The loneliness nobody talks about
You don’t have to be alone to feel lonely.
Some of the loneliest people are surrounded by others. Whether married, with kids, active on social media or in a busy workplace. And still, underneath all of it, there is a quiet ache – a sense of going through the motions while something essential remains untouched.
Loneliness is the gap between the connection you long for and the lack of connection you actually experience. And that gap can exist even in a “full” life, even in a long marriage, even in a room full of people who care about you.
It’s also worth being clear about what loneliness isn’t. It’s not solitude – that quiet, chosen aloneness that many of us find restorative. And it’s not isolation, which is a circumstance imposed from the outside. Loneliness is a subjective, internal experience of disconnection that has everything to do with how you feel and very little to do with how things look from the outside.
Loneliness, Shame, and what they’re really telling you
The research backs what we see in this work every day: connection is essential to survival and recovery. But before we can truly connect with others, we need to learn to connect with ourselves – our emotions, our body, our soul.
Loneliness is a symptom of Shame. Shame says: there is something fundamentally wrong with me. I am defective. Unworthy. Unlovable. And from that place, connection becomes terrifying. So I hold back. I manage the impression. And in doing so, I stay hidden – even in plain sight.
Some part of you knows this isn’t working. That’s why you’re here.
Importantly, loneliness is not a weakness. It’s a signal, one that asks you to stop performing and start getting honest about what you actually need.
The costs of loneliness are undeniable
Researchers have described loneliness as a public health epidemic. It’s jaw-dropping… chronic loneliness is associated with significantly elevated risks of heart disease, cancer, immune dysfunction, and cognitive decline. And get this, people who report feeling chronically lonely are more than twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s than those who don’t [2].
Loneliness and Depression are closely linked – but they’re not the same thing. Loneliness carries a specific sense of personal threat – the feeling that no one is coming – and that’s what makes it so physically damaging.[2]
“Loneliness is Shame’s most faithful companion. Both whisper the same lie: I am not enough to be truly known. Our work together pulls that belief out at the root.”
— Becca Williams
What the Emotional Liberation work does with loneliness
Loneliness cannot be resolved by simply getting out more. Its wounding goes deep – and it needs to be met at the level where it actually lives.
In the Emotional Liberation work, we start with the thinking brain – understanding what loneliness is, where it came from, and what it has been protecting you from. Most people who experience chronic loneliness were shaped by it early – in homes or relationships where opening up led to pain, rejection, or being used. That belief took root long before you could question it. And it has been running ever since.
That understanding alone – seeing the wound as a survival adaptation rather than a personal failing – begins to shift the story you’ve been carrying.
Then comes our experiential work: psycho-spiritual inquiry, expressive movement, breath, and sound – the tools that drop you into your deep inner knowing, beneath whatever story the mind has constructed about your unworthiness – the voice that says you don’t belong.
During the ten years I’ve been teaching Emotional Liberation, I have found that doing this work in community supports potent healing. People who feel desperately lonely often discover, in a group setting, that they are not alone in their aloneness – and that recognition is a healing force of its own.
Plant medicine and loneliness
Intriguingly, there is an emerging body of research connecting the endocannabinoid system to how we regulate social connection and respond to loss. This is the body’s own internal cannabinoid network – regulating mood, stress response, and how we bond with others.
Recent research finds that in people navigating bereavement and loneliness, a well-functioning endocannabinoid system is associated with better adaptation and resilience. This is one of the reasons cannabis, used with clear intention and skilled support in a ceremonial context, can be a meaningful ally in our emotional release work.[3]
In our work together, the judicious use of cannabis can take the edge off the Shame that makes closeness feel dangerous. It can lower the hypervigilance that keeps you scanning for rejection in every interaction. In the right setting, with the right support, it can make it safe enough for what’s been buried – the longing, the grief, the tenderness – to finally surface.
As well, psilocybin, in therapeutic research, has consistently produced what participants describe as a sense of unity and connection – a felt experience of not being separate. For people who have lived with chronic disconnection, that experience can be profoundly reorienting.
Plant medicine is always optional in this work. When it is included, dosing, contraindications, preparation, and integration are all part of what we cover together. You go in fully prepared.
Where healing meets real life
As the Shame underneath the loneliness begins to move, the way you show up in relationships changes. The constant bracing for rejection starts to ease. The capacity to be genuinely known – rather than carefully managed – becomes more available.
This doesn’t happen overnight. This shift is gradual. The people in your life still expect the old version of you – even as something fundamental is shifting inside you. This is what we call the shaken snowglobe. You’re changing on the inside. But the outside hasn’t caught up yet. That gap – between who you’re becoming and the world that still expects the old version of you – can feel destabilizing.
We work on that too. How to begin showing up more honestly in the relationships you already have. How to let yourself be seen in small ways before the big ones.
Emotional Liberation harmonizes with your needs, whether loneliness is something you’ve struggled with your whole life or something that crept in more recently. Either way, you don’t navigate it alone.
My group masterclasses, trainings, retreats, and ceremonial gatherings create a dynamic that accelerates this healing. When people do this work together, witnessing and being witnessed is its own powerful medicine. Teachers and facilitators often find this work particularly valuable – understanding disconnection in yourself makes you more effective in holding space for others.
What the research says
The health consequences of chronic loneliness are now well documented. A landmark nine-year longitudinal study found that people with the fewest social ties were significantly more likely to die from heart disease and from all causes combined — even controlling for age, income, and other risk factors.[1]
Loneliness is also now understood to be distinct from Depression, with its own specific physiological mechanisms. The particular sense of personal threat that loneliness carries — the collapse of the social scaffold — appears to be what drives its outsized impact on physical health, cognitive decline, and immune function.[2]
And emerging research on the endocannabinoid system suggests a direct link between cannabinoid signaling and the capacity to adapt to social loss and bereavement — pointing toward a biological mechanism for the role cannabis can play.[3]
Sources
- Berkman, L. F., & Syme, S. L. (1979). Social networks, host resistance, and mortality: A nine-year follow-up study of Alameda County residents. American Journal of Epidemiology, 109(2), 186-204. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a112674
- Cacioppo, J. T., & Hawkley, L. C. (2010). Loneliness matters: A theoretical and empirical review of consequences and mechanisms. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 40(2), 218-227. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-010-9210-8
- Kang, M., Bohorquez-Montoya, L., McAuliffe, T., Claesges, S. A., Blair, N., Sauber, G., Reynolds, C. F., Hillard, C. J., & Goveas, J. S. (2021). Loneliness, circulating endocannabinoid concentrations, and grief trajectories in bereaved older adults. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, 783187. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.783187
