69: Loneliness Can be Sacred

When the house is quiet and the calendar emptier than it's ever been, loneliness can feel like a fog that won't lift. In this episode, I’m sharing my personal experience with that soul-deep ache—especially after sending off my youngest missionary and transitioning out of full-time motherhood.

We’re not talking about the kind of loneliness that a girls’ night can fix. We're talking about the kind that sneaks in during dinner-for-one, lingers in the silence, and makes you question your worth and purpose.

Here’s what we dive into:

• The difference between being alone and feeling unseen
• How loneliness is often grief in disguise
• Why naming the emotion is the first step to softening it
• How to stay onto your brain when it feeds you victim-y thoughts
• Tiny, meaningful ways to reconnect—with yourself, with God, and with others

I also share a story about fear, surgery, and a wise yoga teacher that helped me shift how I move through hard emotions. If you’re in a season of quiet, emptiness, or transition, this episode is here to remind you: you are not broken, you're not behind, and you're not alone.

✨ Book a free consult with me if you’re ready for more support. 

You’re not too late. You’re exactly where you need to be.

Share your missionary stories where you agree to allow me to share them:
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Transcript

Michelle: 0:30

Hello and welcome to the podcast. So today, well first off, lemme just give you a little update. It turned spring for a minute where I live. And then it felt wonderful. I was like all excited about getting ready to plant my garden and then. It snowed. So that's where I'm at, and I know it's gonna do this every spring, and it still surprises me. And I think that's one of the funny things about our brain. Our brain still acts surprised, even though this has happened almost every spring. I just like always get surprised and so I'm always reminding myself like, this is not surprising. And so it's like having that conversation. And we talk a lot about that on the podcast, just having that conversation back with our brain. I've also had, my mom has been kind of in and outta the hospital and. So there's been some times when I have spent, some really late nights or I've driven to go to be at the hospital she is at, and it's quite a drive. And when I get there, my brain is so dramatic because I was waiting on some stuff for my, my mom, and so I said to my dad, I am starving. And then I was like. That was so dramatic and I said, I've never starved a day in my life, dad. I don't even know why he said that. I am hungry though. And so anyway, it's just it this work is something that you can do the rest of your life. It's so. Interesting. And it's actually quite fun. So with that being said, I'm gonna jump into today's topic, which maybe isn't as fun, but something that we need to talk about. And this was actually something that I had a friend ask me to do a podcast on, and she asked me to do it. It's been a while and I couldn't tackle the topic yet. I just wasn't comfortable myself with this emotion. So I was like, I gotta wait. I have to sit with it a little bit more before I can tackle it. but I have gone through that. And so I wanted to. Bring it to you guys today. So let's talk about loneliness. It's not the kind that's fixed by like a girl's night out or a text message. I'm talking about like that really deep soul aching, loneliness. It's emptiness. That feels like sometimes it comes in waves, sometimes it lingers kind of like a fog. And if you're in a season where your house is quiet and that's new. Where no one quite understands what you're carrying when you're pouring out so much care for other people or you're not doing anything like you used to be caring for so many people and that. Is all of a sudden gone, you're not broken, you're not weak, you're just human. You're having a human experience. And today I wanna talk with you in the heart of loneliness about how to not make it go away instantly, but to help you understand it, befriend it, and eventually transcend it. Because loneliness doesn't mean there's anything wrong, It actually means something matters very deeply to you. And so I think as moms, especially as our kids grow up and we get to the end, I know that when my youngest son left on his mission, I had loneliness like I had never experienced in my life. And so it loneliness has this sneaky way of making you feel like you're the only one and feel like you're kind of like. So crazy. I felt like I was starting to go crazy. And everybody else has all their people and they have their purpose. And they have their momentum. And some people love when it's quiet and some people are like, this is great. My kids are all grown and right. But there's like this phase and it's not for everyone, but it is for some. We're over here meanwhile trying to figure out. Who we are when nobody needs us urgently anymore, and we don't really feel that useful. So maybe your missionaries out serving and you're super proud, but you miss them in a way that feels physical. Maybe your parents are aging and they need some help, but you feel like you're. You're doing that and you're kind of stretched in that way, but there's nobody there like really giving you that comforting space. Or maybe it's just quiet and it's just too quiet. I can tell you from raising six boys that when the last one left, it was very shocking for my system. So loneliness isn't just about being alone, it's about feeling unseen, un mirrored, un received. And the first step to moving through it is not to fix it. It's actually to name it and to say, oh, this is loneliness and it's here. And that alone starts to shift something. Like I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, this is something that I've been sitting with for months because my youngest left and my husband is out of town. And so my house is quiet and I was fixing dinner for myself, and I went from fixing dinner for an army, and then I'm, I'm like, well, I'll just have Cheerios and I'll just. Sit on the couch at night and watch tv. And then I realized, I was like, oh, this is loneliness. That's what I'm experiencing. It's, it's a loneliness on a really deep level. So I just started to invite that loneliness in, like, oh, I can see you here, and this is a season that we're going through, and we're going to just start to embrace it. So most of us though, we wanna escape it. I know I certainly did. We scroll, we snack, we clean, we work, we Netflix, we shop whatever our personal numbing agent is. But loneliness doesn't have to be numbed. It actually needs to be witnessed. Like you have to invite it in in order to allow it to pass. So what if instead of pushing it away, you sat with it like an old friend and you asked it gently, like, why are you here and what are you trying to tell me? So one of the things when I was asking myself is like, what are you, why are you here? And what are you trying to tell me? Some of the things that my brain came up with, was not necessarily some stories that were true.'cause what I've learned is that loneliness is grief in disguise, and sometimes it's longing and sometimes it's your soul calling you back home to yourself. But it can be, it can be grief, right? So I was going through like this loneliness spell, and I was like, actually this is, this is loneliness and it's grieving. I was grieving for, I. My time as a mother being done and I went through a little bit of a denial, but then I started to work on just embracing like, what does it feel like in my body to feel lonely? What does it feel like to feel grief? And this is the part of emotions that feels really uncomfortable, but it's also the part that's very sacred because when we stop running from loneliness or any emotion for that matter, it starts to transform and it becomes something that you can learn from and it becomes a mirror for your deepest needs. So it really shows you on a deep level some of the things that maybe you need to. Work on in yourself, and it really becomes a portal to connection, like honest to goodness, real connection, not surface level busyness, although busyness does help, but it doesn't make it go away. It doesn't transcend it. It just ignores it for the time being. So just remember that you're not a victim of your emotions. And I want you to be onto your brain because when you're lonely, your brain will offer some thoughts that feel very true. No one needs me, no one gets it. I guess this is just my life now. I have nothing to look forward to, and I want you to catch those thoughts. Don't judge them. We just wanna notice them and ask yourself. Is this true? Do I wanna keep this thought? Is this helping me move towards who I wanna be, what I want? Is there another way to see this? So you're not powerless in loneliness. You can learn to be with it without being ruled by it, and you can ask for what you need, but you can also. Create like little micro connections. You can deepen your relationship with God. You can deepen your relationship with your body, with your inner world. There's a Madrid of ideas. One of the things that I did,'cause I knew that it was a connection thing for me, like I just wanted to connect with people and I have a lot of siblings. I have seven siblings. And so I just decided one evening I was like, I'm gonna send a message and see if my brother, one of my brothers has time to chat. And we had this great heartfelt, laughing conversation and. And I felt so much better. And so I realized like, oh, I can just start call, like maybe reaching out and calling my siblings once a week. Just creating a little bit of a deeper connection where maybe it's a relationship that I haven't spent a ton of time on. Maybe spending a little bit more time on that. You can also sit on the back porch. Feel the sun on your face. Remember, you're alive, you're not lost, you're not forgotten, and you're not the only one. And consider that you are on holy ground and what you are experiencing is holiness. So how do we transcend it? What I don't want you to do is I don't want you to go through all of this and then hustle to how do we transcend it, right? We wanna be able to notice it. We don't want it to take over the driver's seat, but we wanna notice it. We wanna allow it to come along for the ride, but we don't want it to take over and, and drive. So let me give you a story that maybe will help demonstrate this. A number of years ago I had breast implants and I got really sick and I'd had'em for about four or five years when I started getting sick. And then I actually heard on a podcast somebody describing their symptoms and I realized like, oh my gosh, I. That's what I have. And it took me a few years to find a really good doctor so that I could get him out and make sure that nothing was left. And you know it, this doesn't happen to everybody, but it definitely happened to me. That was definitely my experience. Well, right before I went to get these implants out. I started having all this fear and anxiety, just tons of fear and anxiety, and I actually went to a yoga class trying to calm myself down. I was definitely in team hyper felt very, very. Stressful. So I decided to go to this yoga class. I thought maybe this will help. And my yoga instructor at the time, she's like, amazing. Just very grounding. And I went in and I was kind of choking back tears, and I think she could sense, the motions were just kind of probably pouring out of me. And this is back in 2020. And we had a conversation and she said, well, of course you're afraid. I just kind of like, oh, that's what this is. This is fear. And she's like, yeah, of course you are. Like just invite fear in, you're gonna do this, like we're doing this anyway. Fear, you're gonna have to come along for the ride. I. But we're still moving forward. And just that small conversation helped me get back to my calm center. It helped me realize like, oh, this is fear. And my nervous system was taking it just to the next level. Like this is. Earth shattering, potentially life threatening, which it wasn't. And so my nervous system definitely thought that it was the house burning down, but it wasn't like it was a surgery, it was a setback. It was something I was gonna have to heal from, but it wasn't the house burning down. And so. It was interesting when she said that, and she just really invited me to open myself up to it because I was resisting fear on such a hard level that, I really think that it was like pouring off of me at the time, and so. The same thing happens with loneliness. So it's transcending. Loneliness isn't about avoiding solitude. it is about letting solitude grow something up inside of you. So when you tend to your inner garden, when you nourish your own soul, something really surprising happens. you become more available for connection, not because you're desperate for it, but because you're full enough to offer. It. And ironically, when you stop needing other people to fill your loneliness, you start attracting deeper relationships. And that's what I have started to find with some of my siblings is I don't need them to fill that loneliness and we are deepening our relationship. And so it's really quite a fun, interesting time. But here's the paradox. When you befriend loneliness. You don't need people to rescue you. your relationships stop being based on lack and they start being based in mutual mutuality. I don't even know if that's a word, but that's kind of how I think about it. And beyond that, you begin to experience connection with yourself and with God in a really new way. So when I. First started really being so lonely. When my son first left, probably the first month. My prayers in the evening started to get a lot longer. I, at first, started watching TV and then I turned that off because I sat and asked myself, what brings me joy? And I was like, not tv. Like for me, that's not a thing. And so I was like, well, I really love, I love to meditate. I love to talk to God in a really still quiet way. It's very knowing and opening and, and I try really hard to be very thoughtful and, and really feel my way through my prayers. And so it was, it gave me this opportunity to do that, especially when, by the end of the day, you know, when you, like, you've gone, you've done all the things that you needed to during the day and you get home and you're kind of worn out and tired. You're kind of maybe a little bit on the verge of team hypo where you're like, I just kinda want a veg. That's what I did. I just vegged in like a meditative state and not for hours, but I would do a little bit of it and I would try to invite the loneliness to, to be part of me, and then I would also start to pray and ask God to help me and to help lift and carry. This burden of loneliness and help me carry this emotions that feels very big in my body. And I find it so interesting how our emotions can feel so large, but when you don't flee from it, when you're just walking through it and you're discovering that we were never truly alone in the first place, it's a powerful way of. Really being able to view your emotions and really be able to view loneliness. So if you're in a season of loneliness, I just want you to hear me. This is not the end of the story. I. You're not forgotten. There's no shame in feeling what you feel. If other people haven't felt the same way you do, that's okay. You're in a very sacred place. It's a soul stretching place and you don't have to rush through it. let loneliness just be your teacher and let it soften you. Let it call you home to yourself, and when you're ready, reach out. Send a message, make a phone call. Take a walk. Join a group, not from desperation, but from a really nice place of wholeness And it starts with the connection that you have with you. And I think that sometimes as moms, we get so busy for so many years and we have so many things going on, it is really easy. to ignore our own soul. And so this is actually a season of opening up to like what is happening with you inside. That was kind of a little bit of a heavier topic, but like I said, I been working through this season myself, so if this episode speaks to you, I'd love to hear from you. You're never too much, you're never too late. You're exactly where you need to be to begin all of this. And if you want more support, whether it's navigating this season with your missionary, your family, or just yourself. I just invite you to get on a consult call with me. The link is in my show notes. It's free. We can visit and see how you're doing and I can help you walk through these sacred ground grounded. Areas of your life of loneliness. And every day it's a step to reconnect with our own resilience and really rediscover our own center, our own interests, our own hobbies, our own passions and also just our purpose of like, what, what are we gonna do and who are we gonna be moving forward? All right. Until next time, place your hand on your heart and remember, you're not alone. You're deeply loved, and you're doing better than you think you are. And I just want you to know that I pray for my audience every day, and I pray especially hard for you guys when I'm doing a podcast that I can really give you guys some content and deliver some things that are just gonna benefit you as a whole. So I will see you next week. Bye-bye.