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hey leo here for actualised org and in this episode I'm going to be talking about how to deal with loneliness especially when you're doing personal development [Music] you this issue of loneliness is a very common problem especially if you're doing personal development or any kind of self-actualization work or spiritual development work so if you identify with that then this will be a great episode for you and if you don't identify yourself as some kind of self-help junkie or being into personal development yet if you're still kind of new to all this personal development stuff then maybe you're just here because hey you feel lonely you feel like you don't have as many friends as your friends do or maybe you want a relationship or something like that and this loneliness keeps being a recurring pattern for you and you want a solution so this will be perfect for you as well because we're gonna get to the root to the rock bottom of what loneliness is and why it's there and what the ultimate solution is so the reason that this is a very natural and common problem with self actualize errs is because well how else could it be I mean what you're doing when your self actualizing is that you are raising yourself above the vulgar common masses the people who are not doing any inner work on themselves so you're growing yourself you're meditating you're building good habits you're trying to eat healthier you're trying to be more conscious and and you're trying to get all these different pieces of your life into place and you're trying to understand what reality really is so you're seeking truth and you're becoming more aware of your surroundings and a lot of the dysfunctions that exist within society within your family within your social circles and and so forth right so of course as you're developing your awareness here as you're growing the people around you are going to be beneath you in a sense because they are doing the same work as you're doing and in fact they're actively trying not to do that work they're in denial about it so of course they're not going to understand the new insights are having and some of the amazing experiences that you're experiencing with your growth and this is going to create a gap between you especially with family members with people that are close to you your old friends your values are gonna start to change the way you're gonna carry yourself is gonna start to change your behavior is gonna start to change because what is growth but change you're changing yourself and of course people don't feel comfortable when you start to change yourself for a variety of reasons because they are comfortable with you staying the way you were and they don't like being shown that they are lazy and negligent in their lives by your good example you see so naturally there's gonna be a disconnect and you're gonna feel like hey there's a real cost to doing personal development which is this loneliness that I'm incurring and this is one of the reasons why a lot of people stay away from personal development and don't really get very far is because as soon as they start to do a little bit of personal development they see that this is now taking them into the loneliness territory and they are afraid of this they don't want to go down that road so they say well I'll just stop and I'll just do what everybody around me has been doing and this gets them stuck so what's the solution to this well I could give you a very easily a big list of external solutions go do pickup go hit on hot girls have sex with them that's fun right go drinking with your friends build a large social circle play the social circle game you know win friends and influence people read that book and then do what that book says or maybe you want to be a workaholic so immerse yourself in your work start a business go start to chase money and success or maybe join some volunteer group or your church community your local community or maybe some AAA group well maybe start doing online dating or start a family of your own that's good right your kids will occupy you and give you company or start a hobby collect coins there may be joint sports go play golf or a go play pick-up basketball or whatever or maybe do Dungeons & Dragons and become a Dungeon Master do that or throw parties get a nice fancy house throw parties once a month and then be the host to play that role of the host and you get people coming there and befriending everybody do that or maybe buy yourself a pet a dog or a cat or some exotic animal and then that'll keep the company for a good 10 20 years or hey come join the actualize that work for them and you have a group of people a support group for personal development right but look at all this this here although it sounds nice on paper and it might seem like yeah I should just pick one of those and do that and that'll cure me it cure me of my loneliness but look these are all external solutions what is this really gonna solve nothing it's not gonna really solve your loneliness issue all you're doing if you're doing one of these is you're sweeping the problem under the rug real growth requires turning inwards I keep repeating that because that's a huge theme and no matter how much I tell you this you're still way too much oriented outwards with everything that you're doing in your life which is why you're not getting the kind of results from your life that would really fulfill you and you're always looking for more see the reality is is that if you are going to undertake the hero's journey which I've talked about in the past if you're gonna be a leader which I've advocated in the past if you're gonna be a visionary which I've advocated in the past if you're gonna be a sage which I've advocated in the past then you must face this issue of loneliness really face it not ignore it with an external distraction but really face it on the inside because take a look whether you're gonna be a hero a leader a visionary a sage what are you doing fundamentally you're going offroading see most people in life they stay on the highways they stick to the Main streets and you as being one of these heroes leaders visionary sages what you've basically set yourself as you know what I'm not satisfied with that I need to go off-road and chart my own path through life I need to find myself in life this is the hero's journey and of course there aren't gonna be any paved roads there may be some gravel roads at best but mostly it's going to be like hiking through the mud that's what it's going to be like and then you know hacking through the forest I like this image of hacking through the forest with a machete that's really what it feels like and you know that's hard work and you're doing it all by yourself this is not a group effort you cannot raise your consciousness which is what all personal development boils down to is raising your consciousness you cannot do this through a group effort which is why of course all religious endeavors to do that have failed it doesn't work that way you have to enter the belly of the whale all by yourself you have to face all your inner demons all by yourself not with your best friend not with your Facebook buddies not even with your spouse see think about this even you yourself don't really want to look inside and face your inner demons head-on so how can you expect other people like your family members and your friends to join you in that process you yourself don't want to do it which is why you're looking for all these distractions and while you're feeling lonely and you're looking for some sort of quick fix let me tell you why you're lonely you're lonely because fundamentally you're disconnected from being and from your true self being is such a beautiful and an amazing thing when you're actually conscious of it being being is what's happening right this very second being is the substance out of which everything is made all of reality is being but you don't really experience that you're not connected with that because you're lost in a landscape of conceptual construction and you're living in the past and in the future and this is a lot more profound of a problem than you appreciate at the moment so what needs to happen here is you need to connect back with being because as soon as you do that you will realize that there is there is no need for friends or anybody else to be here to sweeten the present moment being is plenty sweet enough by itself in fact the magical thing about being is that it's it gets even sweeter in solitude once you're really going to connect with being once you start to tap into your true self you're gonna want more and more time by yourself so that you can really bask in the being and really appreciate it so what's the solution here the solution is that you need to get serious about your growth bite the bullet in this case and face the solitude head-on you need to expose yourself to the loneliness go through that initial hump of being lonely tame the loneliness connect yourself to being and then center yourself in solitude solitude is your Center it's the thing that grounds you if like the bedrock of your whole life it's your compass because you return to it to ground yourself in being and then you make little forays out from this Center of Solitude to interact with people and you know you could be part of society I'm not telling you that you have to become a hermit for the rest of your life I'm just saying you need to face this issue seriously at least once in your life and for many people they've never done that they've always been running away and what you don't want to do is make the mistake of continue to be running away decade after decade after decade until you're 60 years old and then you're still dealing with this fear of loneliness except now it's getting much worse because now it's connected with your old age and not being good-looking anymore and it's even harder to find friends it's harder to found find spot spouses and girlfriends and boyfriends and of course death is nipping at your heels and this issue now becomes much more challenging to deal with better to deal with it now while you're still young this issue of loneliness is a lot deeper than it seems it's not just that oh yeah you want some friends in your life to keep you company because you enjoy their company at the very level at the ultimate absolute truth level what you can discover is that you are alone in this universe it's all just you that's what non-duality means is that there's nothing here but you you have always been interacting with yourself the whole time just not fully conscious of that now that's a very deep insight that I don't expect you to just understand from hearing it in fact what I'm saying right now sounds ridiculous maybe you can take it as a metaphor and make sense of it that way but what I mean is actually literally one of the most amazing insights I've had and this was on my five Meo breakthrough is when I became conscious of my true nature as absolute infinity I became conscious that there's nothing but me here it's me as God playing hide and seek with myself and that's a very important insight to have because it completely changes your understanding and attitude about solitude and loneliness you might seem well that's kind of I mean you might seem to you like well that's kind of bleakly oh that's sort of a very solid Cystic view of reality no not at all when you actually directly experience this and you you you experience it and you connect with being at the same time and when you're really connected with being you're no longer lonely there's sort of beauty to it so ultimately this is the thing you've been kind of running away from this is what what's at the center of the black hole that you've been sort of orbiting an orbiting orbiting for most of your life but you've never really looked inside and so what I want to encourage you to do is to actually look inside it's not as bad as it seems the hardest part is the initial hump of just sitting there in that solitude and really wanting to connect with somebody I've been there I know how that feels you know you really want a girlfriend or you really want a husband or you you just you're alone in a different City you have no friends you just move there and it's like well this sucks I'm just sitting here all by myself this is so depressing this sucks but that is your biggest opportunity right there is to face that what I want you to do is I want you to open yourself up to to just face it sort of like jumping into a cold pool right just do it just do it because in the end you got to realize think about this from the biggest possible perspective your death is coming and is guaranteed and you will face your death all alone no matter how many friends you have no matter how popular you are of a celebrity no matter how rich you are no matter how close of a family you build how many kids you have on that deathbed you will be facing death alone even if there are a hundred people around you also in your most difficult times when you're suffering the most when you're the most scared in life when you're the most confused you're going to face that all alone you see you're not going to be able to share that emotional burden with anybody hell you hesitate to even share it with yourself see let alone sharing it with the people you're not gonna be able to it's just beyond the realm of communication also your deepest inner demons will have to be faced alone nobody knows what your deepest inner demons are even you probably don't know unless you've done some serious personal development work already and that of course requires loss of solitude so even you probably don't know what your inner demons are how do you expect other people to know let alone to be there to support you it's gonna be all on you that's why you're the hero of your life that's why we talk about the hero's journey and also and this is very interesting is that you you need to learn to face the beauty and awesomeness of life all alone because the deepest most profound beauty of life is so beautiful that it cannot be shared with anybody now you might say well leo i had some ecstasy or some MDMA and with my friends and and we all had fun and we had this beautiful connection or or i was making love to some woman or to some man and we had this amazing connection and felt like we shared you know our souls connected and we shared the beauty of reality yeah you can have those kinds of moments and those are great those are wonderful but that is like the tip of the iceberg of the beauty of reality see most people have never actually experienced the bottom of the iceberg it's so incredibly beautiful that it just leaves you gasping for breath and speechless and struggling to think about how could I possibly share this with anybody you see because fundamentally life is a first-person phenomenon it's a phenomenon of consciousness and awareness which is happening to you it's not something that happens through words or through symbols it's happening directly to you and so ultimately the book has to stop with you you have to face that beauty yourself that beauty is maddening because it's so beautiful you want to share it but then you know you can't and the deeper you go into the beauty the more you realize that there's no one out of all your acquaintances or your family that could ever possibly understand this beauty because they have to be doing this work the prize of the hero the holy grail is the beauty of life that's basically what the Holy Grail is but but it's not as as as nice as it sounds on paper right because it's not just like by like you're looking at some beautiful painting in a museum and then you could take your friends there to look at it with you it's not like that you take you can't really take a photograph of it one of my biggest struggles with with this work with actualised or with all my videos is how do I communicate the beauty of what I've experienced it's so profound that as much time as I spend trying to be a better communicator and learning how to articulate myself better and using analogies and metaphors the deepest stuff I will never be able to communicate with you and I have not even come close to plumbing the depths of the beauty of being so if you want to live a good life you have to this is one of the challenges you just have to face right this is what life is about so you might as well face up to it now rather than putting it off like you have in the good news is that all the answers to life that you seek out there somewhere are really all inside you all it requires is really just turning inward and entering that solitude and then basking that solitude for a good long while and not running away that is tracking yourself with entertainment or other stuff and the more you do that the more you'll get in touch with the unspeakable beauty of reality of being and then that will penetrate through into your everyday actions behaviors and thoughts and the people around you will wonder you know what's what's up with this guy or this girl you know something's different about her but they don't know that what's different about you is that you've seen the unspeakable beauty of reality and you've actually taken the time and effort to integrate it whereas most people are just kind of bumbling through life and just skimming the surface of life and missing 99% of all the beauty that's there the end goal for you with personal development is that you want to be able to be the last man on earth so to speak and still be happy so that you need nobody to be happy because you are so thrilled with the joy of existence itself of some the simplicity of being but also the profundity of being and you're so connected with that that everything else is a bonus which does not mean that I'm telling you that you need to become the next Unabomber and isolate yourself you can still interact with people you can still be social but it's all gonna be icing on the cake and you're not gonna be sad when that part of your life is missing and in fact you're gonna crave solitude but that's gonna take time you got to really do this you see so the high-level solution here is to develop a strong relationship with yourself commit to the path of self-actualization personal development really take this on as your mission in life this is not just a little hobby or side tangent to the rest of your life no this is the the core of your life and everything else that you think was the main track of your life that is the real tangent see it's making that shift also developing a strong relationship with nature there's nothing quite like being all alone by yourself out in nature to really connect you to what I'm talking about here in this episode also part of the high-level solution is find your life purpose what are you here on earth to do what is your life about what is your singular purpose and I have a whole course on that which I won't get into here another component of the high-level solution is to start living a contemplative lifestyle I've talked about that in the past the life of a philosopher the life of someone who actually thinks about existence and lives and structures their life in a way that's in accordance with existence itself and not with all the human constructs that are so popular with entertainment with family and friends and various social systems and communities and organizations all that stuff that's all human constructions you see and human constructions they're sort of flimsy they come and go they also have this sort of impure stench of ego about them because all these constructions are all ego constructions for the most part and they all involve politics if you haven't noticed yet they all involve bickering and power struggles and greed in fear and and all so all the all the dark elements of the ego come into this right and so really it's a it's a temporary all the human constructions are our chip stuff and a good contrast to that is being out in nature that's why if you like being out in nature that's probably why is because you see the the sort of innocence of nature because nature is free of ego whereas all the human constructions are full of ego they're full of they're full of delusion full of nonsense full of double-talk sea full of manipulation and ultimately that's all the stuff you want to move from away from in your life that's all the stuff it's causing you suffering so as you're developing yourself you're moving further away from ego you're releasing your own ego and then of course that's gonna be reflected in your surroundings and what you want your lifestyle to be so I've talked in the past about developing a minimalist sort of lifestyle which is the kind of lifestyle that contemplative people sages philosophers of the past mystics have all gravitated towards this isn't an accident this is for a good reason because it's this minimalist contemplative sort of lifestyle that gets you the most juice out of life because that's what you need to really connect to being notice that being alone is simpler than being part of a herd it's actually more rewarding and more fulfilling because when you're alone that's when you get the deepest connection to reality possible and I'm not just saying as an introvert yes I am a pretty strong introvert and you might say well Leo this is all you know might work well for introverts but what about extroverts I'm sure extroverts need more socialization than introverts do okay fine and I'm not telling you here that you never socialize you can socialize I'm just saying that the deepest stuff in life will be found alone by yourself in solitude by facing this issue head-on even if you're an extrovert and actually there's an interesting phenomena that happens which I want to talk about in more detail in the future but eventually introversion and extraversion they're like a circle and they tend to go for a circle and turn into each other you become a strong enough introvert you actually become an extrovert and then if you become a strong enough extrovert you become an introvert you see because what happens is that there's a sort of like figure-ground reversal and at some point you become so conscious that you realize that everything you thought that was inside of you you know your whole introverted landscape everything conceptual and all your feelings and emotions that actually they were never separate from the outside the outside and the inside are really one and that all these feelings are emotions they're not taking place deep inside your brain somewhere back there they're all out here everything is happening inside of one container you see and so really there's a fusion of the inner world in the outer world they come together and that's where introversion and extraversion get transcended really you transcend those those very limited human distinctions as you go deeper into this work so that's the high level solution but how do you actually implement this let me give you three simple techniques one is the solo ten-day retreat which I just released a video on recently go check that out I talked about how to set that up also go check out my blog Rev videos and various blog posts about how to set that up basically what this is is you go all by yourself isolate yourself in the woods somewhere in nature for 10 days straight without talking to any people no cell phones no technology just you sitting alone on a couch for 10 days straight man that is probably the most direct way that you can face this issue of loneliness head-on and you will be amazed at you know for the first few days it'll be torture for you and you'll feel like my loneliness is only getting worse this seems to be only making things worse but then once you get to day seven day eight day nine day ten there will be a shift in you you will pass that hump you will break through and you will connect with the beauty of being and it will feel like you're alive for the very first time in your life and then you'll really understand what I'm talking about here and you'll be so glad you did this and you'll grow so much just from sitting alone on a couch you don't have to read books or do anything you don't even have to meditate just sit alone on a couch for 12 hours a day for ten days and you will grow more than you've grown in years it's amazing the trick is actually going and doing it committing to it and then sticking through it and then not breaking that 10-day solitude that's not an easy thing to do so that's one really powerful technique try that another one is do a solo psychedelic trip one the reasons I'll talk about psychedelics a lot is because they're one of the few technologies that we have that allows me to in sort of a way to communicate the beauty of being I can't do it through language I can't do it through metaphors and talking but one way I can do is I can just tell you to go do some psychedelic trips all by yourself in a very serious sort of spiritual manner not in a recreational manner and face yourself face that fear face the loneliness face any kind of pain or sadness that you have leaned into that embrace it soak it soak into it rather and you will eventually conquer your loneliness and then when you're out with friends having fun it'll be all the better because it'll just be icing on the cake right the foundation will be there so try that I have many trip reports so you can go back and I'm and read those and I'll have more in the future and then the third method I'll give you is a solo travel what I found is that society because society is a social endeavor by its nature our culture tries to tell us that doing stuff by yourself is somehow wrong or somehow weird or abnormal so like if I want to go travel to Disneyland by myself and I tell my friends about that they'd be like well that's weird why would you go to distantly I'd all by yourself shouldn't you like go with your girlfriend with your family with friends isn't that like the right way to do it no I mean there's nothing wrong with going with your friends per se but also just solo travel is a powerful way to connect with that solitude especially when you're going out in nature so Disneyland is probably not the best place to go but you know go to some national forests or go to some famous monument sites all around the world or around the u.s. wherever you are you can find them around Europe you can find them anywhere you can find them temples monasteries you know whatever go there just travel through and explore the area by yourself explore a new city by yourself this is something that most people I think would be afraid to do because in the back of your mind you've got that programming that's telling you let you know don't don't do stuff by yourself it's just weird you know if you're a woman you would feel weird going to a bar all by yourself without your girlfriends and hell even if you're a guy you probably feel very weird going to a bar or a club all by yourself without your guy friends unless maybe you've done a ton of pickup and now you've acclimated yourself to that but even there you know going out solo is very challenging but it also grows you the most you really connect with your emotions you have to feel your emotions when you're alone you see you're not distracting yourself and those are some of the most beautiful memories I in my life is actually not the these these you know ecstatic highs of enormous raw pleasure but actually some of the most memorable things that I can think of in my life were those moments where I was alone by myself and I was going through a tough time I had some very strong emotions and we would say normally that these were negative and bad emotions a lot of my best memories are sort of melancholy where I was by myself working through something whether it was back in middle school or in high school you know I was never very social and so most of my time I spent by myself just thinking about life reflecting contemplating experiencing or when I was trying to get a girlfriend and I couldn't because I sucked at attracting women and then I spent you know many nights going home from a bar from a club on the brink of tears on the brink of tears because I was so lonely but then again those were some of the best moments and what I want to really drive home to you here is that you gotta bite the bullet on this one when you're feeling that melancholy play into it actually play it up the way that I'll do that is all I'll actually play some sad music I have a whole playlist of sad songs it's called sad songs that's what I call it and I'll just play that whenever I want to sort of contemplate or kind of go into a melancholic sort of mood and those are some of the best moments I have in life but I also had to develop a sort of taste for that that's an acquired taste culture tells us that this is wrong that something's wrong with you when you do this actually no this is this is what life is all about because in the end you're all alone here and all the all the other stuff is distractions and all that other stuff will fall away it's very flimsy what's rock-solid is your loneliness see but you can convert that to your advantage let the solitude massage you when you feel that very bitter cold biting loneliness don't run away from it don't go turn on the TV or read some blog or something play some lonely music and just savour it and think about life think about existence think about your own death think about how evil mankind is to each other think about how people hate each other and why it's so difficult for people to love each other why people are so closed-minded rather than open-minded why people are so greedy and fearful and petty that's the stuff that really grows you and then after you've done that go cultivate some good friendships go get yourself a good girlfriend or boyfriend and contribute something of value to the world when you're contributing something of value to the world and you're drawing your inspiration from your solitude the solitude makes you super creative solitude is what gives you the vision of a genius that most people can never understand it gives you foresight it gives you wisdom and then you can draw on that and then use that as the foundation or the the spring from which you then contribute value to the world have your impact with your life purpose and that becomes a very beautiful and rewarding thing but be careful not to make this contributing value to the world and also cultivating good relationships or friendships don't make that the centerpiece that is secondary to what I've been talking about here is building this foundation by actually facing your solitude see make sure you don't make that mistake get your priorities straight and then your life will be amazing and then you will have so much more fulfillment than if you just did the thing that most people do which has just become more socially active when they're lonely you see that's easy every fool can do that but that doesn't really solve the core issue and console yourself on this journey because you're a here on this journey and sometimes you're gonna get lonely and sometimes gonna feel like you're stuck in the middle of the woods all by yourself and life isn't going your way and maybe you feel like you're lost and maybe you even feel so sad you need to cry you feel depressed you feel hopeless you feel like you'll never find that spouse that wife that husband that girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever or that circle of friends that you love to hang out with you know and you you envy that you see that in other places you see that on the TVs that with your friends and you want that for yourself but what you got to remind yourself is that you're catching a bigger fish here they are frying small fish you're after the whale and the whale is finding your authentic self getting to the holy grail facing all your inner demons really growing yourself right remember keep reminding yourself when you're getting discouraged on this path and you have no one to talk to keep console and reminding yourself that this is the most important aspect of life is facing being and personal development what you're doing here is such a big thing personal development nobody around you is wise enough it has enough foresight to do this but you is it gonna be tough and lonely sometimes hell yeah it is but keep reminding yourself that you're after the holy grail and that this is the hero's journey and if there are many threshold Guardians on the hero's journey you just got to push through them and if that means talking to yourself talk to yourself if that means like you're looking a little weird or crazy look a little weird or crazy huh yeah it's just life is here for you by you in you of you it's all you you you you you you and that might sound like all that's that's very egotistical no actually the opposite is egotistical is when you separate life into pieces and everything is fragmented and you don't see that it's all you and you're disconnected from that and then you treat other people as though they can give you something as though sex or approval or a good conversation is what's gonna really fulfill you in life no those things are icing on the cake you got to get the cake right if you don't get the cake down all those things they will never fulfill you'll be chasing those for the rest of your life you think one good girlfriend will be enough for you no it won't not if you don't fix this foundation problem you think that you know having a bunch of kids will be enough for you no it won't because your kids will run off they'll leave the nest and then what are you gonna do you're gonna be back right where you started only now you're gonna be 60 years old and what are you gonna do then all right and your husband might leave you and so forth and what are you gonna do then you're gonna be right back where you started only worse because you've been avoiding this problem all right that's it that's all I have to say I'm signing off please click the like button for me share the steps with a friend leave your comments down below and lastly come check out actualized I run right here I have resources for you there my book lists my life purpose course the forum which is basically a support group for people who are doing self-actualization and who feel lonely sometimes so that there are support groups out there that you can join like the forum and speaking of the book list I actually recently updated my book list so go check that out I added twenty more new books and actually one extra tip I'll give you about combating loneliness specifically for people who are self-help junkies is surround yourself with good books and good mentors and by mentors these can be virtual mental they don't have to be face to face one of the ways that I get a lot of human contact sort of pseudo human contact without actually having lots of friends or people around me in my life I'm a very solitary person is that I surround myself with audio books videos seminars lectures regular books I'm reading this all the time so I do sort of have this pseudo human connection and this is a great way especially like audiobooks are a great way to kill and take the edge off you know if you're just lonely for weeks and weeks and months and months on end and you have no human beings around you at least get that into your life and so if you want some ideas for that check out the book list about half the books on my book list about a hundred out of all the 200 of them there are available on audible as audiobooks so very easy to listen to and turn all those into your virtual mentors as though you're having conversations with these people it might sound like well Leo what if I become crazy like just some crazy old person talking to myself you don't understand you already are a crazy person talking to yourself maybe not out loud but in your head with your monkey mind it's already as bad as it can possibly be you're just not conscious of that yet probably so forget all that if you want to talk to yourself talk to yourself no problem there you already do anyways so you're not going to go crazy and actually when you find your deepest foundation and connect with being you'll find that relating and socializing other people becomes a lot more authentic a lot more fulfilling and a lot more enjoyable so check out those resources and stay tuned for next week for more you