Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Hello everyone and welcome to the Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and I'm your host. And today we'll be talking about isolation, and specifically I'd like to talk about isolation as a coping mechanism for anxiety or fear could also be depression. But I, I hesitate to talk about depression too much specifically because I don't have that much. Experience with it. I'm more on the anxiety side of things, but I think that there are two sides of the same coin. So let's see how this goes. So, isolation, I've heard some terms. Coming around now, social anxiety, things like that, like the person doesn't like to be around people, they feel very uncomfortable, so they'd rather be by themselves. I feel like this, wanting to be by yourself, because to be away from other people could be something that's healthy for a period of time. But the, but the, the topic is isolation doesn't work. So isolation in, in my understanding and my experience is not a permanent solution. Maybe it's a, and I would not call, uh, isolation as the, as the thing that I'm talking about that's positive, actually solitude or trying to take care of yourself or withdrawing, pulling yourself away for a while to take care of yourself. I wouldn't really call that isolation, but I think people feel isolated. I think that that's a different quality, and I have a couple of examples of this where the person doesn't seem to be able to break out of their feeling of not being able to connect, let's say. So we have a, we had a student who was coming to class and it was an online class and he was talking about how he wants to have a class, like an in-person class, you know, to meet people and to get connected and so forth. And I remember giving some suggestions like, why don't you try this? And he was like, well, I can't do that because I gotta take care of my grandkid and whatever, and I can't do that. And then the next time he would come and he would say, well, I really wanna get connected, and I really wish that this was in person and so forth. I wish this was more than once a week. I said, well, did you try the veterans, the VFW, whatever, I was giving different suggestions. No, I don't like it there because whatever. So my, my feeling was with this person, this person was sharing their feelings, like that they want to feel connected, but at the same time there was something stopping them from reaching out. I'm gonna call that isolation. For whatever reason, there's some feeling like. I need this, but I really don't want it because of this or that. Another situation, another person that I know who was invited to a party, let's say, and they have anxiety, whatever they would call social anxieties, they would sit in the car and not go into the party. So they would sit there and suffer in the car because they don't wanna be with other people. In my experience too, I think that the attitude about this is the thing that's the most important. We don't wanna feel powerless, and we always wanna feel like we're trying to improve. So I think there is a time to move away from people. There is a time to spend time by ourselves. I would call that solitude. You see how the attitude is different. It's not isolation, it's solitude. Solitude means I'm doing it on purpose, but I think what happens is because there's anxiety, maybe there's depression, maybe there's, in that case of that other student, maybe there's a little arrogance or a little frustration or anger or something that keeps us from reaching out or getting connected or maybe keeps us stuck in that kind of isolated situation. So I wrote here a couple of reasons. What could keep us in that mode. First of all, is that attitude, like I said. So fear is one attitude. I'm afraid of being with people. The other thing might be memories. Something happened. I was in a group and I didn't like that. Actually, that happened to me once too. I was a little shy about getting involved in a group one time because of something that happened previously. So I think that has merit also, that maybe we have had an experience in the past where we kind of got burned, so to speak, or we felt some hurt feelings. So we're a little bit shy about meeting new people or getting involved with other people. So the other one is protection. I'm staying away to protect myself. Again, none of these things are really wrong. It's just am I, am I using it as a lifestyle? Am I creating it like this is the way I live now forever? Or is it just a way that I'm coping for now? I think it's perfectly fine to separate. As a matter of fact, I think it's necessary to remove myself from certain situations, sometimes to get my bearings. And then come back in. The idea is that you wanna come back in with your self-respect restored and your fear kind of taken care of. Like I took care of my feelings. The other thing is comfort zone. Maybe we got into a comfort zone. This one person I'm thinking of she that she says I have social anxiety and so forth, and she's very comfortable, you know, eating by herself, staying by herself. The whole thing by herself. There was like a little anxiety, depression situation there going on too. And then sometimes she would say to me, well, you know, I need to get out more and meet people and so forth. But then we're getting into the solutions of what I think would be helpful to do about this. It's funny because as I'm talking about this, the word isolation has a negative connotation 'cause it means that you're on purpose, keeping yourself away from everybody. But I just got through talking about several reasons why it would be good to do that, or maybe some feelings and some reasons why you feel like I feel better by myself. That's all okay. What I wanna talk about is like the long-term plan. The long-term plan maybe isn't to stay by yourself forever. So how do I begin to process my feelings so that I can begin to open myself up to more relationships or more interactions with others? Well, one thing is to see how you feel. What is it that you actually feel? Are you afraid because of something that happened before? Are you angry at people? Are you mad at people? Have you created like this kind of judgmental situation in your mind? Like, oh, I don't like people. I hate people. I can't stand people. I've seen people like that, that they've really created a scenario that they say, I hate people and so forth. I don't think anybody really hates people. I think we've just created these little things to kind of protect ourselves from feeling hurt. In our quiet moments in meditation, we can take a look at how we feel about these things that we don't wanna get involved in. What is it about that situation that is bothering me? Or how do I feel when I'm in those situations? Is it something that I have to do? Maybe I don't. Maybe I don't have to do it, but maybe like maybe I am throwing out the baby with the bath water, so to speak. Like maybe just because I don't like going to parties. I'm saying I don't like being with any people, or I don't like any socialization, which may not be the case. Maybe I like to socialize, but maybe I like to stay home or maybe I like to do what I like to do. One of the suggestions that people make about reaching out or being more social is to get involved in an activity that you like. Not to meet people, but just because you like it. I think that that's good advice because then you're doing it for yourself. The attitude of self care is very important, but this, the title of this is Isolation Doesn't Work, and I mean that it doesn't work forever. And I think that the attitude of I'm trying to stay away from people is not healthy long term. Short term, it can be helpful, but long term it's not. So the other thing is I wanna talk a little bit about being frozen. Maybe you have decided that you're gonna do something and then the fear kind of stops you. So again, this same person that I'm thinking of who has anxiety and she would call it social anxiety. She, and I've shared this on the podcast before, she had a trip to Europe and she called me and said, I missed the plane. I was like, whoa. And it was the next morning and she goes, I changed the flight to today and now I gotta get up. I have to be there in an hour and a half. And I said, get up and get dressed now. I'll stay on the phone. So what I did was I supported her in getting moving because what happens with anxiety, and I would imagine depression too, is that it freezes you. It stops you from moving. It stops you from doing. I think sometimes when we are in those situations, you actually have to do it, even though you really feel like you can't. We can't let those feelings win, let's say stop me from living as I'm saying this, it's, I do understand what anxiety's like. I've had anxiety myself. I do understand it. I do understand what it's like to feel frozen, and I do understand what it's like to feel afraid to be around people. So I, I understand these feelings. I guess the final thought I'm gonna give is that in your heart of hearts, in my heart of hearts. I want good relationships. I want to be feel, I wanna feel comfortable around people. I want to be able to do things and feel okay about them. Maybe part of the problem is I've been doing things that I really don't want to do to please people, or because I think I should, or because I'm being hard on myself or because I won't give myself a break or because I have too many responsibilities or because. And then the resistance comes, and then I'm like, well, I don't wanna do anything. You know, I had one friend who said, I'm going under, and that meant that she's not answering the phone and she's going under the covers, and that's it. I'm going under. And that's okay because she was like, I mean if she wouldn't go under forever, but she knew it was like, okay, time to break, you know. But I used even that, I mean I used to like smile when she did that, but she was doing it with a sense of pain, like, I'm going under because I can't take this anymore. And you know, there was like that kind of a sense. Wouldn't it be nice if we were able to make these kind of decisions without having to feel like it's a crisis? Anxiety and depression is a crisis, isn't it? It's a crisis in our mind. It's a crisis in our feelings. I don't think isolation fixes that. I think we use isolation as a way to cope with those feelings, but I don't think it fixes it. Eventually we do wanna be open and have good relationships and be able to communicate. So how do I deal with those feelings that fear and anxiety and so forth? Well, you can go to therapy. You can start meditation. It depends on how severe, you know, you'll hear me say on this podcast that if you have a severe mental health diagnosis where you're finding it hard to function and so forth, get the appropriate help. Maybe you need some medication for a while. Maybe you need. You know, therapy and things like that. That's okay. That's getting help. I think that when we feel emotional pain, there's this sense that we wanna get away from what's perceived as the pain. I'll add one last point here. In meditation, what we're doing is we're actually watching our mind. This is interesting because like I just said, like when you feel pain, you wanna separate from something. A lot of times in our mind. We are having pain in the mind, and we're blaming or we're thinking that the pain that I'm experiencing is because of what's happening. That's a typical blaming that we have, which it, it seems logical because I wasn't upset before this happened, and now this happened, now I'm upset. So it's like one plus one equals two. Okay. It must be because of that, that I feel upset. But we understand from basic spirituality and the laws of karma that that's not really true because you can have two people in the room. Something happens and one person gets upset and one person doesn't. So that must mean that there's something in me that I can look at that has nothing to do with the situation, nothing to do with the people, nothing to do with the circumstances that I can look at. Why do I feel upset? Do I feel inadequate? Do I feel jealous? Do I feel sorry for myself? How do I feel about myself? I wrote down here, see how you feel? Sometimes we're so focused on the external situation and trying to remove it, trying to stop the pain that we don't look at the self. So. Solitude is good, but the attitude is of self-care. So I'll wrap it up by saying this; isolation over a long period of time is not good because it's not really solving the problem. Okay? If I have emotional stuff, anxiety, depression, or whatever. It would be helpful for me to work on that. Sometimes I can't work on that. If I'm being pulled left and right by relationships or situations or obligations or responsibilities. Obviously I need to make time, but again, it's that attitude of self-care, that attitude of love. I'm taking time for myself. It's not, I gotta get away from these people. I can't be with these people. I'm not good in crowds. I don't, no, right now. I am feeling upset and I need to take care of myself. If I could leave you with one point, that would be it. Change the attitude about it. I'm not getting away from something. I'm moving towards myself, taking care of myself. That's the attitude. And then once I feel better, then of course, little by little I'm gonna. Move out again and try to transform those situations and those relationships if I still want them. Sometimes there are things that maybe are not necessary. Maybe I can let them go for good, but wouldn't it be a good idea to take some time to find that out? Figure that out for yourself. So I will leave it there. I hope that gave a little bit more food for thought. And also, again, the principle of self-care and the attitude. Make it about you. So remember, our slogan is Heal, Empower, and Serve. And until next time, take care.
