is that therapists trained in the model are taught that showing someone how to do something right isn’t a bad thing. In individual therapy there may be time for an individual to arrive at their own conclusions but when a marriage is on the line Terrence Real suggests that ‘its borderline abusive’ not to give the couple the information they so desperately need. B y the time most couples make it to marriage counselling they are generally very close to breaking point and the quicker a therapist can get them out of pain the better. Couples are very smart and if they were able to figure it out on their own they would have.

As Terry explains in the video, these are three of the major differences between what Relational Life Therapy and traditional marriage counselling have to offer. He puts it across in a much more succinct fashion in the video and you might enjoy the level of incredulity he’s willing to display about what other therapists are up to. It’s Ok, he’s earned the right as far as I’m concerned. I used to make all those mistakes with my marriage counselling before training with Terrence Real. If you want a brilliant introduction to his work then get hold of a copy of ‘The New Rules Of Marriage’. It’s a real page turner, particularly if you’re in a relationship of any kind. Make no mistake; it’s not just people that are married to each other that are struggling. Terrence Real is a family therapist and families exist everywhere, take a look around your work place and you’ll see what I mean.

Best wishes

Michael