Discover Fresh Perspectives
A series of short conversations, sometimes with myself, usually with others, that provide an opportunity to see every day events through different perspectives. The intent is to open up new possibilities for personal and organizational growth!
Discover Fresh Perspectives
Exploring Loneliness and Connection with America’s Loneliness Coach, Carrie Sackett
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Welcome back to Discover Fresh Perspectives. In this episode, host David Gouthro sits down with Carrie Sackett, known as America's loneliness coach. Together, they delve into what loneliness really means, how it's different from simply being alone, and why our modern culture has cultivated such widespread feelings of disconnection.
Carrie shares her expertise in life and relationship coaching, blending insights from her group work, practical tools for tackling loneliness, and stories from her own experience. Whether it’s building community, developing “relational muscles,” or finding courage to reach out, this episode offers actionable advice for anyone looking to feel more connected in a lonely world. Stay tuned for a thought-provoking conversation packed with fresh perspectives on human connection.
A Bit About Carrie
Carrie Sackett is a thoughtful observer of modern life, keenly interested in the roots of loneliness in contemporary society. Drawing on research and cultural commentary, she explores how factors like the Covid pandemic, increased reliance on technology, the erosion of community organizations, and families living far apart all contribute to rising isolation.
But Carrie looks deeper than surface explanations, highlighting the Western—particularly Anglo—cultural assumption that individuals are solely responsible for their own loneliness. She questions the notion that feeling isolated is a personal failing to be solved alone, instead inviting her audience to reconsider the structures, expectations, and narratives that shape our sense of connection and belonging.
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Are you stuck in the same old routine at work? Do you find yourself hitting a creative wall, unable to see beyond your current perspective? It's time to break free and unlock the power of fresh perspectives. David Guthrow back again with another episode of Discover Fresh Perspectives. Today I have uh my pleasure of having the guest by the name of Carrie Sackett. Welcome, Carrie.
SPEAKER_00Hi, David. It's great to be here.
SPEAKER_02So, Carrie, we were just talking a little bit before we started recording. You said a number of things have kind of tweaked my uh tweaked my interest. And you said that one of the things that you do is life and relationship coaching. And uh, we'll come back to that, but you also said that you're known as America's loneliness coach. Now, I'm presuming that doesn't mean that you coach people on how to be lonely, but probably the opposite. So maybe you could just tell me a little bit about what a loneliness coach does and and and what you mean by loneliness, because it's one of those, you know, coming out of COVID, that was, you know, people talking about how that's a you know a horrible thing. We're all suffering from it and things like that. So maybe, maybe first of all, what do you mean by loneliness? Then secondly, what on earth does a loneliness coach do?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Um, again, thank you for having me on. I've listened to some of your interviews and they're fabulous. So I've been really looking forward to our conversation. And sometimes people introduce me as the loneliest coach. So that's not so what I mean by loneliness and what it is in the world, um, it's that feeling of disconnection from others. It can be, you know, that um inadequate, meaningful connections, um, like an emotional lack in our lives or a disassociation. Those are all, you know, definitions of loneliness. Of course, all of us experience loneliness differently. And the main point is that we have created a lonely world, not only COVID. In Canada, from your from the recent surveys, one in ten Canadians say that they frequently or always feel lonely. One in three say they often feel lonely.
SPEAKER_02So maybe just to look at some of these terms, because I think some people you know have confusion distinguishing between being alone and being lonely, because they're not they're not the same. Can you say a little bit more about that, please?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Thank you for that. So we can we can walk into a room at a party and feel lonely. We can be freed and feel lonely. We could live alone and not feel lonely. We could sit under a tree by ourselves and read a book and not feel lonely. So um we can be very successful at the top of our game and feel lonely.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I often hear about people that are very wealthy, and you think, well, they have everything, they have these billions of dollars, and yet they would describe themselves as being lonely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. So what I do, oh, mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02Well, I just, you know, because another thing just occurred to me that sometimes, you know, people t toss around the term introvert and extrovert, often without really understanding it. So yeah, I've heard some people say, Well, you're an introvert. I you I don't imagine you get lonely, which I'm pretty sure isn't true. Can can you speak a little bit more about that?
SPEAKER_00Yes. The short answer is the labels that we keep creating and attaching to other people is help it's hurting us and it makes connection more difficult when we put other people in boxes and assume that we know who they are. That's part of what keeps us lonely.
SPEAKER_02And you also made a comment that that uh we've kind of created uh a culture and environment of of loneliness. What are some of the things that have contributed to that? And I'm gonna pause for a moment while I sneeze. Never done that in a podcast recording before. Yes, folks, this is totally transparent.
SPEAKER_00So well, so there are now, you know, there are studies, there are prescriptions of what to do for loneliness, there are explanations for loneliness. Some of the obvious ones that people talk about are COVID, social, you know, all of us being more attached to our phones and social media, the breakdown of community-based organizations, the the how families don't live near each other anymore, how it's how um someone we it's normal to pick up and move to a new city for a job and not know anybody. So there's a whole bunch of different factors that people talk about. What people don't talk about so much is the cultural assumption that is baked into the West, let's say Anglo cultures in particular, um is that you are an isolated individual. It is your job to fix yourself. If you feel lonely, you better go read the book or do the thing they're telling you to do. And if you don't do it, it's your problem that you're lonely. You should pick yourself up by your bootstraps. That keeps us lonely.
SPEAKER_02You know, I I won't dive into politics other than to say one of the things that I've heard from um Heather Cox Richardson, who I love to follow, is that there used to be like the culture of the Republican culture was kind of like the pioneer culture. You do it on your own, you know, the champion sort of stuff. And and more of the Democratic, by the way, in Canada, I don't really understand what all this means anyhow, but um a lot of the Democratic governments were more about supporting, supporting each other. So there's, you know, um ensuring everyone gets supported. So those are those are polarized views on on uh you know from a political standpoint. But I wonder if if I'm bouncing around here, how does one experience loneliness? I, you know, I don't want to assume that everyone is self-aware and knows what their emotions are and things like that. How if one was wondering, hmm, I wonder if I really am lonely, how would I go about figuring that out?
SPEAKER_00That's a great question. You know, the surveys that go out to people, they put they put it on to people. They say, How often do you feel lonely? And then people say, Oh, I feel lonely once a week or every day or whatever they say. How do you know you feel lonely? I think it's that it's the sense of not having people that you can call to lean on, to be seen, to be heard. And that's that's why we've created this is a we've created a lonely world. We all have the experience at some point in our days and in our lives of not being seen and not being heard.
SPEAKER_02No, I was just thinking about some of these differences, the way that I think about it. And um, being alone is like a um just a statement of fact that there's nobody around me, right? But lonely is actually uh a feeling. And and as you pointed out, that you can feel lonely in a room of of many, many people. So, you know, I'm I'm curious, Carrie, as a as someone that coaches in this area, uh uh like what's a conversation like that you have with someone? And do they come to you because they're feeling lonely? Or you coach them? I know you're a life and relationship coach and you somehow sense that loneliness might be an issue. How how do you get in that? How do you help people understand it and beyond that perhaps move through that?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's both. Some people come to me, like that example of being a professional who moves to a new city, works from home, and hasn't, I just hasn't been able to find community and build community. Um so people come to me be through couples coaching. And what merges in that work is how lonely somebody's feeling in the relationship. That's another way that people come to it. In my group work, I had this group recently. Somebody kicked off the group and said, and people come to my life development groups, they come from all different areas that they want to grow around and work life and whatever. So it's a very diverse group. It's not a single topic group. But somebody started the group a couple weeks ago and they said, What kind of lonely are you? And then, and so somebody said, I'm frustrated lonely. I want a romantic relationship, I don't have one. Someone else said, I'm future lonely. My kids aren't gonna have kids. I don't get to be a grandparent. I'm social lonely. I go out, but I don't feel connected to people. I'm married lonely. So part of the, you know, you know, my wife and I, we don't talk below the surface. So as a group lead, I my response to all this is how fantastic is this. What a great diversity of loneliness. How was it for everyone to hear this variety of loneliness? So uh what we one part of tackling loneliness is we have to make it more ordinary. We have to we have to break out of the shame of feeling lonely. I really wish that we would all walk into our local coffee shops in the morning, wave at the barista, say, Hey, good morning. I'm feeling lonely today. I'll have that double latte. You see how in these two stores in these stories, it's the relationality. It's that where you're performing loneliness with others. That's what helps get us out of it and build more connection and relational muscles.
SPEAKER_02So let me just link it to something else that that uh you said is that you do a lot of group coaching. That's a specialty of yours. And so can you tell me a little bit? It can be about loneliness or or not, but how you work with groups, especially when you have that diversity, for example, of loneliness, how big are the groups? How do you do that? That's that's intriguing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm very passionate about life development groups. They're very powerful for people. They really turbocharge growth. It's usually, I work virtually, by the way. So I have clients all throughout the Americas and uh Europe, Middle East, and Africa. And uh my groups are four to 12 people, and most of them meet weekly, some of them meet bi-weekly, and then I some and they're ongoing groups, so people join and then they stay as long as they stay, months or years, and because they've built that sense of community, they stay. Um, sometimes I run short-term groups like four-week groups, so people can get a taste of what it's like to be in a group. And the the growth element is that people are diverse, bringing different histories, different experiences, different conflicts, different ways of expressing emotion. And that's what we build and create with. And it's in the building of the group, the creating with the mess to experience that you can create with messiness and with other people and come out the other side of it. That is such a powerful discovery for people to their lives.
SPEAKER_02I would imagine that even if the topic wasn't about loneliness in a group, somehow that would be dealt with in a way that the bonds are being made with those those other folks. You know, you have psychological safety and all those other kinds of things. And so uh and I I can't imagine that an outcome would not be a greater sense of of no longer feeling as lonely. Like I don't know how they could be with the group and stick with it and still feel absolutely lonely.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And it's it's um attention because remember, we all live in me world. This is our culture. Every day when we wake up, we have 5,000 messages. Think of me, look deeper inside of me, ni, ni, me. So so in the group, we're expanding to a we lens, and then you get that tension between the me and the we. And that's where the growth happens. So to give you a story, which I I wrote about in my book.
SPEAKER_02Um well, wait a second. And the name of that book is, and we'll put it in the program notes as well, Carrie. So tell me about your book.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's directed to coaches and therapists, so it's not to the general public. It's called Social Therapeutic Coaching, a practical guide to group and couples work. As far as I know, it is the only book out there with actual group coaching examples that people can learn from. Um, so in one of my groups, um, somebody was having relationship issues, and the group was saying, okay, well, you know, don't be in the same room with your ex because things happen, you know, we're um, and then the client said, Well, you know, we live in the same neighborhood. What if, you know, I might show up in the same bar that she's at? The group said, Well, take us with you. Take the group with you into that room. Take us and our desire for you to get out of high conflict situations. And the client was like, I don't think so. And everyone else in the group, they were like, No way. Carrie's always, you know, telling me I want, I want a relationship. And Carrie only comes always tells me to come in here and talk to talk with the group and give to the group, like, forget that. I just want to get fixed. Like the whole group went around like that. And I thought, oh my goodness, what am I? You know, it's like one of those sessions. Two weeks later, same group, same group of people, someone else comes into group and says, I met somebody and I'm going on a date. And can you help me? How do I I get nervous? I don't know what to say. And the group and the it people did like really beautiful, intimate work with this person. And at the end of it, same guy who two weeks ago was like, forget the group, you know, take the group with me. He says, Thank you all so much. I'm gonna take you with me on my date.
SPEAKER_02You know, that I can just imagine, you know, someone who has felt alone because they're different from everybody else, not accepted. To have that transition and to just being able to tell themselves and and mean it at a heart level, I'm not alone anymore. Like that that would be amazing. What a feeling that would be.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And the thing is that you can't make that shift cognitively. If all it took was for you and me to tell ourselves, oh, I'm not alone, then none of us would feel lonely because we get plenty of those messages all day long. Just think differently. So it has to be something in addition to that. We need others to help us grow and develop. We're a social species. We need others as we need to see ourselves as having the group with us. But you can only get there by exercising those muscles with others, those relational muscles, those emotional muscles.
SPEAKER_02So do you get a sense? Well, let's say outside of someone has the opportunity to be in a group with with you, are there other ways or or tactics for a person to decrease that sense of loneliness that that you know, our listeners may kind of go, yeah, you know, I I could actually do that. What, you know, what are some first steps?
SPEAKER_00Yes. So I have some of those. I also want to invite all of your listeners to join the life development group. Not only do I lead groups, but I've trained people to lead groups.
SPEAKER_02So And is that is that a term people can search life development groups? Is that like a category of things or what do they look for?
SPEAKER_00Uh you can type in life development group and I'm I'll come up. You'll see me there in Google. So um, and yes, if if if we're serious about transforming loneliness, then we have to be able to have some real practical tools to give people. It can't just be that I'm the expert have to come work with me. Although I want everybody to work with me. So there are tools for looking outward. That's what's important when we're feeling lonely. Oh my goodness, it's we can we we just are we're not we're not seeing or feeling the others of people around us. So one thing you can do, say you're in a social situation, um, and you're feeling really awkward or really shy, or you're totally in your head, and you think I shouldn't be at this party or this meeting. I don't belong here. Well, look outwards, ask a curious question of somebody. Ask them what a curious question about whatever they're talking about. Ask a get to know you question and then notice the response so you can get a better sense of is this someone I maybe could have a relationship with, or is it gonna be a superficial thing and maybe I should go, you know, go to the buffet line and find someone else and try to so um that's that's a way to look outward, and even though it feels uncomfortable, it's a stretch that people can do. We can if someone's talking about nuclear physics and you don't know anything about it, you you could still figure out some question to ask. So that's one. This another one is my absolute favorite one. I call it the pre-ask. So go to someone in your life and ask them if you can reach them when you're and then fill in the blank, when you're lonely, when you're furious, when you're depressed, when you're whatever, when you're when you're lying in bed and you can't move because you've thrown your back out, what they like you usually do, whatever that is, go to somebody in your life and say, can I reach you the next time this is going on for me? It's a lower stakes ask. You're really asking, hey, can I have you with me while I'm having this miserable experience? And presume most people will say yes. And hey, if people say no, that's good to know too. It that doesn't mean they don't like you. It might mean you know, they they they themselves can't handle that kind of call, or they're always busy, or they don't they can't interrupt their day, or who, you know, who knows. But most people say yes. So then when you are feeling lonely, you're you're maybe you've decided together beforehand. Okay, I'm gonna send you sad-faced emoji, I'm gonna send you the really lonely emoji, or I'm gonna text you something, capital letters, or can we talk, can I can we talk for six minutes on the phone? So you can decide together what the kind of thing is that you're gonna need in that moment. So the pre-ask is um it's really one of my favorites. If we all did the pre-ask with somebody in our lives again, we would all be much more emotionally um healthy.
SPEAKER_02It seems to me that that would have mutual benefit, you know, because I know if someone asks me something in a way, I feel kind of flattered that they feel comfortable asking me. And that may, in fact, I may be having the same kind of thing, like you say. But you know, through all of this, uh, you know, a tactic like that, it occurs to me that to use it requires courage, because I can imagine there's some fear about am I going to be rejected? What are the consequences gonna be? And and how do you get people to move past the resistance? I mean, especially if they're uh uh, you know, normally shy, to do something like that would be really uncomfortable. So, how do you help them move past that that point of discomfort and exercise the courage to to do either one or two of those ideas that you suggested?
SPEAKER_00Well, um, one thing is when I give talks on university campuses for loneliness. This is the students' most favorite one. It's actually the one they say they can do. So I don't want to negate what you're saying. It is a stretch. If any to get out of when we feel miserable, it's a stretch. It's uncomfortable. It's not going to feel natural because what feels natural is staying in the muck that we're in. So it is going to feel uncomfortable. I'm trying, you know, you're trying to find the kind of bite size where it might be possible. We're another place we practice this is working with me or joining one of my groups. And it's literally, we'll call it a practice. So you you get to practice with others. Then you feel like okay maybe I can I could try this with somebody in my life. I've I'm doing it with group or I'm doing it with Carrie. I'm doing it with my family or my spouse. Maybe I can I can do it I have more trust that I can take this risk on my own. And I have now have the experience that the sky won't fall down on me.
SPEAKER_02And then I imagine at some point, you know, if it's done long enough that becomes a habit becomes automatic, right? You know, it's probably easy I would imagine in a group it's easier to start that because you can model and have people experience it. Right. It makes it easier them to go out on their own and do the same thing.
SPEAKER_00Yes. I used to do this with when I was writing my book and I was procrastinating all day, I would text as writers do and for our own projects I would text a friend and say please tell me to write and then they text me back and I tell you I got out of it and I would sit down and start writing. I love that also have to take the risk of being kind of goofy and weird.
SPEAKER_02That's part of the stretch yeah it's you know one of the things that I often um opine about is the absence of of community these days. You know and and I actually in the uh in the place where I live here in Vancouver they talk about about the West Vancouver community and I keep pushing back and say you know what community isn't defined by geography. It's defined by the connections that you have with people. And if if you have all these little individuals all over the place I don't think you can call them a community unless they're communing with you like guess what? Same root of the word right yeah very interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah and we it we the people have to build that if there was the thing that was the most beautiful about what the people in Minneapolis did is they did it together. They did it not already knowing whether who was the introvert or the extrovert they did it without even knowing how to do it they did it together. They built something that was bigger than each individual person.
SPEAKER_02That was pretty amazing. I loved reading about how they came together around that you know it's it's almost well it is too bad that you need a crisis to do that because it can really be done anytime. And so you know if people are thinking I wonder where I can practice this you know curiosity and things like you talked about the barista.
SPEAKER_00Can you recommend a number of different environments that that might be ones where people could consider reaching out, making a connection um well here, you know, something I've started doing is this is this is more out there and more uncomfortable but if I somewhere having lunch by myself I will in the room and see if anyone else is eating by themselves and I just ask them if they'd like to lunch. I'm I am so done with how separated and uh we are from each other. So I I'm like really out there uh in the extreme so say your question again so I could say something less out there for people.
SPEAKER_02Well well just you know what are what are some different places where people can practice practices to you know take some of these steps. So you've talked about two so far the barista and also just when you're having lunch you're in an environment there's other people sharing some some common activity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah well others sure the traditional prescriptions for loneliness join a club talk to a stranger those are all really great i i totally I love those um and we can be more creative uh I've worked I worked with a family with a a teenage teenage girl who was you know social media has been really hard kids feeling just feeling so different and isolated and lonely. What we did as a family we this the this emerged custom made for this particular family is we we created a loneliness meter that was on the refrigerator with a little dial that could move anyone could move the dial and then it became this more ordinary conversation inside the family. Oh well how lonely oh well what happened today that went way up or way oh how you know so again less problematizing it and more what can we create with our loneliness?
SPEAKER_02Seems a lot of this is about uh raising the conversation around loneliness, making it like like just like I'm not connecting these two at all, but lately there's been a number of consultants that have been talking about menopause like it's everywhere now about you know consultants and things like that. Something that's been around forever. And loneliness has been around forever. But I I think where we start to make progress is when we elevate that it's an okay conversation to have I think you said earlier not I don't think you use the term normalize it but but uh yeah yeah yeah we we again we are we are taught that our emotions are inside of us they're and they're big and only they're mine and nobody else can see it or understand it or we have to give our emotion it's it's a weird way to say it we have to give our emotions away in order to make them or to resize them.
SPEAKER_00The more we hold on to the shame of feeling lonely the bigger loneliness gets the more we can be like you know hey I'm a five today on loneliness how about you the more we're kind of like that the the the smaller it gets the more we're building connection in our lives and the then that resizes the loneliness.
SPEAKER_02I I don't I don't know that loneliness ever goes away but it can become a different size and shape that's interesting okay you know um some people are away people some are towards people so some people want to to not be lonely anymore but other people want to be better connected what are some of the you know what are the benefits of feeling connected and being in relationship with other people what what what why would someone want that well one reason which everybody's talking about now is longevity and a healthy living.
SPEAKER_00Are you familiar with the blue zone community? I will say that I've got the book and I will not go beyond that well you know everyone's looking for the magic formula to live the perfect long life and uh eating well and exercise there's five things but one two of the five are social your social connections your community connections so one reason for us all to build up our relational muscles is to live longer healthier lives um the Surgeon General in the United States says that loneliness is the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
SPEAKER_02Wow so if that's the kind of thing that motivates you you know um that's a that's an excellent motivator not to put a morbid spin on this but you know I have a number of of friends who have been uh at that age and my my daughter says you know you are at that age now you know your your friends are disappearing and you may too but I've been fortunate to see some who in their their last you know months or weeks or days are surrounded by friends, you know, family loving people like that. And it just makes me sad to think of someone who in their last days there's nobody there. I I can't imagine how that it makes me sad thinking about it. I can't imagine what that person's life must be like yeah it makes me profoundly sad as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah really motivates me to keep doing what I'm doing because I can imagine yeah we humans do not have to live in a lonely world we can make a different kind of world and humans have I mean there've been other moments in human history that perhaps have been less lonely and less isolating than this.
SPEAKER_02I recall listing I thought I'm reading about some anthropologists that are saying there's some some tribal societies when some someone's done something terrible their punishment is just to send them away to isolate them from the family and that's as as good or worse than than actually putting them to death because they end up dying a slow death from from loneliness and and disconnection. Yes and uh same in the prison system yeah it puts you in solitary well yeah that's very true yeah yes we're a social species our limbic brain which that came after the reptile the reptilian brain you know that's all your bodily functions you don't think about it that's the keeps everything running what's next limbic brain what's in there emotions nurturing play social connection it's not up here in the neocortex I mean obviously it's a whole brain and why you know that there are these finite boxes of things I'm sure it's more complicated than that but just for communication's sake um it's fundamental to who we are so maybe there's a call to action here which is regardless of our own sense of loneliness or not it you know if we were all just to just to reach out and embrace embrace other people whether you know they have an issue we have an issue or not but just to to be a gatherer right that that every single one of us can do that because it's probably going to have a huge positive impact on some of the people that we reach out to who didn't even we didn't know they were alone we didn't know that they were lonely they didn't know they were lonely but once you start to feel that you know you want and you want more of it. So Carrie this has been great. I want to make sure that in the program notes we put in your contact information we we put in um you know some of the different groups that you talked about that people could find yours yours or others and uh and encourage people to go out there and and connect and build those threads and those connections that reduce the negative impact of loneliness. That's just you know dial it down. We could all do something to help with that so so thank you once again so much for being with me here as a guest today. Oh sorry where are you carrying what part of the planet do your feet rest on?
SPEAKER_00My feet are in Arizona and my soul and stomach are New Yorkers. Oh so I'm uh I'm a like a a desert a desert mermaid is what I call myself as a swimmer and uh so I'm mostly in Arizona but also New York City. Very good.
SPEAKER_02Well it's just nice to put you in put you in place and uh and to be hearing the great work that you're doing and wish you nothing but success in continuing on with that. So thank you very much for being with me here today.
SPEAKER_00Thank you David.
SPEAKER_02David Gothro Discover Fresh Perspectives the only thing I can guarantee is that next week we'll have someone else with a different perspective come on back then. Subscribe now because on Fresh Perspectives every episode is an opportunity to explore new horizons and redefine what's achievable