How to Cure Loneliness with Community

If Covid’s taught us anything, it may be that our need for community is more real than we ever realized. It’s accentuated how isolated we’ve felt. With our busy slowed, we’ve felt all the emotions that had been easier to ignore. Current times have shifted our priorities, and perhaps pushed connecting with other people much higher than on our pre-Covid lists. Yet while we know more surely our need to be connected and known, we may feel a little lost with how to get there. If it is possible to cure our loneliness with community, we want to know how.

Renowned research professor and three-time New York Times best-selling author Brené Brown addressed the social disconnection we feel in a Forbes interview. This is what she shared:

We’ve sorted ourselves into factions based on our politics and ideology. We’ve turned away from one another and toward blame and rage. We’re lonely and untethered. And scared. Any answer to the question “How did we get here?” is certain to be complex. But if I had to identify one core variable that magnifies our compulsion to sort ourselves into factions while at the same time cutting ourselves off from real connection with other people, my answer would be fear. Fear of vulnerability. Fear of getting hurt. Fear of the pain of disconnection. Fear of criticism and failure. Fear of conflict. Fear of not measuring up.

Fractured society reflects the fractures we each feel within when we live, day after day, feeling alone even when we are surrounded with people.

I know how it feels to be a by-stander to community—to be drawn to the closeness but not enveloped in it. I’ve let the fear of vulnerability stand in my way, barricading me from community. I’ve traded connection for security, wrapped my authenticity beneath layers of having-to-keep-it-all-together. But shutting others out also shuts me inside, I’ve discovered the hard way. Perhaps you have as well.

Perhaps, like me, you’re sick of feeling lonely. You want a cure for loneliness that is doable.

Even with your messy, imperfect life.

Even with Covid-19 still lingering.

Because now more than ever, we need people. Not just people to be near us, but people actually in our lives. People we can talk with, even if it has to be from 6 feet away. People to share the struggles and the questions and the joys of the things that matter to us. People who really know us, have our back, and can encourage us to be the best versions of ourselves.

Needing people doesn’t make us weak, it makes us human. As Karen Young, founder of Hey Sigmund: Where the Science of Psychology Meets the Art of Being Human, explains, “Vulnerability is the driving force of connection. It’s brave. It’s tender. It’s impossible to connect without it. But we’ve turned it into a weakness.” You can read her full article, “Vulnerability: The Key to Close Relationships,” here. We need a way to reframe the tender openness that allows us to form authentic community. When we dismiss it as less-than-the-best or something to be feared, we stay stuck. Isolated. And lonely.

Living open is not my default, so it takes both intentionality and practice to engage in soul-deep friendships. The insights I will share have been gleaned from my own imperfect efforts to push against my grain and lean into community.

While community engagement is visible externally, what holds us back often is something internal, so here is where we will start. The first three action steps we will cover invite us to address the internal factors that close us off from community. The fourth and final point will move us beyond the internal heart work with an outwardly visible action step. Together, these steps will take us full circle in finding a cure for our loneliness.

1. Name the Fear

Fear can be difficult to pin down because the way we react is not the same as why we’ve responded that way. Assigning a name to our fear challenges us to dig into the thing down beneath the thing.

Brene Brown listed out many fears that keep us from connecting with others. I’ll list them again here: “Fear of vulnerability. Fear of getting hurt. Fear of the pain of disconnection. Fear of criticism and failure. Fear of conflict. Fear of not measuring up.”

Was there one that hit home for you? I encourage you to spend a few moments, just you and God, digging deep into your reasons for the way you hold back from connection with others.

2. Identify the Mistruth

After we’ve named the fear, our next step is to identify the mistruths attached to that fear that have been shaping our way of living. Beneath the fear of failure, for example, we might find we’ve been believing statements like “It’s all up to me,” “failure is ultimate,” or “I am a failure.” Mistruths often declare our identity to be different than the one procured for us through Christ’s sacrifice. They also cause us to seek the spotlight instead of shining it on God.

I encourage you to write down any mistruths that come to the surface as you converse with God. There is something about simply acknowledging them that begins to deflate their power over us. Keep your list close as we aren’t finished.

3. Declare the Truth

We’ve named our core fear keeping us from community, then identified mistruths we’ve been believing that are attached to that fear. Our next step is to now declare truth we know from the gospel to replace the mistruths.

Per the words of Tim Chester, “The root of all our behavior and emotions is the heart, what it trusts and what it treasures.” When what I am believing does not line up with what I know to be true of God, it leads to fear and disconnects me from community. Yet declaring truths promised us by God himself through his Word sets us free from fear.

Talking about fear, I’ve shared that a big one for me as been the fear of vulnerability. Underneath that fear are the untruths that if I show the true me, I will make a wave in the peace. I will let others down. And I will be met with rejection instead of acceptance.

Knowing that God defines my worth releases my need to control how others perceive me. “To see yourself the way God sees you is the first step in being brave,” penned Anne F. Downs in Let’s All Be Brave.

So here is your third action step: Beside each untruth you’ve listed write a truth from scripture. Joyce Meyer has a fantastic collection of verses that speak to our true identity. I encourage you to check out her article,“Knowing Who I Am in Christ.”

These first three action steps are ones we take in the quiet place. They are between God and us. While it may seem counter-intuitive to begin here when the goal is to cure our loneliness through community, I assure you they are vital. When we try to fix what is on the outside without first addressing the root, we are simply putting a band-aid on when what we really need is heart surgery.

As mission-minded people, we are learning to live from the overflow of what is inside us. Yet what is inside doesn’t stay bottled up within us. That’s why we have one final action step to take.

4. Go First

The words often attributed to Ghandi have been one of my favorite motivational sayings: “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” It’s a call to take responsibility, to put what we believe into action. We are sick of feeling disconnected and have within reach the cure for our loneliness. Yet sometimes we are part of the answer to our own prayers.

It may be that your neighbors are just as lonely as you are, and they are waiting for someone else to take the first step.

Until now, you may have believed you are not capable of going first. When you find yourself picking up the same pattern of thinking again, return to your list and soak in the truth of who God is and who you are. Then, with your hand in his, begin walking towards authenticity and connection.

You first step towards building community in your neighborhood doesn’t have to look glittery and impressive. Conversely, the quiet and sincere may be far more effective. I encourage you to continue on your conversation with God by asking him to bring to mind one small baby step you can take to connect with one of your neighbors. Then let him guide you as you walk it out.

May I pray for you as we close?

Jesus, nothing within us is hidden from you. You see our fears and our longings, our misplaced beliefs and our loneliness. You alone can heal the fissures in our hearts and the fractures in our communities. Would you remind us of truth when we fail to see it? Please guide our every step as we cure our loneliness through building community right in our own neighborhoods.

P.S. Did you know that The Uncommon Normal is also available as a podcast? Tune in to Apple Podcasts or Spotify to listen!