Episode 176: How to Make Friends with Your Loneliness with Dr. Kelly Flanagan

“I used to think I was the only one who was lonely. After all, when you look around, other people don’t look lonely. They just look like they are drinking a latte.” —Dr. Kelly Flanagan

Goodness, this quote from Dr. Kelly Flanagan’s new book, "True Companions: A Book for Everyone About the Relationships That See Us Through," gripped us.

If loneliness is that deep-seated reality that you have corners of your heart that only you and Jesus understand, aren’t we all lonely? And isn’t it time we admit it?  Dr. Kelly Flanagan thinks it’s not only time to admit our lonely realities but to befriend loneliness.

After talking with him and reading his book, we are convinced we should do the same.

Okay…but as we/before we do this, we have a few questions:

What is the difference between loneliness and isolation?
How much are our friends/family/the Church responsible for alleviating isolation and how much is on us to process with Jesus?
Why is befriending this loneliness journey better than avoiding with Netflix and wine?

Pull up your own loneliness to the table and listen in to what we found to be a beautiful, de-isolating, honest conversation.

 

// Highlights:

“A lot of us think of lonely as a feeling that goes along with a certain set of conditions. But when I’m talking about loneliness, I’m talking about it as a fact, like a fact of our humanness.” -Dr. Kelly Flanagan

“[T]o love companionably, to love with the love that we call phileo...is to come alongside, to enter into the life, to say, ‘I’m gonna walk along with you in this.’” -Dr. Kelly Flanagan

“We have to cultivate the capacity to create spaces of non-doing.” -Dr. Kelly Flanagan

“A thousand hearts [on Instagram] leaves us feeling isolated....We need to be attentive to populating our lives with people who we are working together [with] to see each other and understand each other as well as we can.” -Dr. Kelly Flanagan

// Do the Next Thing:

Go get Dr. Kelly’s books, True Companions and Lovable!

Looking for someone to walk through stuff with you? Check out coaching with Laurie!

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