Loneliness Is Not a Failing, It's a Signal

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]In an overdigitized world, how do we find our way back to ourselves and to one another? You are not going to want to miss a riveting conversation that Tani and I had with Lauren Vitic. In it, we learn about Lauren's research that explores a central question in an overdigitized world. How do we find our way back to ourselves and to one another? It's an exploration of human connection, loneliness, and belonging.

[00:00:26]We especially loved how Lauren emphasizes play, rest, and meaningful environments to help shape a life of connection and purpose. Stick around.

[00:00:37]This is a really good one.

[00:00:40]It's a really big global day here. We've got Lauren in Bali. We've got Tani in London. And I'm in California. And excited to greet you all and especially to meet you, Lauren, uh, and to hear what's going on. But I'm gonna ask Tihani to take us into the conversation.

[00:00:56]So Tahhani. Yes.

[00:00:58]>> Yeah. It's beautiful to be here with both of you can feel connected to ourselves but we lose connection with other people sometimes that we get so connected to other people or serving our community or trying to show up as an activist that we actually lose that connection with ourselves. So, I thought that today's conversation would be beautiful because Kathy, in your latest book, Boundless, where you really talk about your noisy spirit, says this, you know, way to listen to your own inner compass. I I have always loved so much that you talk about the journey of being a fact-based journalist who is very very adamant about having, you know, evidence and proof and reasoning about what you discussed, what you shared. But then that life also took you on a journey that brought you into more of the emotional and the spiritual and the the unseen inexplicable world. And when I met Lauren, I was so excited to meet someone who is so steeped in data and research and gathering evidence, but who also lives a very embodied emotional spiritual life. So I thought that it would be a beautiful thing to have a conversation about how that is exactly the intersection that we're kind of at right now with loneliness and connection. How do we use whatever data, research, science practices, tools, tips that we can to anchor ourselves and to connect with each other, but to also embrace the mystery, the ups, the downs, the highs, the lows, the inbetweens that sometimes have no research or, you know, no logical thing that we can follow that's a little bit more just the kind of the magic and the the beauty and the craziness of life. I was so grateful when the surgeon general of the United States talked about loneliness and he actually wrote a book which really moved me greatly. Are have you tapped into his thoughts or have you ever had the privilege of meeting him or Murthy is brilliant. He was the first to come through and to really see during the middle of the pandemic that loneliness is more than just a feeling. It's more than just an experience. It is a scientific it's an intersection of you know the word emotion if we look at it is literally energy and motion right emotion and so when we look at these emotions that are working through us each day as we walk through this world they show up in the body in different ways and VC Murthy was the first to really point that out with loneliness as it relates to the fact that it equates to f to smoking 15 pack of cigarettes per day just to be lonely. And we see it so prevalently in this world that we live in. We need to fact check that, by the way. I need to make sure it's 15, but I do know I'll get that number for you. Um, but it's incredibly high and and the other scientific places that it points in terms of blood pressure, in terms of cholesterol, in terms of all of these things we can scientifically explain away. What were your what was your take on Bec Murphy's work? Where did you first find it?

[00:03:58]>> I was just so moved to read about him and he seemed like such a human being and in this world of insanity around medical process and vaccinations and all the things that are riing up people. I feel that he was going to the essence of of humanity which is just our connection or lack thereof uh with one another. and I bought his book and I read his book and I was just deeply moved. I'm working myself on a project for little kids and it's really the focus of it is trying to get kids to see from me to we, you know, that that we're part of a bigger and that when we come together, we're way more effective than when we're all by ourselves. So, he just has has moved me greatly. But how did you get into the study of loneliness in the first place?

[00:04:47]That kind of unusual. So the short version is I have always been an entrepreneur. I've always worked on different projects. I've also always been an artist. I think that in this world the word entrepreneur is a much easier way to digest a lot of artists, people that are creating things. And growing up I had always looked been you know I was sitting in board meetings when I was in college. I had always looked towards that big project that big thing that was going to be the big success in my life whatever it may be.

[00:05:17]Well it came when I was 30. The company that I helped to start in 2015 was purchased by a large bank in America.

[00:05:24]And when it happened, I got all of the accomplishment, everything that materially I thought I could want. And I had the partner, the golden retriever, the life, and was miserable. Not miserable. I loved my life, but there was this haunting sense that like certainly it should be more than this.

[00:05:44]And so I got what I call the gift of a midlife crisis at the age of 30 because I started to look at, you know, what and why is it that we're here? And what and why is it that in the modern world we see ourselves pushing towards success, a claim, more cars, more things, you know, more more. And what I found was the core of it was loneliness.

[00:06:10]The core of it is this inner self of who am I? And that is the most lonely question that exists, but it's also the most beautiful one. And so I became fascinated by this notion of wait, is loneliness really that bad of a thing? Is loneliness really something that is a cage that encompasses us or is it a tool that can be utilized? And I want to take it back if it's all right with you Kathy for a minute just to Tahan's opening to Hani.

[00:06:44]I think that you nailed so many key pieces of this body of work and this research of what I've spent the past four to five years devoting my life to which is to say the way that I've defined loneliness is the fear of being alone.

[00:07:00]There are two core definitions of the way that we look at loneliness. One is the ache of being unseen or unheard by those around us.

[00:07:14]The second is the ache of being disconnected from the self.

[00:07:20]And when we look at these two things, we see the requirement. Loneliness has this really interesting and beautiful aspect to it which is that we feel exiled from something and so we're able to see it more clearly and we can see the requirements of the things that we need in our life which is to be seen, known and valued by the people in our lives and connected to our sense of self. And so when we can see these two pathways, we can see the world in so much more of a beautiful way and we can start to ask the questions that bring us into those essential nutrients that we need for our lives to feel whole again and find connection. We need to be connected to ourselves and we need to be connected to others in all these many ways. And so when we look at these pieces of the landscape, we then have to take a step back and look at what is it that's influencing us to be lonely? Where are we feeling unseen and unknown? You know, where are we not finding that authentic connection with the people in our lives, which is which where majority of my work went taking a look at our overdigitized world.

[00:08:26]>> We're hearing the roosters. You're in Bali and I would imagine it's very difficult for people to feel lonely in Bali. And I say that because I lived in Kenya as did Tihani for many years. And it's very hard in a communal community environment to feel lonely except I was in a marriage where no fault of him but I felt more lonely than I would be if I were alone you know and that's so there are two different kinds of lonely there maybe the the lonely that you feel if you're all by yourself and the lone Yeah. There are two different kinds of lonely.

[00:09:03]>> Yeah. And this is I what I love so much about what you just said, Kathy, and how it connects even more to more of what you'll find out about Lauren's life as well is that in her data and research, she ended up living in different places, including places in Africa, studying community and and and true tribal community connection that was still alive. And actually your comment about Bali, what I love so much is the way that Lauren and I met was I was singing at a place in Bali that is very much known for creative community. It's like a central hub of creative community. All of the most incredible artists from all over the world come in and out of that place. And it's also held by a local community of Indonesian artists who are absolutely just talented and beautiful.

[00:09:51]And we were all singing there as we often do. and Lauren approached me and was just talking about the emotion and energy of that was coming through my throat and we just were talking about music and sound and then within moments somehow we ended up talking about how she had traveled studying loneliness, connection, belonging and kindness and I said I just created you because I am working on a project that is all about loneliness, connection, belonging and kindness and I have been saying I need my Bnee Brown of loneliness and you just walked up to me but it wasn't because I went and looked for her on LinkedIn or I was, you know, putting out, you know, entrepreneurial networking flyers or whatever it was. It was I was actually being in this experience of connection and belonging with myself because that's what my art and my music does. It's the connection with myself and then it's also the experience of feeling seen and heard in a way that allows me to feel that I'm also seeing and hearing others.

[00:10:47]So what I love about what you said is I think there actually are probably a lot of people who can come to places like Bali, live in Africa, whatever it is, and still feel immensely lonely because of that. You know, wherever you go, there you are. And if you haven't actually looked at that, you know, sort of two-fold, okay, I might feel connected to my community, but I feel lonely in my relationship or I feel lonely in myself. And if you're not living at that balance, then you're always going to find some sort of void of loneliness. and and what I love so much and Lauren, I'd love for you to speak a little bit about this, but you know, she said that loneliness actually can be the door through which you walk into your wholeness. And that made me so excited because I would love to share some things about that. I know Kathy would because so much of your life, Kathy, has been about walking through immense devastation, trauma, pain, fear, loneliness, grieving into the next most whole expression of yourself. But Lauren, please will you share a little bit about that before we add some of our experiences too?

[00:11:46]>> Sure. And you actually just hit a point that I want to wrap at the very end, but I'm going to put a little star on that.

[00:11:52]Yeah. You know, every single ancient wisdom tradition, and this was something that you started, there were two thoughts that I had when you started the intro. One was the piece on the two definitions of loneliness. The second was this, which is that we can take all of the science, all of the data. Kathy, you asked where this body of work came from. It came from feeling. I'm a highly sensitive person. It came from my own personal experience. And then again, in the modern world, we digest things when we have science, data, things that are easy for us to understand. Um, it helps us put language to experience, right?

[00:12:28]But science and data can only go so far before it has to return us to our humanity. If we can't walk through this world in our humanity, in our own feeling body, our own understanding of who we are, it means nothing.

[00:12:44]And to me, that's the definition of integration, right? We can take all these pieces, but we have to come into integration. Tahani and I sat last week and we chatted about this, which I believe is why she's prompting a bit of this, but every single ancient wisdom tradition, and this can't be backed by science, this can't be backed by anything except for walking through the world in our own humanity, has some form of teaching us how to walk the lonely path, the threshold of the unseen path.

[00:13:11]You know, Dante in the inferno starts with I need to look up my Italian again, but it translates directly through to in the dark way. I mean, in the midst of my life, I found myself in a dark wood. And we all come to these points where we're asked, for some people it can be um a divorce. For some people it can be the loss of a child. For some people it can be just this moment in the middle of their day where they're feeling so helpless and meaningless. But they're going through their work and their routines and they're just kind of slogging through where all of the sudden they say, you know, I just I don't know. I don't know anymore. And when we are allowed to say I don't know is kind of like that first horizon when we allow ourselves to say like that's that threshold where we're like oh gosh okay I don't know and I have to keep going and I have to start asking these questions. And so loneliness being this throughway this door into understanding who we are is because no one else can tell us who we are. No one else has been through the experiences we've been through. No one else knows the desires that are in our heart. No one else knows all of these different pieces of us. And we have to ask those questions. But this beautiful thing happens when we start to do that.

[00:14:41]Once we start to ask these questions and get really comfortable with finding the answers in our own darkness, in our own inner state that has no one else in it, in our own loneliness, in our own aloneeness, we build resilience. And that's where we get to know ourselves you know >> you know you're you're reminding me of Shakti go I don't know this was very much a person of the 80s 90s and when I was going through my very dark night of a soul and having left a husband and later when uh my son was killed I read live it's called living in the light her first book was living in the light and her second was was creative visualization but Shakti talks about that dark night and and so almost like falling through a trap door and you're just like without any bearings and you're you're so lost and you think you've come to the bottom and you land with a hard th you know just crushing thud but then you realize that there's more there's there's a deeper place to go and it's in that deeper very lonely place that you do discover if you can bear it you know if you can bear to go on that journey you discover that I think resilience that courage that strength that we need to be able to after everything's broken down or broken open or whatever, cracked open to put the pieces back together and probably in a whole different way. And I think I'd be really interested to know how you put the pieces back because I just am going through a challenge with with a my my daughter right now who's just had a very major surgery and she's pretty broken and she's anxious in ways that I've never seen at all. and and we are having deep conversations. What what would you say? How do you put those pieces back together? Oh, and and by the way, I want to know the meaning of life, too.

[00:16:30]>> I would turn the question right back to you. You've been through so much. To understand where did you put the pieces back together?

[00:16:37]>> The first is tactical, which is we have to get our feet on the ground.

[00:16:44]We have to take the one cimeter step that feels right. That's it.

[00:16:51]Today I'm going to sit in Pimatron has this quote that says if you can sit with your own hot loneliness for 1.6 seconds today where yesterday you were only able to sit with it for one second that's the path of the warrior. And when we're broken and when we're in these places and I don't think that we're ever broken. I think that just our vision of what we can see and what we've ever known has broken. So we're able to find the new re regrowth and rebuild that we want. One of my favorite pieces of etmology and Tahani and I talked about this last week. Did you know that the word crisis, the origin of the word crisis in its original Greek means to sift?

[00:17:37]So when we go through a crisis, we're actually sifting through what previously existed to find what remains. But we have to find these tactical just really small things to build into life, what I call life design. You know, we can look at the life that we once knew and what we had and then we can look at the life that we we might not even be able to see the life that we want, but we have to look at I'm going to drink some water.

[00:18:04]I'm going to sleep as best as I can. I'm going to surround myself with people who are healthy. Yeah, exactly. Can we all um I'm going to surround myself with people who love me, who make me happy.

[00:18:17]Um or maybe don't make me happy, but make me feel safe and held. You know, starting to surround ourselves with these simple things first. And then we'll find our way to the next layer of that tactical, you know, I'm going to walk outside. I'm going to physically go to my therapist's office. I'm going to get a massage. I'm going to, you know, like take care of my body. All of these things. And then as we start to build those ways up, all of a sudden those broken pieces we don't even want necessarily anymore. You know, they might not fit uh the new order of the way that things look. But when we look at anxiety, there are scientific things that we can do to calm the nervous system, to ground, to get ourselves physically back in it. And I think a lot of yoga, meditation, the people that we love around us, safe psychological spaces. And then of course the second piece of that is this existential question which I'll turn back to you which is like it is the way that we walk through. How have you found your way to walk through your loneliest places? What have been those pieces of nourishment, those pieces of gold that have come out of your crises that you've been offered?

[00:19:25]>> Thank you. Um, today, by the way, the reason I was late to this recording is we did go and get a manicure and a pedicure uh with my daughter and here >> that was r like let's start with the basics and and I and I talked with her a lot about yoga and meditation and all those good things for me >> all those years ago. I was you know you say you were not really broken. I maybe we can say I was broken open but there was a definite element of breakage a lot of lot of like not really whole I w I was not integrated and I did not have integrity there that's such a wonderful word I did every kind of self-help thing that I could think of from rebirththing and I don't know I could I could go back and list them all it was the 80s so we had a lot of different techniques here's one that I particularly liked and that was a mantra And a friend of mine helped me create my mantra because it was the antithesis of everything I felt because I am beautiful. I am radiant. I am loved. I'm woman. I'm peaceful. I'm powerful. I'm prosperous. I'm strong. I'm capable. I'm in control. That's funny. I later in life I changed it to I'm in the flow because there's nothing that I was in control of except maybe you know the ability to be in the flow because I think that's one of the things that if you can get that there's nothing permanent and if we can understand that this two shall pass I had that on my fridge forever and never given never given never never Winston Churchill you know I had them all on my fridge. I recommend that as as a technique, but the mantra for me was really helpful.

[00:21:07]And I would repeat it with tears streaming down my face over and over again, you know, knowing I was none of those things. I was a woman maybe, you know, but everything else was a lie.

[00:21:17]But, you know, it helped because your your brain starts to sort of believe it kind of. Well, and so how interesting something that's coming up for me as you say that is this visual of like because I've been there too where I did not used to believe in mantra at all. I was like why would I say things that I don't believe are true. Um and someone this actually is a very recent practice for me. someone offered did took me through a deep meditative state and we came up with some mantras and I've been practicing them for the past 45 days and so much of what you just described is my experience too where at the beginning it was like I can't resonate with these things they're not mine yet but I'll keep saying them and those tears that you talk about to me are what I see as the sacred yearning these things that we know are like our deep true desires and again can be very lonely when we're like, I see that thing that I want so badly to be true over there, but I don't feel it yet.

[00:22:18]>> I feel lonely in that, right? Like, I see the life off in the horizon that I want, >> but I don't feel it yet. I feel lonely in that. Like, sucks.

[00:22:28]And yet the more we sit with it, the more that we sit with the vision of this knowing that this life exists, the vid the pe and I'm not trying to speak in hippie words. I mean it of the heart of like this thing lives within me. I know it's true even if it's not physically around me yet. Even if I can't see it in my eyes and I'm willing to walk that lonely path to see how true it can be.

[00:22:55]After time all of a sudden it starts to draw into like that is mine.

[00:23:00]>> I am good things right.

[00:23:04]>> Yeah.

[00:23:04]>> Yeah. And we're less love.

[00:23:07]>> I love that. And I I think for me journaling became extremely important.

[00:23:11]And dreams as you were talking I was thinking about it. By the way, I love the phrase the sk uh the soul would have no rainbows if the eyes had no tears.

[00:23:20]The soul would have no rainbows if the eye had no tears. And I'm a big fan of rainbows. But when I think about my past tri just the trials, I dreamed the organization that we is now a global force. It's it's you know like a 100 million people have been touched by certainly not due to me. But I dreamed it and I my dreams during that period were really profoundly important and and I had to write them down and listen to them and and try to make sense of them because it was my subconscious like picking through the debris of the day and trying to make sense of it. I think and also writing over and over again what I wanted, what I knew I was supposed to be doing. And to your point, there was no way in the world that I could really imagine that I could do it.

[00:24:08]But honest to goodness, when I go back to those journals, we really have and the organization that I run is called Creative Visions. So, you're you're you're speaking my language. But I was I was given that in my dream.

[00:24:21]>> What I love so much about you bringing up the story of manifesting, visualizing, creating creative visions after everything else that you both just spoke about is I think it really does exemplify when you asked how do you put the pieces back together? And Lauren, you talked about, you know, there's the tactical practical and then there's again like we were talking in the intro.

[00:24:41]There's there's this mystical sort of inexplicable that comes because you've laid down the tactical practical. I'm taking care of myself. I'm getting the sleep I need. I'm I'm doing just the daily things that I need to do. And earlier Kathy, you talked about um you know essential humanity that that that book had returned you to. And then Lauren, you talked about, you know, just the essence of your humanity that you discover when you're going through these, you know, breaking open experiences around loneliness. And what I love so much is that for me, the antidote to loneliness is trust. And what you're both describing is the art and science of trust. You know, there is an art to learning to trust which does not have an exact science to it, but there is a lot of science to growing the trust muscle of rewiring your brain through mantra, through journaling, through and there of of course data and science to back up all of those things.

[00:25:38]We could geek out on that forever and I'm sure that we will. But I think that ultimately what I love so much is that when I was listening to you both and then I was asking myself that same question of how how does one put the pieces back together again. I really feel that it is moving towards whatever creates in yourself a sense of trust again and it's not just it's like trust in what it's trust in the principle of life itself. So for someone they may turn to religion that may be where they go for someone it may be spirituality for someone it may be quantum science some it's something that allows you to feel this connection and trust to something that is greater that is holding the world in its orbit and suddenly making you feel that you don't have to actually try to control all the pieces that you are not the one who is going to make all the things happen and from that space of even just a little bit more expanded trust. You then can move from that tactical practical I'm taking care of my body to I'm listening to my dreams. Oh, I'm allowing visions to come through. I'm believing in them.

[00:26:47]I'm sharing them with other people. I'm putting those plans into action. And so I think for anybody listening as well, especially now when you say that, you know, crisis is to sift and we are in such a time of global crisis. I think that another massive part of if you're in a breaking open or if you you experience like deep wells of loneliness. I've had a lot of partners both platonically, romantically in business who experience just deep wells of loneliness that can often take a very beautiful life and almost unhinge it because that loneliness just desires to be seen and witnessed and acknowledged.

[00:27:23]And if it's not, it can actually kind of it can devour a very beautiful life.

[00:27:27]Right? So I think for anybody if your crisis is more external like you have family in countries where they're you know stuck in their countries or because of your ethnicity you're being attacked or whatever it is or if your crisis is more internal. I would also offer this question of what am I meant to be sifting right now internally >> because it really does lead you back to this experience of trust where if you can believe the loss of a child or a horror of a violation that happens to your body or whatever it is not to ever say that you deserve it. Yay, I'm so glad this happened. But this has happened. It's here now. What could I possibly be meant to sift through in this moment? It really does become this loneliness door through which you walk that if you can actually feel if there was some mysterious purpose to this grief to this horror to this agony what would the purpose of that sifting be for me and that for me was the reconnection to trust I didn't have God yet source universe nothing I just had this almost like well if it all was for some kind of reason or growth what could that possibly be for and then the rest kind starts to just guide you through the process and that becomes the trust of like oh I didn't even have a logical reason for why that should be true but somehow even being open like Kathy you say just to the spark of hope the spark of the potential of it is what can then pull you in just a little bit another step another step and another step like you were saying Lauren it's just that daily leaning a little bit more into the pain and then into the trust and then seeing where it takes you >> and you used this beautiful word which I've actually never associated but it's it's so true devour you know that loneliness can almost if we don't see it we've used words in this chat like trap door quicksand you know all these quicksands come to my mind multiple times all these things it can devour us if we try to cling to it if we try to hold on to our loneliness it will devour us um it takes us into the darkest place and it keeps us stuck And you know I think of the difference between pain and suffering. Again all these ancient traditions have always said pain will happen. Suffering is a choice. Which is this concept that we could talk about and debate all day long. But what it boils down to is not that suffering doesn't exist. It's just that suffering is when we hold on to our pain. when we hold on to our loneliness without allowing it to devour us and then surface what remains and what we want and what we can learn from it. You know, Tahani, your project, Unbecoming is so much of what you just shared. Can you tell us a little bit more about kind of what came through that for you?

[00:30:20]>> Yeah, absolutely. So, Unbecoming is a project that is underneath the Creative Visions fiscal sponsorship umbrella. And the reason why that's so beautiful and important to me is that it really reiterates for me the the whole purpose of unbecoming is the idea that when we allow ourselves to say I don't know and we get to that horizon of I don't I don't know how I don't know what's next.

[00:30:41]I don't know. And then as we said that actually becomes this beautiful opening for all that's possible.

[00:30:48]Not only do we end up hearing all these success stories of people saying, "I didn't know. I had no idea. I let myself and then here I am and now I've opened that door for all these other people to walk through." And for me, that's Cathy's story. She so many times and especially in the death of Dan reached this I don't know. I don't know. I have no idea. But I am going to lean into this unbecoming which for me is the word of we always think you know this glamorous idea of becoming. We're raised I'm going to become this. What do you want to become when you grow up? What do you I'm going to become. And for me, all of my favorite success stories have actually come from people in the unbecoming. It's an unbecoming time.

[00:31:25]It's not becoming. It's very unbecoming and it's an unbecoming of everything you thought. Oh, I thought the marriage I thought the family I thought I I'm unbecoming. All of it. But then the organization comes through the film comes through the the capacity to hold space for all these other people can come through. So for me, I'm so excited that Unbecoming is underneath creative visions because it is such a testament to the power of unbecoming. And ultimately what the project is, it is it is this story-driven incubator that was really born out of I'm an artist and I'm an entrepreneur, right? So I end up in all of these spaces that are either artists gathering to create together or entrepreneurs gathering to network and create businesses together. And I always felt that something was missing in in either space. I would leave the artist gatherings feeling excited and inspired, but that we weren't creating real world solutions that were actually at that intersection of art and social impact and entrepreneurialism that would allow something to be sustainable and move forward. Or I would leave the entrepreneurial gatherings and feel so excited by all the systems and and the change that we were going to make, but there was this gap in in the heart space and and the actual connectiveness that I wasn't feeling. And I met all these other artist entrepreneur hybrids who also have such a heart for social impact that said us too we also feel like there's more here what what can that be so unbecoming became this series of gatherings that are all in person first that was very important to us so wherever you are if it's Bali LA London in-person gatherings and it is that artist entrepreneur hybrid where people are gathering to talk about I'm unbecoming I kind of thought I was going to do this like you Lauren I had an I had a business in sixth grade. I became this big entrepreneur. I still know I want to make an impact and I want to make a lot of money so I can live a beautiful life, but I don't really know exactly what it is now. Like what is that? And getting all those people in the room >> because we all have pieces for each other. Everybody walks out of that gathering >> like at creative visions where someone has the answer for this to this to this to this and then after that there is an AI tool that's trained and maintained by mental health experts so that the gaps between those live gatherings can actually be sustained but not by this AI that is really built to actually perpetuate our loneliness and keep us in this internal cycle of just prompting the AI by oursel trying to feel fulfilled and feeling disconnected. So I felt so excited when I met the you know data researcher artist entrepreneur hybrid who is also so so passionate at this intersection the the word that comes to mind is creativity and expression of those feelings and I think those artists uh around us who some of their best work comes out of those deep wells of sadness or loneliness and so it's almost when you feel great I have had more difficulty creating things that I would say are really good, but because I think I was more um expressive and uh somehow creative when I was sadder and that's really annoying.

[00:34:30]>> Love that you're saying that because Lauren was talking about how the opposite of loneliness is play. And I think a lot of people don't perceive that. So please can you talk about that a little bit?

[00:34:40]>> I would love to. And that was the star that was that was being held.

[00:34:45]>> Okay, perfect.

[00:34:46]>> Oh, brilliant. Because as you were talking earlier, you were saying the way that we met was you in your connection with the self, with your throat, with your with your creativity, with your passion, as well as that expression of self being your connection in an authentic way to the world around you. Right? And what I wanted to note was the fact that so my body of work is in loneliness, connection and belonging because my core thesis is play. What I have learned the requirement of truly finding ourselves in where we have belonging. Belonging being the places, people and spaces where we don't have to alter ourselves in order to fit in, but instead are at being asked of ourselves to be our fullest self.

[00:35:42]The biggest pathway to both of these things is play.

[00:35:47]And for many, many people that can be really hard because we've spent a long time conditioning ourselves to follow the past to shut ourselves down and be quiet or be small, you're too much, blah blah blah blah, like all these things.

[00:36:05]You know, we've been in many ways as we become adults, we've been conditioned out of our play. And yet, if you look at any of Stuart Brown's work, and if anyone hasn't seen Stuart Brown, he's a mentor and one of the most brilliant minds within play research, Bnee Brown has actually began in some of the earliest pages of the gifts of imperfection says that his work is much of what her foundations are on because play is the pathway forward. But yeah, ultimately it comes down to kind of Kathy what we were talking about earlier, those little tiny steps. It feels hard at the beginning to be like, man, I really enjoy this. Can I give myself permission to enjoy it? Can I give myself permission? But the sooner we do it, the more we do it over and over again, the more we can connect to that creative essence, the greater our play grows and it becomes a practice. it becomes a really important practice where we find resilience, where we find creativity, where we find ourselves, where we find our ability to be ourselves in front of others. And I just want to note one quick other little thing. For so many creatives, it can actually get really seductive to want to sit in loneliness because that well of darkness where many of us drink from, myself included, where some of my most beautiful art has come out of my some of my darkest times can get really seductive to want to stay there and to want to hold on to that place.

[00:37:40]But it's actually not a well that nourishes us unless we're willing to walk out of it and see it from a different view. So being in creativity, being in expression, if we can be in expression, ultimately that will walk us out of our loneliness. But then we have to be willing to trust our play. Because if we can trust our play, play is where the origins of creativity sit as well. And that's where creatives come from joy.

[00:38:12]And many many people that I know and talk to and again myself included have at the beginning been like I don't want to let go of darkness because I don't want to let go of my creativity. Can I trust the light?

[00:38:24]But once you take that step, you'll realize, whoa, this is actually an amplified power.

[00:38:33]I want to bottle you up and pump you into something and just like sprinkle you on me whenever I'm feeling slightly whatever low. But you you remind me.

[00:38:43]>> You have my number now. So you just pick it up.

[00:38:45]>> I'm so excited. We're just going to scream it out to everybody. But you're so articulate. You and Tihani. It's just like wow. I I want I wanted to remind you of something that I think you already know. Khalil Jabbrron said something and I always butcher it, but when we were going through our deepest sorrow at the murder of my son um and Amy's brother, we found a quote which was kind of like this that was Khalil Jabbrron which was essentially dig deep the well of sorrow for there in lies your joy. That's not the exact quote, but you kept talking about wells and we we kept thinking, God, we're digging this so from the prophet, we're digging this well so deeply. Surely, we can never fill it up with that much joy. And guess what? It is full of that much joy.

[00:39:29]And it's and I I think without going into that darkness and and this is like it's not exactly loneliness, but it's another relevant emotion, which is grief. Um, and we can have loneliness as a result of grief. But a lot of that sadness came from for me from that that intense grief of losing a family, losing the child. But it's okay to dig deep that well, but knowing you've got to have the faith that that's where you're going to put your happiness. So, if you're down there, that's fine. But you are going to come back. And that and and then it's the trusting that play is okay. Because when you're that sad about losing somebody, you often feel guilty for having fun or for smiling or for not thinking about that person for just that minute, you know, that can really be a hard place to be.

[00:40:19]>> Yeah. Yeah. I what I love so much too is I think it was Elizabeth Gilbert who talks about you know when you're going out into just that like that lonely dark space whatever it is and she was saying like you put on your galashes and you go out there but like you know that you're not you're not building a house out there you know you you need to go out there knowing that you're still coming back and I think she used these analogies of like you know or maybe this is just where my friends and I were riffing on it. But my art therapist, dear colleague, and I were talking about how having these kinds of connections are like you not only put on your galashes and you go out there, but it's almost like you have like a rope tethered around your waist, you know, to the people and the communities and the things that you love that you know, like if I get so deep out there and I can't find my way anymore, and this is in so much ancient wisdom, you know, when when you're passing through dark passageways or gateways or whatever it is that there there are noisy spirits, guides, muses, is also living friends, community members, people who love you, who will who will come and and pull you, tether you back, you know, from from that space. And so I know we're we're wrapping here, but I just wanted to say that why I find that so powerful is I really feel that with all of these different projects, communities, ripples that all of us have and the way that they overlap, I hope that it is inspiring in some way to anyone right now who might be navigating, you know, finding that balance for themselves of maybe like their own inner journey of that loneliness, grief, existential questioning and then also understanding where does my overflow come from to be able to not just express myself but then to connect with other people and just to to say for people that it's not a neat perfect cute process. I think we live in this like Instagrammable era where we look at people that are like oh my god she has her mental health and her husband and her community and her it's amazing but honestly it's it's messy.

[00:42:21]gets messy and she's figuring out every day and some months she's way too connected to other people and she loses herself and then sometimes she's in herself and she's being too selfish to connect with her friends. It is ongoing and ever evolving and it is it is super super imperfect. And I just think that the more that we can share with people that the joy and the hope and the the magic and the play of it is actually what the goal is, like not the perfect outcomes or you know like the magical I'm so biohacked and in the flow all the time that everything is blah blah blah, but just that like this is the joy of being the essential humanity that can thrive in the imperfection of what this journey is. I just think that putting that out there more for people is actually what then makes me feel more resilient and and hopeful in sharing that with you both.

[00:43:14]>> Yeah.

[00:43:14]>> Lauren, pull us take us take us out.

[00:43:17]Tell me.

[00:43:18]>> Do you mind?

[00:43:19]>> Okay.

[00:43:20]>> The couple of things that I just want us to close with for this as Tahani just mentioned.

[00:43:27]Don't we can't build houses in loneliness. We can't build our houses there. You know, we can have the the courage and the bravery to be willing to walk into our loneliness knowing that we're coming back. There's this concept when hiking called touch trees. And it's basically if you get lost in the woods and you're in a forest where everything looks the same and it's completely disorienting. You have no idea how to get out.

[00:43:54]What they tell hikers to do is to find a touch tree. So, you find one tree, you make a marking on it so that you recognize it. it's different than the rest. And then you walk five feet and you kind of figure out where you are.

[00:44:06]But you look back and see your touch tree. And then you can come back to the touch tree and then walk 10 feet, 15 until finally you can find your way out of the woods. Those people in your life, those things that you can remember of joy, those are your touch trees. So even if you don't feel connected to them right now, making sure that you have those pieces surrounding you, tethering like you said, you know, those are the things that will ultimately pull you out. And actually, I want to take that back. They won't pull you out. You will pull. But you'll remember because you have those pieces of joy that you can see, okay, it does still exist. And the last little thing with loneliness that you sparked, Tonnie, is I don't think we ever overcome our loneliness. And I think it's really important to remember that finding joy, finding a beautiful, well-designed life, finding all these things isn't some goal. It's actually just a mirage off on the horizon if we treat it that way. That keeps us chasing toward and actually keeps us lonier. really remembering that what we're doing here is building a relationship to our aloneeness which does exist because if we go back to that original definition of loneliness is the fear of being as the fear of being alone. What if we can get to this place where loneliness is not a fear, it's just a relationship to our aloneeness, right? And so when we dip into these feelings of, "Oh gosh, I'm feeling this moment where I'm just really alone. I just feel really lonely." Like that can be really anxious. It can be really depressed. It can be all of these different things. It can show up in these different ways. But we're in that cave with ourselves and we say, "Okay, I've been here before. I'll be here again."

[00:46:04]But I also remember that there's this big beautiful world.

[00:46:08]There are all of these different things that do exist in my life that are good.

[00:46:12]And practicing gratitude, even in the smallest ways, that one centimeter, you know, we ultimately will walk our way out of loneliness into another temporary joy and then have another little loneliness. But our resilience builds in a way where we're able to actually participate in it and it doesn't scare us so much anymore.

[00:46:31]>> Few phrases come to mind. One is this too shall pass and put it on your refrigerator because it really does remind us and the other one is a is one that uh my son has made famous and it is truly that the journey is the destination and it is that putting one foot in front of the other and realizing that this moment now is the most important moment we have and it's going to be another moment and you've got those touchstones on the tree but really be fully in this moment knowing there will be another moment and and things do get better over time. They really do get better. But just hang in there and never give in. Never give in. Never. Never.

[00:47:08]Never. And thank you so much, Dean. And I loved our conversation with Lauren Vitc. And we can't wait to get her back on the show again. If this resonated with you, please like, share, and subscribe so I can see so much more of you. And have a boundless, boundless day. Not to love.