Feeling lonely and disconnected? Struggling to find a sense of belonging? You're not alone.
In this heartfelt podcast episode, Dr. Adrienne shares their own experiences of the challenges of belonging. She discusses the importance of belonging on our health and of embracing difficult emotions.
Discover how to change your perception of loneliness and create a sense of connectedness and community. Learn about self-compassion practices and mind-body techniques that can help you navigate through challenging times.
Embrace the idea that it's okay to not be okay. Find solace in the shared humanity we all possess.
Join the journey towards finding belonging and connection.
Remember, you are not alone.
What You’ll Learn From this Episode
- Discover ways to change the perception of loneliness and create a sense of connectedness and community.
- Learn about Dr. Adrienne's process in being with difficult emotions and the understanding that we can experience these feelings and be okay.
- Discover the importance of self-compassion practices and recognizing our shared humanity in times of imperfection.
- Discover the reminder that it's okay to feel difficult emotions and that one is not alone in their experiences of loneliness and disconnection.
"When we are our true selves, we encourage others to be the same. That's how healing works. And that's how connection and community work." - Dr. Adrienne Youdim
Connect with Dr. Adrienne Youdim
Connect with Dr. Adrienne Youdim
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Hi, friends. Welcome to the podcast.
You're going to get some personal musings from me this week, and I'm grateful that you're here to share them with me. So this week, Americans celebrate Valentine's Day, the day when those of us who get flowers celebrate romantic love, while others who might not be so lucky in love right now might be grumbling in their PJs at home. As a side note, some of us will get flowers while we're in our PJs, too. We have been more mindful recently to acknowledge people who have not been feeling the romantic connection. Valentine's Day has morphed into Galentine's to help us celebrate other forms of love, like the platonic love we share with the girls. B
ut I wonder if that is enough. And I planned a very different format today. In honor of Valentine's Day, I was going to share a different perspective on our perceived sense of loneliness. Not only for those of you who don't have a bow right now on Valentine's Day, but for the many that feel lonely despite being in loving relationships. I was going to talk about the impact of loneliness on our health, And most importantly, how we can change that perception of loneliness for ourselves and for others to create a sense of connectedness and community. But I woke up with some big, big feelings. And I've learned that when we feel something deeply ourselves, in our minds and in our hearts, that the most authentic thing we can do is to be honest about that, to share it, knowing that when we are our true selves, we encourage others to be the same. That's how healing works. And that's how connection and community work. Which, funny enough, was the crux of what I was hoping to share anyway.
My own sense of belonging has come from my associations with groups. Many are linked to my professional and academic life. The schools and the universities I attended, the hospital I trained and became faculty at, the academic positions I've held. I've also had deep connectedness to my cultural background. I have shared about it in my book, Hungry for More and in my TED talk. And so much of what I do and say comes from my heritage and my background. Although I was born in the US, I have a deep sense of belonging and connection to my Persian heritage. as well as to my Jewish background and to my family. Because of my crazy life, I got married when I was in medical school. And then once I graduated med school, I started residency where I had 100 plus hour work weeks and then managed to have a child while I was a resident. And then I was faculty and then had more children. As you can imagine, the people I hung out most were people affiliated with my work, while I was at work. And while I have childhood friends and a community that I'm very much connected to, I didn't really foster those relationships until much later in life, when things got settled, sort of. As I shared quite a bit on this podcast and newsletters at the end of last year, I was and still am very much grieved by world affairs and even more so by the backlash of antisemitism. The unexpected silence and positioning of many academic institutions The fact that my daughter was and still is being harassed on her college campus with complete impunity.
The realization that I lost the favor of people in my life and the loss of one dear person in particular with whom I was deeply connected on account of the fortunate events in the Middle East rocked my sense of belonging to its core. And let me tell you, that is a deeply lonely feeling. After I allowed myself to be in that space for a few months, I decided to double down on what I know to be true. My work, my book, my keynote speeches, my workshops are all deeply rooted in our shared humanity. I often talk about self-compassion practices as a means for habit change. something I teach to my patients who seek my expertise as a weight loss expert. Self-compassion is in part based on the idea that we are never alone, especially in those times of imperfection. When we are faced with our limitations, we feel alone. We feel like we are the only ones, when in fact, limitations and imperfections are an essential part of the human experience.
We cultivate compassion for ourselves when we recognize our shared humanity. In recent months, I have also dug deep into mind-body practices. After being trained in the techniques myself, I shared these practices with patients, with doctors, with my kids, with family. Just this week, I shared these practices at a fundraising event I held for women at my daughter's elementary school. And I'm co-facilitating a group of diverse female leaders from across the country with multi-faith backgrounds in hopes to reinforce my belief that despite our differences, we are all the same. And with the knowing that if we can get Muslims and Jews together on the heart level in this group, the effect of that union will ripple out into the world around us. But today, today I woke up with the crushing feeling of non-belonging. In this moment, I do not feel like I belong. I cannot feel a sense of shared humanity. And I feel utterly exhausted by my desire to make it be so. As I do all the work I do with total heart and soul and true conviction, In this moment, I feel like none of it matters and nobody cares.
Perhaps this is TMI, and perhaps I should end with a positive note, as I always try to do on this podcast, sharing the information with an actionable and hopefully motivating and inspiring bite. but not today.
Today, I'm just going to allow myself to be there. I remind myself that I can feel the difficult emotions, I can tolerate them, however painful they may feel, and I will not break. And so, if you're feeling this right now, on the heels of our ever and annoyingly effusive Valentine's Day, If you're feeling lonely and like you do not belong, if you're divorced or just experienced a breakup on this Valentine's Day, or if you have the best partner in the world, but you're disconnected from your friend group, or if you dismiss the need for platonic friendships in the service of your work or your parenting or caretaking, or if your sense of belonging has been challenged in recent days and months. Know that you too can be with your emotions. You will not break and you are not alone.
I guess there it is. There is our shared humanity right there. Sending you so much love. I hope you have a great week and I'll see you here again next week on Health Byte. Until then.