
February 12, 2020
Episode #024
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Well-loved broadcasters David & Karen Mains launch their 24th podcast discussion: Listening is one the great skills that can overcome the alienation of loneliness.
Episode Transcript
David: Loneliness, Karen. What’s that like?
Karen: I think often feeling overwhelmingly alienated, or like there’s no one who cares, or there’s no one who really understands me. The statistics on loneliness in our culture today are just extraordinary. Particularly in a time when we seem to be so connected as far as the technologies are concerned.
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David: Loneliness. Do you sometimes feel lonely? Often? Well, a lot of people do, and the truth be told that number keeps getting bigger here in America no less. Before we go, that’s our podcast theme, and it’s a way of reminding us, David and Karen Mains, that there are a lot of subjects we want to explore together before we depart this world.
Karen: Before we go.
David: Yeah, stick around, okay?
Intro: Welcome to the Before We Go podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife noted author, Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.
David: Loneliness, Karen. What’s that like?
Karen: I think often feeling overwhelmingly alienated, or like there’s no one who cares, or there’s no one who really understands me. The statistics on loneliness in our culture today are just extraordinary. Particularly in a time when we seem to be so connected as far as the technologies are concerned.
David: So, are we talking older people? I mean, we’re older. Is that our age group?
Karen: No, we’re not older, we’re living longer. We’re changing the terminology, remember?
David: I remember you reading to me, we’re no longer.
Karen: We’re not supposed to say we’re aging. We’re supposed to say we’re living longer. It’s much of a problem among young people, as is among the rest of the population. Let me give you some statistics. One of the measurements is how many close friends do you have that you can turn to in a crisis? And this question was asked by pollsters. And the most common answer in the past used to be five. How many people can you turn to when you’re in a crisis? That’s a question.
David: It’s a good question, yeah.
Karen: So, people used to say, well, five, maybe there were more. Today, the most common answer is none.
David: The most common answer is no one.
Karen: Half of Americans also say that no-
David: That’s all ages.
Karen: That’s all, yeah. Half of Americans also say that nobody really knows them well. So, we go into depression. We feel alienation. And I think it’s a form of feeling lost. Like, we don’t have a tribe or a community or a network into which we belong. So, this feeling of-
David: I can understand that. What about church people, though?
Karen: I haven’t run into those stats on church people.
David: I would hope that it’s not that way with church people.
Karen: Yeah, I think there were some that, I’m sorry, I didn’t pull for this podcast, but that people who attend church regularly, even once a month, have less of a statistic on loneliness than those who don’t go out on. That’s something. The CIGNA Insurance Health Survey, this is the CIGNA Insurance Company. took 20,000 individuals and they asked questions about loneliness, and they were age 18 and over. Okay.
David: They would have to be, we’re not talking street people now because they’re not quite.
Karen: The part of CIGNA’s program.
David: Yeah, so we’re talking people at least who have income.
Karen: Income enough to have insurance.
David: Well, it’s possible they did it with a random group. I don’t know.
Karen: Yeah, I don’t know. It doesn’t say so we don’t really know. 46 reports sometimes or always feeling lonely. 46 % reports sometimes or always feeling lonely. 47 % say they feel left out.
David: So that’s similar. Okay.
Karen: 47 % say they do not have meaningful in-person social interactions or extended conversations on daily basis. David, just you know, what is that?
David: Yeah, I don’t relate to those feelings at all.
Karen: But just think it’s almost half your culture.
David: Yeah, right. Half of the American culture, yes.
Karen: 43 sometimes are always feel the relationships they have aren’t meaningful.
David: Okay, so you’re talking that that could include marriage or family.
Karen: Yeah, they have a relationship that doesn’t feel meaningful.
David: Yeah, it’s surface.
Karen: 43 % report feeling isolated. And I’m just going to read a little bit. Forgive me if I sound reading, but that’s what I’m doing.
David: So, it’s ending up that a little less than half.
Karen: Right. This is huge.
David: This is huge. Middle 40%.
Karen: And the shifts into these high statistics have gone over on over the last 10 or 15 years. They’ve been very sudden. This is a really fast, rapid sociological movement.
David: Well, that’s in spite of all of the Facebook and all the rest.
Karen: It’s by the loneliest are young adults between the ages of 18 and 22.
David: Oh, my goodness. Okay, just one second now because you’re talking young adult 18 to 22. I got it. And that’s the most significant where they’re feeling at the most. This is college age 18 to 22.
Karen: This age group also rated their health the lowest. Well, CIGNA of course is interested in health and disease. Their health the lowest which correlates with science linking loneliness, science links loneliness, the health sciences link loneliness with a greater risk for obesity, heart disease, anxiety, dementia and reduced life span. In fact, maintaining strong and healthy social connections has been linked to a 50 % reduced risk of early death. So, if you have those connections, if you don’t feel lonely, because of those connections, your early death risk is reduced by 50%. So, they’re obviously not just focusing on the 18 to 22 year old group.
David: Yeah, so also I’m just trying to process it. When you say loneliness, my mind kind of quickly goes to street people, those kind of, this is not what we’re talking about.
Karen: Nope. General population.
David: We’re talking about something that’s endemic. We’re talking, well you can say at least 45 % of the population is feeling this way.
Karen: Or feeling it sometimes. Studies have shown that people who are lonely are more likely to experience higher levels of perceived stress, increased inflammation in medical communities, attributing a lot of our diseases to inflammation in our body. So, this increases inflammation, reduced immune function, and poor sleep. In fact, Theresa May, the Prime Minister in England. Previous Prime Minister. I’m thinking she’s not now, yeah, previous Prime Minister in Britain. So good you’re here.
David: Not Germany or Japan.
Karen: The statistics in England were so bad that she had appointed a Minister of Loneliness. I think it’s a cabinet role.
David: Fascinating. So, what we’re saying is this is not just an American problem.
Karen: No, it’s a worldwide problem.
David: Well at least the Western world.
Yeah, as far as we know. So, what do we do about that? I mean this should ramp up the energies of everyone who cares about people who is compassionate, who is concerned about where the young are, where midlifers are, where oldsters are. And then we need to design and talk about what we can do to help alleviate the loneliness. Now I did further studies on this and…
David: I’m just getting a whole different picture in my mind because if you ask the question what comes to mind age-wise when we consider the topic of loneliness, I think of an elderly folks home.
Karen: They’re probably the least lonely because they have one another.
David: That’s really interesting.
Karen: They eat their meals together, they get to know one another, they talk about what you’ve done in your life. I mean I don’t know the stats on that, but I would think that would be…
David: That’s fascinating because it’s the younger age, the college age really that seems to be in the biggest trouble regarding it. I wonder if this is something that’s gone on all the time. I wonder for example if they took polls in Jesus’ time. There must have been a lot of lonely people.
Karen: Yeah, maybe.
David: We don’t know it. Maybe it’s just an academic thought and not even relevant. It is true that there is a huge problem within our culture of loneliness.
Karen: Let’s talk about things that we can do because I would say that there was a time in my life when I did experience loneliness and I wrote a book called Lonely No More. So, I know what that’s about and there were a lot of things that contributed to it. One is we became well known in the religious world very fast and fame itself is isolating. People want to be popular or to have fame or to be known in the headlines or whatever it is. That may be one of the most…
David: It doesn’t scratch the itch, does it?
Karen: No, most deadly things because you get isolated because of your fame. So, let’s talk about what people who are lonely can do because a lot of studies then go into suggestions that way. So, for those people who are listening to this podcast Before We Go, before we go, we want to make sure today that those people have some tools. So, one is to really begin to not let loneliness, the feeling of loneliness, overwhelm and defeat you because there are things you can do. You want to connect as much as you’re able to. So, join whatever group it is that you can find where you can become a member that suits some of your interests. You know join a volunteer gardeners’ group where people go around and help older people for instance who maybe are not able to keep up with their gardener and gardening anymore. A volunteer group of any kind that helps other people or just helping other people you know. Call the hospital and see if they have need for volunteers to come in and whatever they you know could do take those carts around. Whatever. Anything like that will begin to connect the lonely person with human interaction. So that’s really good to do. One of my mantras is if you’re not being invited into other people’s lives invite people into your life. With that high of a percentage, 45 % of people being lonely, you’re gonna hit a button with other lonely people even without knowing that they’re lonely. They may not look lonely. So just start inviting people over. One of my favorite things is have a pie night and everyone brings a favorite pie. It doesn’t matter if they make it or if they just go out and buy it, but you have a sample pie night where everyone samples pies and you invite them into your home. It’s easy. It doesn’t require a lot of work and it’s just a great way to get introduced to people and get people talking. And then have some questions that we’ve used to get to know groups. In fact, we did this with our teenagers. I think we mentioned this before. We would say to them have five questions that you can ask anyone in the back of your mind.
David: Well, that was if you go on a date at least have five questions.
Karen: At least have five questions. So, I would recommend to lonely people who are inviting others into their life having five questions.
David: You just went over people’s heads because they can’t think of five questions.
Karen: Okay.
David: So yeah, standard questions.
Karen: We’re sitting around eating pies so we don’t want it just to be chit chat although even that is better than nothing. Okay even chit chat is better than nothing.
David: The reason you’re asking the questions is to get it out of yourself into understanding what other people are like.
Karen: So, we can the whole group can get to know one another.
David: Are you waiting for me to get five questions? I didn’t know you’re gonna ask but I can come up with a chance.
Karen: I know means you you’re ready.
David: If you had a perfect day, it was one of the best days you could possibly imagine, what’s going on? Okay. Or similar to that. If you could have a day that you would live over again. What would be one of those days? And you’re not asking that of yourself. You’re asking that of the other person.
Karen: Right.
David: Okay.
Karen: And along with that is if you hit if money were no object, where in the world would you like to travel? That’s another one.
David: Oh, yeah, all those are related. What’s on your bucket list? And if you don’t have a bucket list, why don’t you?
Karen: If you had a bucket list, what would be on it?
David: What are you gonna start a bucket list? What are you gonna put on it? Do people know what a bucket list is? Things I would like to do before I die.
Karen: One question I’d like to ask is, we could sit around in a group and think of all the people or the one person who had the most impact in our life. Who is the one person who has had the most impact in your life? One of the persons who have had has had the most impact in your life.
David: My generation had heroes. What about your generation? I’m talking to a young person. Who are your heroes? Yeah, there are all kinds of questions.
Karen: All kinds of questions.
David: Those are easy for us because we’ve asked them thousands of times and we basically come up with the core belief that people are very interesting.
Karen: Yes, very interesting. And you ask one question and then that leads to another question. And so that takes a casual meeting. Let’s go back to our pie party.
David: So, I mean we may have run off five questions just in our talking. I don’t know. Yeah, that’s an important thing. I’m good at that. I agree. You said I’m a better listener. I’m a better question asker.
Karen: Well, I’m a good question asker, but you do it more naturally than I do. I mean that’s your natural instinct to go in that way. So lonely person, who is listening to us now. Connect in whatever way that you can. Invite people into your home. Go to the places where people are.
David: People, especially the younger ones, aren’t going to have a home.
Karen: Or meet at a coffee shop. There are lots of places to meet. Local library, public library. I mean you can’t bring your pies in there, but you can say we’re going to have a, you know,
David: You’re still stuck on those pies.
Karen: Well, it’s such an easy thing to do.
David: Yeah.
Karen: So, what you want to do is sit down and make a list of all the ways you can connect rather than bundling yourself up in your isolation, drawing it around you, feeling more and more disconnected like no one cares that you have no one to go to. There was a book that was written on, I want to go back to the idea of volunteering to do something with the group that needs volunteers. And there was a book written on what happens to us when we do that. When we volunteer to, I can’t think of anything right off the top of my head, volunteer to go to the school and be an adult who helps with the kids.
David: Okay, you know. Traffic guard or whatever.
Karen: Traffic guard or you need some, a teacher needs someone else in the class from the project and you give your name on the list. When we do that sort of thing, it is true when we help others, we help ourselves. So that’s really what we want to do is to get ourselves in a place where we are volunteering in a way that helps others because this thing connects us. It creates attachments between you and those groups you’re volunteering with, and it begins to assuage the loneliness condition that you’ve been in.
David: A loneliness we started to talk about because a previous podcast where we were talking about becoming good listeners. So, let’s connect, and maybe we already have, just to make sure we’ve covered the ground, loneliness is alleviated when you are in a position of being a good listener.
Karen: That’s right. In fact, there is a synchronicity that occurs between the brain of the one who’s speaking and the one who’s listening.
David: That’s a great word and I’m not sure I know what it means.
Karen: It’s co-inherence or…
David: That didn’t help at all.
Karen: A connection. Let’s just put it that way, okay?
David: I’m with you.
Karen: There are sociological terms for this, but you feel connected to someone who tells you their story even if you’re not telling them your story. And when you do it…
David: But it’s even better if you can tell your story as well.
Karen: Yeah, and that’s part of the beauty and the brilliance and the miracle really of the listening process. But there are ways then, sometimes we have noticed that when we ask questions, people are so thrilled to have anyone interested in them that they talk and we discover these fascinating things about them, but they never return a question to us. So, we have learned that in order to create a mutuality, one of the things we need to do is to say, “Well, that’s interesting. Can I tell you about this thing that happened to me that’s like that”? or, “Oh, I know exactly what you’re talking about. This is what happened to me in that way.” And so, you interject because you haven’t been asked to do that because people are not good at doing that. You interject your story in a way that is appropriate to their storytelling.
David: You’re making a very important point.
Karen: Yeah, then you create this cohesive nymphs. People just have to learn how to do that.
David: Yeah, and you model it yourself. You know, if you had asked me that question, here’s what I would have said. If you don’t do that, you burn out asking questions after a while because you find that people are not good at asking questions.
Karen: No, I think really it’s more there’s such a flush that they feel. And there is a physiological flush when someone asks you a question and is interested about. Your whole body is responding.
David: Talk Karen about the evening. Oh, it’s probably been two months now where we had people from the church who could be lonely. Lonely was not why we called them to come to the house.
Karen: Well, there were about five or six people who have chronic disabilities. These are disabilities that will not go away. They’re living with them, and they’ve lived with them for years or will live them with them for years. One man had had Parkinson’s for 23 years. Very difficult for him to talk. I always try and if I can sit by him and chat. A little bit in church, they go to our church and so…
David: He was a man who was a leader.
Karen: He was brilliant. He was absolutely brilliant at one time. And then we had another man who had just lost his wife and a gal who has a neurological disorder who we actually had worked with at one time. She worked for us just a total almost a totally different person than what she was during those years.
David: She was a phenomenal employee.
Karen: Oh, just extraordinary. But it’s created a difficulty where she can’t, she has no space and direction capabilities. Even you know in a room she has to be, her husband has to direct her to a chair and here’s where you sit down, he helps her get into it. So, we invited people with chronic disabilities to our table and…
David: Not as a category we asked them individually to come.
Karen: No but I did tell them that’s why we were we want to hear what their lives were like and what things they were dealing with and often that people don’t get a chance to tell those things who are dealing with chronic disabilities. So, we sat around our table and they each talked.
David: Not the spouses talking but they talked.
Karen: Yeah they talked.
David: With great difficulty but beautiful.
Karen: It was a conversation mostly about their losses.
David: That was a keyword.
Karen: That was the keyword, wasn’t it? And I’m not sure what it did for them because I didn’t do any follow-up on it but there felt like there was this sweet unity that came. I’m practically almost cheerful about it now. Unity that came among us as a group.
David: Empathy.
Karen: Oh yeah thank you. Yeah, great empathy you know it was it was a beautiful thing. So that sort of stuff maybe takes a little confidence to do but don’t overlook as you’re working your way out of loneliness the kind of those sorts of things. I have one more idea on dealing with being a lonely person dealing with loneliness.
David: Okay.
Karen: Look for the lonely people. One of the things that we do in in group settings where there’s conversation bouncing back and forward and generally, we try and focus on an idea that everyone is dealing with is the person who is silent who is either shy or doesn’t have the capability of jumping into a robust conversation sort of. They sort of sit back.
David: Maybe autistic whatever.
Karen: Maybe autistic are on the spectrum and so you’re really good at noticing them but I try to do it. Generally, I’m serving, and I let you lead the conversation at the table serving the meal and cleaning up and but you will say to the person who hasn’t talked that very thing you say, “Sarah or Jack, you haven’t said anything for a while what are your thoughts on this.” I can’t remember anyone who ever said “I’m not thinking I don’t have any thoughts on it you know I’ve gone blank.” They always have thoughts, and you just give them a chance to contribute.
David: And I’ve never sensed that the group thought you know don’t waste your time. I think they all were feeling how do we draw this person in because he or she has been quiet.
Karen: Right. So, the point of it is really if you’re lonely if you’ve experienced that feeling in a way that’s a gift because it can give you, I use your word, empathy and compassion understanding about how other lonely people feel and obviously there’s so many of them and you can use that loneliness to build, to bridge those gaps between humans.
David: Loneliness is alleviated when there is someone to listen to and understand what is being said. Does that tie somewhat the two?
Karen: I think it ties them together well.
David: Loneliness is alleviated when there is someone to listen to and understand what is being said. So don’t think this is going to be awkward. You just think “I’m going to plunge in and I’m going to listen. I’m going to be a good listener.” Yeah, loneliness, the problem is immense. And because it’s so immense I think people just say, you know, “If I try to resolve that problem it will overwhelm me.” And the truth is it will if you think you’re going to solve the problem nationally, you know, but you can solve it within your own little world.
Karen: I have one dangling thought. Can’t we have time for me to?
David: Well, I know that you’ll say it after we finish, so I’m going to listen one way or the other.
Karen: Sorry. I am by nature an introvert. An introvert is someone who restores in silence, aloneness and quiet. So, I’m glad when I have a day with no one in it. I mean, it’s just a great gift to me. But as I’ve aged my extroverted side is feeling much more comfortable in coming forth. And so, when I see someone alone or someone standing beside me somewhere in the, you know, crowd, public place, I will go ahead and say the things that are in my heart to say to them. Sometimes they’re funny. Notice that in funny little comments or I’ll just stop and say, “Hey, you look great. I love that outfit”, or “So you’ve seen me do this.” You noticed that?
David: Very much so.
Karen: So, what is the response that you’ve observed from the people I am? I do this.
David: Oh, it actually, they light up.
Karen: They light up and they respond, and we laugh together.
David: I’m thinking of specific people. Yes.
Karen: Yeah. So, I think that that’s something I would encourage people to do, even if you’re shy. Just begin to connect in, in joyful ways or, you know, there’ll be something funny going on. And I’ll say to the person beside me, “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe this is happening, you know, but we get to be here to see this”, something like that. They’re just with me. They’re like friends. They’re like friends. And I think everyone in this lonely society is very open to connections of any kind, even with strangers.
David: Yeah, I would agree. Okay. We haven’t resolved all that could be said regarding this topic, but we’ve poked at it a little and I trust it would be helpful and many others would continue to poke around the edges and pretty soon we’ll get to the middle of it all. God be with you, friend.
Outgo: You’ve been listening to the Before We Go Podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please remember to rate, review and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is Copyright 2020 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois 60189.
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