The One Thing Anyone Can Do to Stop Feeling Lonely

Loneliness isn’t just about being alone — it’s about feeling unseen and disconnected. In this powerful episode, Harvard-trained psychology coach Jerry Henderson breaks down the surprising science behind loneliness, why it physically affects your brain and body, and shares the one proven thing anyone can do to start healing loneliness today.

You’ll learn:

• What loneliness really is (it's not what you think)
• The shocking health risks of chronic loneliness
• The role of emotionally safe relationships
• How to start building one authentic connection that can change everything

If you’ve ever struggled with feeling disconnected — even when surrounded by people — this episode is for you.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Loneliness = gap between the connection you want and the connection you feel
• Chronic loneliness activates the same brain centers as physical pain
• One emotionally safe relationship can significantly reduce loneliness
• You can’t fully heal chronic loneliness alone — connection is essential
• Start small: one person, one honest conversation, one real connection

I am grateful you are here,
Jerry

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Loneliness
• 0:36 What is Loneliness?
• 0:57 The Physical Impact of Loneliness
• 4:28 Can We Heal Loneliness Alone?
• 8:02 How to Start Healing Loneliness
• 9:32 Three Steps to Build Connection

Transcript

Jerry Henderson: 0:00

Hello everybody and welcome to Personal Mastery. I'm your host, jerry Henderson, and if you're ready to create a life that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the outside, you're in the right place. Let's get started. Today, in this episode, I'm going to share the one thing that anybody can do to help them stop feeling so lonely. And if you're new here, I'm Jerry. I'm trained in the psychology of human behavior at Harvard University and every week, I share evidence-based tools to help you create a life that you love, and I want to let you know that I'm so grateful that you're here today. So let's talk about loneliness.

Jerry Henderson: 0:38

Loneliness is not about being alone. It's about being unseen, it's about not feeling understood, not feeling connected and, fundamentally, at its core, what loneliness is is it's the gap between the connection that you want, that you wish you had, and the connection that you actually feel Now. I think it's also important that we understand what loneliness actually does to our brain, to our bodies, to our overall health, and, just as an example of the impact that loneliness can have on us physically, in 2023 in the United States, the Surgeon General called loneliness a public health crisis on par with smoking 15 cigarettes a day. That's the negative impact that it has on you physically, and so if you're an individual who has felt misunderstood because it's felt so physical to you, can I let you know you're not alone. It is having a physical impact on you. Now, additional research on loneliness has shown that it activates the same pain centers in the brain as physical injury. Blew me away when I saw that it also raises the risk of heart disease, stroke, anxiety and depression. It also lowers dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin the very chemicals that help us feel connected, motivated and alive.

Jerry Henderson: 1:56

Now here's something that's really wild about how we're wired as human beings in our desire to not be alone, to not be able to tolerate aloneness very well. There was a study that was done in 2014 that asked people to sit alone in a room with their thoughts for 15 minutes. They didn't get to have their phone, they didn't get to have music, nothing. And you know what happened 67% of men and 25% of women chose to give themselves an electric shock rather than sit alone in silence. Here's the truth about it. Here's why I bring it up To show you that if you're struggling to be alone, you're not weak. You're experiencing something that's really common, and a lot of people will judge themselves and other people will judge people about somebody's inability or their lack of capacity to be alone. Guys, it's really tough.

Jerry Henderson: 2:50

You know, I spent two years traveling nomadically in order for me to understand how to be alone with myself, and I had an experience during that time. I was in San Sebastian, spain. I was looking at this beautiful sunset and I'm all by myself, right, solo traveling. And solo traveling is one thing that I recommend that anybody who can do does do, because it does help us get a healthier relationship with ourselves when we have to practice being with ourselves. I mean, the only way you can get comfortable being with you is by being with you. And so, anyway, I'm in San Sebastian, spain, beautiful sunset is happening, and I had this thought man, I'd love to have somebody here with me right now to experience this with.

Jerry Henderson: 3:33

But then I had a second thought that kicked up that said, even if somebody was with you right now, you'd still be alone. And that thought hit me like a ton of bricks. Because it was true, I would still be alone, because I was always alone, I was always withdrawn, I had all my walls up, I felt so bad about myself, I didn't want anybody else to know about me, the way that I felt about me. I've felt very isolated in my life, no matter what relationships were in my life, and people always told me I know you, but I don't know you. The connection that I wanted once again versus the connection that I felt was such a massive gap there and that became my MO. That's the way that I lived my life and what I had to do was get really intentional about healing that, and it first started with healing my relationship with myself, learning to be comfortable with me and then learning how to make connection with other people.

Jerry Henderson: 4:27

Now here's a big question that comes up around this space is that can you heal loneliness without other people? And here's the honest answer you can do the inner work, the journaling, the nervous system regulation, the mindfulness practices, and all of that helps. It helps a lot actually. It really does help repair our relationship with ourselves and you can learn to be okay in your presence and not use relationships to distract you from yourself, to distract you from the way that you feel about yourself. And that's a lot of what people do in relationships today and that's why they can feel lonely even when they're in relationships. So, to answer the question, can we heal loneliness all by ourselves?

Jerry Henderson: 5:08

The research shows us that we can't fully heal that, that chronic loneliness, that we need at least one emotionally safe relationship to begin to address that chronic sense of loneliness that so many people carry today. And here's the truth we're more connected than ever. I know we hear this all the time. Right, we're more connected than ever and more disconnected than ever. But it's so true. We have all of these ways of connecting, but loneliness is increasing, increasing all of the time. Why?

Jerry Henderson: 5:37

Because, once again, it's about the connection that I feel like I need versus the connection that I get. I want somebody to know me, I want to be seen in relationship and in order for me to be seen in relationship, I need to feel safe in that relationship. And the truth is most people don't know anymore how to make their partners, their friends, the people that they love, feel safe in those relationships. So, whether we like it or not, we're social mammals. Okay, we need connection. We're wired for co-regulation. That's how we're built. We learn so much about love and our lovability in relationships. Once again, whether or not we like it and I'm a big guy on self-love, you can listen to a lot of the stuff that I've put out and read my book. I'm very much in the space of self-love, self-compassion, self-acceptance, and that I can learn to love myself, even if I haven't had that as a part of my story, my origin story growing up, which was my case.

Jerry Henderson: 6:41

But the truth is, even self-love is not going to fully deal with the fact that we are these social mammals who need connection, that we release oxytocin when we're in connection and all of these things that happen that help us address the sense of loneliness. And this can be tough, especially if we've experienced trauma, especially if we've had painful life experiences that teach us not to trust people. I talk about this that when we experience trauma, it's not what happens to us, it's what happens inside in us. That really is what trauma is about, and we make some decisions. We make a decision about life Is life fair or unfair? We make decisions about ourselves. Am I worthy of love? Not worthy of love? We also make decisions about people. Are people worthy of being let in and are they going to hurt me? That's a normal response to those painful life experiences.

Jerry Henderson: 7:36

The truth is and there's a big study that I talk a lot about at Harvard. It's the longest study about human well-being and it says the most important thing that creates well-being, that creates happiness, that deals with loneliness, is human connection. And once again, it only takes one relationship. We only need one relationship that we feel connected to, that's safe, to help us address the feelings of loneliness. So what can we do? What's that one proven thing that anybody can do to start addressing loneliness? Start building one emotionally safe, meaningful connection. That's it, just one.

Jerry Henderson: 8:18

And this isn't about becoming an extrovert or getting more likes on Instagram or whatever, or fixing all of your relationships. It's not about that. This is simply about finding or creating one relationship where you can be real, your authentic self, where you don't have to pretend, where you can feel seen, you can feel heard and you can feel accepted. I often tell people we all need one fully disclosing relationship in our life where we can be us and be accepted for who we are. And when that happens, not only does it start to address the ache that we have, because it starts to release all those positive chemicals, it starts to address all of the stories that we have, because now we're feeling seen and, as a result of that, our bodies start to respond to that, the chemicals start to respond to that, the brain starts to fire and wire all around this and another thing that happens is it starts to reverse those biological effects of loneliness the impact that it's having that's equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, or causing us to feel anxious, agitated, depressed of loneliness the impact that it's having that's equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, or causing us to feel anxious, agitated, depressed. All of those things can begin to get reversed when we make that connection with just one person. That's it, guys, just one person.

Jerry Henderson: 9:32

So how do you do this? How do you start to build that connection? There's three really simple things that you can do, and the first one is identify one person, someone you trust, maybe a friend, a sibling, a former mentor or somebody you haven't spoken to in a while. Don't overthink it too much. Just choose one person that you think you could make a connection with, that you could start developing a safe, life-giving relationship with.

Jerry Henderson: 9:58

Now, if you'd like some help on your journey of developing a healthier relationship with yourself and feeling like you can be more transparent and be more vulnerable in relationships, I want to encourage you to check out my one-on-one coaching program called Personal Mastery. For more information about the program, you can simply see the show notes in this episode. You'll find a link there where you can set up a free strategy call where we can connect and see if working together is the right fit. I'm really looking forward to connecting with you, learning more about your goals and, most importantly, learning more about you Now. If you haven't had a chance yet to subscribe to or to follow this podcast, I want to take a moment and encourage you to do that so that you don't miss out on a single episode. Also, if you've not had a chance yet to leave a review, I want to encourage you to do that as well, because the more reviews that we get, the more likely this podcast is going to find its way to people who need to hear the message about how to have a healthy relationship with themselves. And I really do just want to let you know that I'm grateful that you're here and I'm grateful that you're part of this community.

Jerry Henderson: 11:00

The second step reach out, send a message and keep it simple and keep it honest. Try something like hey, I've been realizing lately I miss real connection. I mean, everybody gets that right Today. We're missing this sense of real connection and you can say something to them like that and I'm sure it will resonate with them as well and just tell them hey, I'd love to find some time to catch up. You don't need a script, you don't need to overthink it, just be honest about it.

Jerry Henderson: 11:29

What you're really trying to do here is to make some real, authentic connection. And if a person doesn't understand that guess what? They're not the person at this moment, in this time, to be able to make that connection with and move on to another person. And what we're going to have to do is overcome that fear of rejection. Like what? If they don't want to get together, that's okay. It says more about where they're at right now than it does about you. You're looking for a real connection in this time, something to build on. And if a person doesn't want to do that, honor that respect, that that's where they're at.

Jerry Henderson: 11:58

And then do the work to find the next person. Listen, you're worth finding somebody to connect with, to build this relationship with, so that you can start to deal with that sense of loneliness. Don't allow yourself to keep carrying this around. Take the risk. One of the things that heals loneliness is taking the risk to put ourselves out there to start making connection. Which then leads me to the third step of building these connections Be real when you talk, take an emotional risk, don't just keep it all surface level.

Jerry Henderson: 12:31

And I'm not saying you have to have this full-blown moment where you're like putting everything on the table and we like scare people off right. I'm not saying that, I'm just saying having maybe one honest line during the conversation, at some point you can say something like hey, honestly, I've been feeling kind of disconnected lately, or I've been trying to be more real with the people that I care about, make some deeper connections at this season of my life. And what that's going to do is a couple of things. One, it's going to signal to them that you're wanting some connection, okay, and you're doing it in a way that is safe, that's not overbearing over the top, but just kind of putting it out there. But what it's also doing it's allowing that little tiny moment of vulnerability, that little tiny moment of vulnerability, that little glimpse of it, to start creating the safety that you're craving. Right, you put it out there, be met with some yeah, me too or some empathy, some understanding, and that connection starts to build and you start to feel seen and that can start to address that loneliness. And, once again, if the person's not interested, that's okay. It's just not the right person for this season of life and it means nothing about you. Okay, we'll get in there and we'll make those stories about rejection. It's not about rejection, it's about that person's just not, in this moment, ready to make that type of connection and that's okay. All right.

Jerry Henderson: 13:52

Now you might be thinking to yourself but what if I don't have anybody that I feel safe with right now? And that's absolutely real, right, there are seasons in our life where we just don't have somebody and it feels very lonely and very isolating. It'd be really painful. Back to that physical pain, right, it can be that real for us because it is that real. But it's not the end of the story. We don't have to settle there. And what we also don't have to do is just go out and have random relationships. Random relationships where there's no connection actually will increase your sense of loneliness and isolation because it's hitting and releasing different chemicals in our brain than true, authentic relationship, true connection. Remember the distance between the connection that I want to feel and the connection that I'm experiencing. So when we have shallow relationships or shallow connections that aren't meaningful, or we're having hookups or whatever that story is. That is not going to meet the need that we have okay, for connection. It's actually going to worsen the problem. We're going to go through this up and down cycle and then the crash is much more severe and the realization of loneliness is much more severe.

Jerry Henderson: 14:59

So please, if you're experiencing a lot of loneliness, don't try to just simply medicate it. Start trying to address it through developing connection. Now, if you don't have those connections, the first thing that you can do to start creating those connections are to join spaces that are built for emotional honesty, things like therapy groups, support groups for men or women, coaching communities. I mean, all of these things are built for authentic connection. Take the risk Join a running club or a cooking club or whatever it is, to put yourself out there, to take that risk and to start developing some connection. Might take a little bit more work if you don't have that already, but once again, you're worthy of this work.

Jerry Henderson: 15:42

And while you're doing that work to find those places to start building and creating that connection, take that time to also start doing some of your own internal work to create emotional safety within yourself, because connection that we want to feel does require us to let down some of those walls, to feel safe, to start being vulnerable, real, authentic, and that's a risk, and so we have to do some work within ourselves to allow ourselves to come to that place. We can do things like journaling honestly, like what are some of your fears and what have you been avoiding, et cetera. All of that can help. So in the meantime, while you're working towards creating those safe connections, you can start creating a safe internal connection with yourself and, as a result, you're going to be a lot more likely to be open and you're going to start finding, in very micro ways in the beginning, authentic connection and you're going to start closing the gap between the connection that you want and the connection that you feel. So let me just remind you of a few things real quick.

Jerry Henderson: 16:45

Being lonely doesn't mean you're broken, that there's something wrong with you. It means you're human, it means your nervous system is asking for something that's real. It's asking for what it's wired to have. And then the reality of a culture and a world that has gotten shallower and shallower and less and less connection. No wonder it's been so hard for you to find that connection that you want. So don't be so hard on yourself, okay, and you not being hard on yourself and practicing self-compassion towards yourself is actually going to help you make even deeper connections, because you're going to be less afraid to show your authentic self when you feel better about yourself.

Jerry Henderson: 17:21

And also remember this key point because, remember, this is about the thing that anybody can do to start addressing loneliness. This doesn't take 50 new friends. You don't have to be the most popular person on the planet. You don't have to jump through all those hoops or do all that stuff. It's just finding one connection, one moment of realness, and starting to build on that. Anybody can do that, and you might have a story as to why you can't. Can I encourage you Worked with a lot of people Haven't found anybody yet who can't start to move towards building connection, taking the risk and finding at least one other person on this planet to start to build something that feels like a connection and it starts to address that sense of loneliness that you've been carrying for so long. And I want to remind you that you are worthy of a life that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the outside.