Let’s talk a little bit about loneliness.

 
We live in this world where we’re super “connected.” People are staring at their phones all day long, but I think that we’re truly lonelier than ever. We may feel more connected, but we actually experience less connection. So I want to address this idea of loneliness, and give you some tips to feel more connected with the people that you love, your friends, coworkers, and anyone else.
Tip one: look up, look around, put down your screen, make eye contact with strangers, and smile, especially if you’re dating, especially if you’re single. If you want to find somebody, look up. You can’t connect with people if you’re not noticing them and seeing them.
Tip two: don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides. When we’re all in the social media world, we’re only seeing what people are putting up, and it’s all filtered. You have no idea how much makeup people have on and how long it took to do the hair. That is not what we look like in reality. It is not our reality. And what we do is we compare our insides and our inner experience to people’s outer experience, and then we feel bad. So it’s really important, not only to stop comparing, but if you’re going to compare, to do it accurately, and realize that you have no idea if a person on social media is fighting with their husband at night, or how they feel when they wake up in the morning, and how much makeup they put on for that picture. You have no idea. One of the blessings of being a therapist is that I do. I hear all the stories all day long of what goes on behind the scenes, and nobody is what they appear on social media. Zero. What you see on social media is just one small part.
Tip three: call not text. So important. If you have something that you want to say to somebody that includes feelings, do not text it. Pick up the phone, call, and check how they’ve been doing. Just because you see them on social media doesn’t mean you really have a clue.