Episode Transcript
My name is Ken Hanuman, and this is my wife, Dr. Anne O'Hare, we both work in healthcare and have been meditating for many years. We also enjoy a happy and fulfilling marriage. Come listen and see how to demystify spirituality and bring it into your home, your hearts, and in all your relationships. We will share our experiences and how we use these principles in everyday life. Welcome to the spiritual relationship. Hello everyone. Welcome to this Spiritual Relationship podcast. My name is Ken Hanuman, and this is my wife, Dr. Anne O'Hare. The topic today is overcoming loneliness. I know this is a, this is almost like an epidemic. For myself, I've had some experience with this, but I found that, studying Raja Yoga and practicing meditation, being in a spiritual group really did help me. So, as you know, we tend to speak of spiritual values. But we share how we use it in our in our life. So how would you define loneliness? Have you had, that experience? I don't, for me it's mostly anxiety that I would feel I didn't, I don't usually feel lonely. But for me, I feel compassion for loneliness. Like I, even though I don't have that much experience, I think you have more experience with it than I do. But I, but defining it, I would say loneliness I feel like is a heartbreak. It feels like a heartbreak. And you, and it's very unpleasant. It's an unpleasant and it's sad. And you feel this alienated. Yeah. Isolated. And you can feel that way whether you're with people or not. But I just feel like it's important to talk about the feeling itself. And before we started this episode, Ken had done some research on this and he wrote some stuff down and I said, well, why don't you just talk about what happened with you? And he's like, oh, that's a good idea. I didn't think of that. And I'm like, the experience of it is, I feel like always the most compelling. So, I'm gonna now invite Ken back to share his story, because this was an important, I think this was kind of like a turning point for you. Yeah. And, so share it. Please share what happened. Yeah. Well, it so happened that, after the divorce that I was living in a house all by myself. And, um, you know, the kids have, they moved, they move outta state and I, I still go to work and I'm fine when I go to work. And then in the evening I would be teaching, meditation. That's great. Didn't feel it. But the moment I got home and I was in this empty place, these sad overwhelming feeling that I have no human contact or nobody knows where I am. Or, if something happens to me, nobody would know. Um, and I don't know why it brought a sinking feeling to the point where I would cry. And the thing is that I know that tomorrow I'm going back to work. Why should this feeling come on, why it was so overwhelming and so difficult to deal with? I'm sure others can relate to this, what you're saying right now. I'm sure they can. Yeah, because. Even though it's a very subjective experience. I know there are people out there who can be alone and they enjoy it. And I do enjoy solitude. I, I really do like solitude. Mm-hmm. But I, I don't know why. But you went through this experience, right? I mean, you really, you shared with me that it was, you really felt it. The other thing too, even as a child, maybe as a teenager growing up, I was with others. There were family around. But for some strange reason, I didn't feel like I connected. I felt like I was in the wrong place. I'm looking at the difficulties of my family, you know, because everybody came up from a poor background and somehow I wish that I could make a difference. I dunno, why, why would that make me feel alienated? Why would I feel. That I'm helpless in that situation, why would I feel that nobody would help you? That you're alone. And the thing is that on until now, my life is great. So why would it, why when the memory comes up, there's still a little bit of something there to remind you how loneliness can make you feel inside. And, uh. You don't wish that on anybody. You would. Uh, I mean, you, you see the statistics, the statistic now about loneliness, and you wish that, especially people in the older age group, that they shouldn't feel that way. I think, like your father was saying one time, uh, yeah. One thing he doesn't want is to is to die alone. Is to die alone. Like he doesn't wanna die alone. I try my best to be there. It's like a weird thing. Sometimes I, I feel like he feels like he needs something, so I kind of step forward and then he's like, no, I'm okay. Blah, blah, blah. You know? Yeah. Because you're still trying to manage your self-respect at the same time, isn't it? Yeah. Like, I'm remembering when you told me about this time period in your life, we were working together. Yeah. We were doing service together. We were friends. Yeah. Good friends. And you never shared that with me. No, I mean, not that you should have, but you didn't. I remember, I don't know what I would've done. But you didn't share it is part of like loneliness, like you feel like you can't share it? Like it's almost like you got, you're bearing it alone also. Yeah. It's, I think what happened is you feel that nobody would listen to you. Yeah. Or that you are, um, I dunno, like you're asking, for people to help. And sometimes you feel like you're not important enough for people to pay attention to. Mm. So that would be something else. That would probably be a, an inferiority complex. It could be a feeling. Yeah. But look, even for these few minutes that we're talking about it, and I'm sure others can relate to this, if they have felt lonely, by the way, I have felt lonely, but my response to it was anger. So I would always be angry or complaining, or focusing on them. Mm-hmm. But it's the same feeling. It's the same inferiority, it's the same feeling of disconnect. It's the same feeling that nobody cares. It's the same, it's the same feelings. So even if you're more like on the anxiety side, the underlying feeling is the same. It's the same You, you really don't feel like people care. Yeah. Or that. They would understand, maybe they wouldn't understand. Hmm. You know, so, uh, the, these are things I'm thinking almost everybody probably would have from time to time. Of course. Because like we said, it's subjective and it doesn't mean that you can feel it sometime. And then you can go away and like the same thing, the same experience, the same circumstances the next day and you don't feel it. Yeah. Like you can feel it one day and then you have the same routine the next day and you don't feel it. So what's going on? Yeah. And then so as I'm saying this, after we've been practicing spirituality for so long, just what I just said, the fact that you can feel it one day, not feel it the next day with the same circumstances, tells me that it's a spiritual solution. Yeah, yeah. Isn't it? It tells me exactly that it's a spiritual solution. Yeah. It is a perspective you have to change. Yes. Because you can be lonely or aggravated or dissatisfied with people. Without people. You can feel it. So what did you do? I. To help yourself in this situation? And how did it transform? And then I could share, actually, it's the same problem, isn't it? Yeah. Isn't it the same problem? I said I don't feel lonely, but maybe I don't feel it the way he's describing it. But I felt it. I felt the same feeling like two days ago I felt something. Just like what you were talking about. Yeah. And it was very upsetting. Yeah, very upsetting. So what, what do we need to do? What's the first step? In a new perspective that could help us with this. One thing I, I did is that I would look at my life and I would see or make a list of the accomplishments or, um, you know, I was playing, I was in a team, I had a great family and, uh, I could pick up the phone and talk to people or whatever, you know. So I know in terms of my interaction with people that I did well and I should be, I should feel proud of. I shouldn't feel that alienated or disconnected. The other thing I did was I immersed myself in this group spiritual service. Yeah. In spiritual service. And I think that is the one of the recommended, treatment for that and get into social service. Go there, volunteer, do something, volunteer and do something. Because if you stay alone, it just get worse. And if you get out there, and the one thing about doing good and helping is that people will not refuse that they actually think well of you. When you do that, if you go begging for conversation or people paying attention or having to make time for you, people are more likely to reject that. Yes. But if you actually go to do something, they would welcome that and it increases their, understanding of you or their relationship with you. That's the greatness, that's the good about doing something beneficial. The other thing is, in meditation, I learned how to develop a relationship, a trust, a feeling of surrender to a higher power. Another thing I did was to be with people who had similar values. And who shares some of the same activity. So you get involved in activity that you enjoy. Don't force yourself to do something, to do something that you're not interested in or just to be with a, with a group. Uh, it's, it's better to do things like, you might like reading books. You might like to play a game. You might like to go riding or something, or you know, so you are doing something that you enjoy. You can, you can get immersed in it and at the same time, you're people who share the same, the same skill or value. I, I was just thinking like, just two quick things I'd like to add to this. One thing is that for me, I'm calling it the same problem. Mm-hmm. Okay. This feeling of being alienated or feeling like nobody cares or whatever, that feeling, I think one thing that helped me is to remember is to have some kind of detachment from the feeling. Try to as best as you can to realize that it is just a feeling and that it will pass. And to acknowledge that it might not even be true. Yeah. Like even though it feels true, maybe it feels 99% true, but there's still a 1% chance that it's not true. And I think that's helpful for me also because you don't wanna give into the that feeling. You don't wanna give up on yourself. Yeah. So one thing you can do is to do these things like service. And one other thing from service is that when you're doing service, you feel good because you're giving, yes. So you're changing that mechanism. You're changing that unfulfilled, desirous experience into actually I'm capable. I'm actually giving something. So you're changing that. And then don't ever give up on yourself. Don't ever give up on yourself because feelings will change. Situation will change. I just feel like that feeling is so, painful, isn't it? Yeah. Like what can you do about that pain? I think, I think we all just feel it. Maybe it's just par for the course. Just don't give up on yourself. Yeah. It will pass. Eventually it will pass to pass. You know, like we can have different emotional state and, and you know, it's not a big deal and whatever, but when you have a neurochemical reaction, when you have like a sinking feeling, when you're feeling in your gut, it's hard to ignore. And, you don't wanna be alone at that time. You don't. It's better to be in the company of others. Maybe you also need courage then too. You need Right. Some courage. You had courage. Oh yeah. Can I just say you had a lot of courage. He had a lot of courage. He didn't tell anybody about this. You dealt with it. You, you faced it. Yeah. You probably the only one I told after, but, well, now you told the whole world, so that's now the whole world knows. But, but that's brave too. Yeah. You know, you and I, and I think, think that's the way to, for anybody to, to deal with loneliness. Just go out there and do good and help. There are many opportunities out there. It because I think for me, part of the, the resolution was me feeling good about myself and that was you get from service and being with like-minded people. Yes. So very good. Yeah. With that. Okay, we'll finish on that note. I hope that's given you hopefully some encouragement and a little bit of knowing that you're not alone, that can we say everybody feels, I don't know what everybody feels, but I would imagine everybody feels something like this and it you can help yourself. So thank you all for listening and we'll see you next time. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. When you walk into a room, life gets little. You.
