Empty Calories

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Last night at a networking event, I felt the silly and pathetic compulsion to stand up, grab the microphone and announce that I was tremendously lonely and sad.  Since I couldn’t summon the emotional energy to continue networking, I went home and probably missed out on making some valuable connections. Anyway, I hate the dreadful feeling of loneliness and its many harmful impacts on my work and home life. Typically, I end up blaming my wife for feeling lonely, (and she certainly does play a role in it),  but I’m starting to think that the digital time I spend on surrogate connections exacerbates the core issues of not having enough intimacy and “me” time in my life.

I’ve often resorted to social media to feel connected when I start feeling lonely, but we all know that it only helps in the short-term and like empty calories and energy from junk food, it leaves me feeling more drained than I did prior. 

A quick look around the web for loneliness solutions surfaces the usual help others, do something good for yourself advice. Nothing wrong with that, but it would be nice to get right at the triggers of the loneliness feeling with steps to reverse it. I am gathering that loneliness, like a bad career, low income/savings, poor social life, being overweight is attributable to bad habits that create and foster a kind of disconnect from intimacy and probably reality. There is no place in the mind that is more comforting than true friendship with oneself, family and cohorts.

So, after shunning empty calories for a month or so, then sliding back into old habits, maybe it’s time to give up on them for good. Even though it makes me a bit anxious to avoid digital and cerebral habits  - b/c let’s face it, the only reason why you indulge in empty calories is how fun it is -I do feel so much worse for having indulged.

So, why do I continue the cycle of indulge-deny-indulge?

I think it follows a similar cycle of denying my needs in the name of something like adhering to a painful set of beliefs, like:

• -       I’ll never be happy; I am a piece of shit; no one likes me
• -       My wife doesn’t love me; she’ll never love me; she’s not capable of loving me
• -       I have to work despite my disagreement with the path forward; despite the fact that I am sick / exhausted

Those are some pretty painful thoughts and so I check out into my little fantasy world vs. deconstructing them to find a better way forward. The other problem is that I CHRONICALLY deny my feelings, hunches, thoughts about what I need.

According to one of the sites I just looked at, Loneliness can stem from more obvious triggers (i.e. lack of friends, lack of sleep, lack of intimacy) but it can also be triggered from a lack of connection with oneself. That was maybe the 1000^th time I needed to hear that message because it finally landed with me.

In my youth, every time I felt lonely, I’d fill it up with entertainment, women, booze. I equated loneliness with a lack of having love in my life. I’d look at people in love or desirable women and think “that’ll never happen for me.”  Also very painful.

Throughout my marriage, I have depended greatly on my wife to heal my loneliness, but that was totally counter productive. I came across as very needy (which I was) and also judgmental (which I was) and not giving her a lot to react to (also true). Those traits have been assigned to me in the past by others as well. I remember an executive coach that said I spent too much energy seeking approval. Employees has said I took things too personally.

Sensing this – or hearing it directly – I then typically apply my repressive thinking (noted above) and sink into some kind of depression. Depression for me, seems like a way my sub-conscious to DEMAND I pay attention to myself. I sink as deeply as I can and then somehow, come out of it – usually because I’ve created such an overwhelming crisis from procrastination.

A lot of this cycle makes me into a needy mope filled with a fair amount of self pity and self-contempt.  I just want someone to come and fill me up. No one is that saintly to provide such emotional fulfillment without wanting as much or more in return. We’re all busy and it’s very common to simply say to others “dude, take care of your own problems.”

As a result of all this emotional drain, lack of interest in being good to myself deepens. And the cycle repeats.  

I think breaking the cycle has to do with having an ongoing, loving relationship with myself. Prioritizing workouts, good food, companionship as I can get it, helping others as appropriate, and staying away from empty calories. LISTENING and mindfulness are very important, too.

I suspect it may be just that simple, but I also suspect that there are a few other tactics / techniques to be aware of. I haven’t quite internalized anything yet.

My latest bout of loneliness comes in a very predictable way. Looking at my daily drill, I see a substantial fall-off starting about 3-4 weeks ago in overall productivity. Critical things like sleep and exercise became crucially bad. The combination of having too much to do and being totally physically exhausted led me to feel overwhelmed. This finally created a wake up call for me to do what was needed to solve the issue: ratchet down my workload and prioritize naps and workouts.

So, I’m on the mend a bit and very interested in tackling my neediness and essentially (maybe) trying to get to a place where I don’t expect my wife to care AND still having emotional bandwidth to be sweet to her.

I have to say that while that approach does indeed feel like the way forward for now, it is very daunting just to think about NOT shutting her off. I have spent a great deal of energy over the years getting her out of my heart. She’s not all the way out yet, but it’s close. If I met someone, I could see it being the end of my marriage. Truly.