Regaining Self-Acceptance

As millions of Americans embrace the holiday season, it also becomes evident that the prevalence of loneliness seems to become acute among young adults. You can read more about the loneliness epidemic here. Key experts and healthcare leaders gathered together in our nation’s capital to address this growing epidemic, and you can watch it here. 19th Surgeon General Vivek Murthy cited that Americans are “facing an epidemic of loneliness and social isolation.” British Prime Minister Theresa May appointed a “minister of loneliness” to navigate the United Kingdom’s feelings of isolation within their school system and put a dent on its epidemic in the classrooms and initiated the Campaign to End Loneliness across the UK.

Loneliness-prevention education has taken historic roots as far back as 1976 with forms of education for high school students to foster, develop, and maintain healthy relationships, decrease social isolation, and develop multiple perspectives for greater civic engagement. Part of the ongoing strategy within social education has been to assist a child in reframing a negative response to social situations. Teaching social skills for future generations that grow and develop into socially connected and empathetic individuals will always continue to be a work in progress. 

The Nuances of Loneliness

Part of what contributes to social isolation and an ongoing internalized sense of loneliness is rejection. Classic studies from the research literature continue to indicate that various forms of perceived social rejection inevitably lead to ingratiation, a form of social behavior in which the individual acts in a likable manner to curry the targeted individual’s favor and gain a persuasive advantage.

Examples of ingratiating behaviors include a transfer student at a new school that holds the door open for peers, acting in a self-presentable and likable manner for other students to want to get to know him based on his act of kindness, and eventually be received into a group of friends. Campaigning politicians will ingratiate themselves on the campaign trail by complimenting the surrounding region and its residents to acquire more votes at the ballot. Ingratiating behaviors are forms of social behaviors that are demonstrated in order to decrease the sting of rejection. Loneliness and social isolation present an overarching challenge within the Big Five Traits of Personality (i.e. openness, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism): how do you act in a way that you attract others in conversation?

Emotions indicate to us as well as others what we want and need and trigger key actions, especially in relational responses. When situations arise that lead to either frustration or satisfaction of needs and goals, emotions are seen to be at play. The emotional reality of rejection, as a powerful force within societal loneliness, demands a restructuring, reclassification, and reorganizing of former experiences into a new set of corrective emotional experiences. You can read more about emotional regulation here. The emotional experience of rejection leads to social isolation and contributes to the ongoing loneliness epidemic, and those that have bouted feelings of rejection will need a new way of accessing the power to transform how they respond to their inner drama, view themselves, and communicate with others. When rejection, as an emotional experience, is made available for exploration, understanding, and restructuring – conditions for healing can take place in our loneliness epidemic. Rather than being seen as limiting, deficient, and inadequate in the ripple effect of rejection, positive changes can occur when we seek to grow in communication skill sets.

Here are important strategies and considerations during conversations with others:

• Avoid continual complaints about your problems. Researchers term this as “negative egocentrism.” This is another reminder to note that those experiencing forms of emotional suffering enter into complaints primarily to feel better, but this can come at the cost of others distancing themselves from you. Become more aware of how you let down your hair and blow off steam as you sensitively communicate with others around you.
• Many people enjoy talking about themselves and ultimately feel good when asked questions. Show interest with follow-up questions that promote greater connection with the other individual’s story, perspective, and/or experience. Asking follow-up questions can be a behavioral demonstration that you are listening and want to learn more.
• Psychologist Barbara Greenberg highlights that people must look for contextual clues to note when a conversation can get stale and possess the skill to quickly change the topic when cued with loss of interest and a conversation lull. Shifting topics more quickly will elicit a more enjoyable and robust sense of dialogue, and it will also provide a sense of relief if the conversation has already stagnated.
• Demonstrate your interest with an engaged and fully present body language that navigates other distractions to focus on the speaker through a smile, nod, and/or eye contact that conveys your physical posture of active and empathic listening.
• Results have been published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General about how vulnerability can breed a sense of interconnectedness when others hear about your personal and challenging moments, and this sharing can provide relief and comfort to bring others out of a sense of aloneness.
• We are by nature story-telling beings. Share stories that can be relatable, entertaining, and add humor such that others in conversation can add details or their own anecdotes to the story-telling experience of the conversation.

The holiday season can cause us to look deeper into our lives and see the woundedness. Author Karl Rahner stated, “We must live with the insufficiency of all things and realize in the end that all the symphonies of life remain unfinished.” Our current landscape of loneliness invites us to understand and move past the multi-layered and multi-dimensional aspects of shame to pursue connections with others.