Think Differently. Solve the Impossible.

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About the Host

Daniel Stih is an aerospace engineer, software engineer, indoor environmental consultant, and author of 12 books. Through engineering, environmental investigations, and interdisciplinary research, he explores how people define problems, interpret evidence, and make decisions under uncertainty. Learn more in Why I Think This Way.

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Show Notes

There is Light at the End of  the Tunnel of Loneliness
On Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DBLS9NVF

Contact Sukhvinder Kaur
email: sukhvinderkaur1968@hotmail.com

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Transcript

My guest today is Sukhvinder Kaur.

Her new book is There is Light at the End of the Tunnel of Loneliness, From the Darkness of Loneliness to the Brightness of Happiness.

She's a counselor with experience regarding physical and mental health, and believes anyone can learn to manage feelings of loneliness, avoid illness, and be happier.

She has spent six years volunteering with the nonprofit community Amigo in Southeast Kent that's in the UK, and received an award for a contribution for helping people there.

Today we're going to talk about loneliness, what you can do if you are lonely, and if you're not lonely, how you can help to make the world a better place by reaching out to those who are, and reminding them they're not alone.

Welcome to my show, Sukhvinder.

Thank you very much for having me.

Thank you.

Hello.

Just start, tell me about yourself and this non-profit.

I'd look it up, it's in England, right?

There you help people, it sounds like you help them with this loneliness issue.

Did you go through loneliness yourself and then decide, I can help other people by joining this organization writing this book?

Yes, so I had a very lovely childhood and brought up my parents, lovely, brought me up very nicely.

So when my marriage broke down in my adult life, that's when I experienced loneliness.

Even though I had my family support around me, I had my community, workplace, my volunteer work, everybody was around me too, I could go to reach to support.

But at nighttime, rather than me sleeping, I started to overthink myself.

And it has time when I went to isolation and nearly fell off the edge.

And yeah, I went to a very dark period at that time.

Yeah, so when I went at my comfort zone, I wanted to find out if there's any services support at the for lonely people like myself.

And I started to talk to my work colleagues there as well.

And I started to volunteer, work in the mental health charities where I live in England, where I help support on a weekly basis.

I speak to all walks of life of various people.

Just a general talking to them, how they are.

So they can circle the field that every week there's somebody there over the phone, a collection, a communication base, somebody to want to forward to, to speak to, so combat their loneliness.

So during that time and also my study of counseling psychosotology, I managed to find, also I went to my parents and I told them, I reached out to them as well.

And even they were shocked as well to say that, you knew, we were always here for you, why did you felt that way?

But it was just one of those periods of time sometimes, even though when you got people around you, you still can't manage to get that word, I'm feeling lonely and...

So it's not as simple as the lack of presence of people.

Actually come to think of it, it reminds me when I was a kid and I'd go to lunch at the school cafeteria.

There are hundreds of kids and I feel lonely because I'm sitting at the table by myself.

So it almost sounds like depression a little bit.

It's in your head, but it's not in your head.

There's people that say they're here for you, but can you tell me more about...

I'm looking for the words to describe what's really going on.

Why are we lonely and how did you figure out the solution?

Maybe let's do that.

What was the solution for this for you?

How did you get out of your...

Well, the way I come out of it, I reached out to my parents and my mother took me to my GP, a family doctor.

I expressed my feelings and thoughts, how I was feeling and what's going around with me as well.

My GP referred me to see a counselor through the services out there from the NHS in England.

So I was quite fortunate to get this free support from the counselor, a qualified counselor.

So that's when I got my support, started to talk to somebody who actually knew nothing about me.

So that's when I started to feel myself a little bit, that I've been heard and understood as well, and how I felt that time and why I felt that time.

And then when I was researching outside, I started to talk to the community as well, all around the people to find out, you know, have they ever experienced lonely?

Do they know people who are feeling lonely?

Do they know the services out there or things that they can do for themselves, to self help?

So all that, you know, everything is so now I'm today living a very happy life, and I managed to combat my loneliness.

So with all that experience and talking to people and my studies well and my volunteer work, I thought to myself, you know, I wanted to give him out the people.

People needed help, you know, and I found that people doesn't know the support out there or things that they could do them for themselves as well.

So this is when I created this self help book.

You know, I wanted to give back what helped me, and I'm just wanted to give them to help themselves and they can leave a happy life as well.

So back to, I was with you when you went, your general practitioner doctor referred you to a therapist, more or less a counselor.

How did the counselor make things different that talking to your parents couldn't?

And even backing up from there reminds me of a little bit about suicide where what questions can you ask someone who doesn't have the courage or the parents to go to, to get a referral.

For example, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, that's a new medical specialty.

It recognizes this as an actual one of six of the most important things you do for your health.

Not to be lonely.

And to which I'm like, well, how do you, oh, it suggests that doctors should ask, actually ask, when they ask patients what their height, blood and blood pressure and height and weight are.

Ask them questions to determine if they're lonely, so they can recognize the loneliness and get them help, because they don't know how to ask for it.

What do you ask someone to see if they're lonely?

Who said sorry?

If, if, if you see someone, so what I usually do, I'm trying to solve the problem of loneliness.

So to break it down, I say, well, how do I first identify someone who is lonely?

For me, it's real easy.

I see someone on the street.

I will always say hello.

Always.

I will not just stare at them and walk by.

It feels weird.

So for, for people who like you just mentioned, what if you didn't have your parents?

You go to work all the time.

You talk to people at work, but you're technically lonely.

What can someone ask?

And I'm basing this off of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.

They're the ones suggesting this.

I think it's a little bit long-winded again.

I would just say, hi, how are you?

They're suggesting like doctors should actually assess if people are lonely and as they won't say it.

So how do you recognize loneliness in people?

I guess is the question.

So that you can help them.

Yeah.

So basically, the main thing I will say when I was researching and when I went through, is by when people, it's really hard for everybody to, it's a trust as well, the stigma around trust as well.

Some people go through challenges where their trust is broken as well, and the situation changes, Thomas, as well.

Some people find, you might get judged if I put my word out there or somebody, I might get judged by somebody.

Somebody might not understand me as well.

So if you can't, if I would just say like myself, I reached my parents and I thought myself, even though my parents might not understand because they're not going, they haven't been through the same what I'm going through.

But let's put it out there to my parents, because I always, they're the loving parents, someone who they love me unconditionally.

So rather me going out to the colleagues outside in the society, going for help in my friend or somebody in the community, I actually reached my parents.

So I just said to them, I'm feeling lonely.

Even though you guys are here, I'm feeling so depressed.

I can't sleep, I'm overthinking.

So they're quite short to be honest.

But what I want to say, the first thing to recognize somebody you feel around your family, or your friends, or your work, or anybody going past, that you interact with them daily.

You see this person daily.

The main key, I would always suggest, if you know that that person is going to tell you, the body, the way they're reacting, you can see a lot of things connected by body language.

Okay, that's good.

Yeah, by body language.

Yeah, because when people start to doing things, they don't normally even recognize they will do something, or they say something differently, or their impression, or they've actually withdrawn.

You see this person regularly, but suddenly they're not picking up phone up, they're making an excuse, this person's really outgoing, activity person, socialized person, or suddenly they're making an excuse, he's not to interact with you.

They're disconnecting from the social society.

So body language, signs like that, are really, really important to know.

You know that somebody might be feeling a bit odd out of a character.

And then you can reach out to find out what is going on.

Are they okay?

And that's when that person can finally say, okay, no, I'm okay, but I'm feeling this.

So it gives them a chance for them to know that this person is actually recognized.

There's something change going on with me.

So body language is a really, really good way of recognizing somebody's change in character.

Yeah.

So then say you do recognize it and you go with your gut feeling.

What do you do next?

And then trying to find out, if you know them really personally or trying to spend time, are you okay?

Find out, are you okay?

Just make sure you reassure them, I'm always here for you if you want to talk to me.

I'm always here so I'm not going to judge you or I'm not going to frighten you anywhere.

But I'm here to support you.

Just to make them reassure them that I'm here for you anytime.

My neighbor says that to me, almost like when he says goodbye, he always says, we're here for you, Dan.

I'm like, do I appear needy?

It's the opposite.

If anything, I feel I have more resources than you.

If somebody would need help.

Maybe that's his habitual way of doing what we're saying, is that's just the practice he has in leaving people who are somewhat strangers.

We're not best friends, we're just neighbors, so to speak.

So, like if literally, if you just tell your neighbor all the time, whatever you need, I'm here for you.

You know, makes you wonder, makes you not feel so alone.

Yes.

If ever I need like my car tire goes flat or I'm just having a really bad day, I suppose I could take him up on that.

So that's what you're speaking of, kind of, right?

Yes.

Yes.

So body language, you know, if you don't feel, body language says a lot about somebody's character, a change of character.

What's a Pacific body language?

What's the body language look like?

It's connecting, like making, if you're somebody, if you know somebody is a regular activity, a socialized person, outgoing, bubbly, you know, cheerful, always asking you guys, you know, how they are and always interacting, chatting, everything.

And suddenly you feel that, you know, this person is disconnecting slowly away from you.

You know, what is going on?

Why are they doing that?

Have they, is this thing wrong with, if I don't say wrong or I need to find out?

So someone slowly, slowly disconnecting from you guys, from normal, that's not normal, is it really?

It's definitely going on in there.

So disconnecting is a big sign that you know somebody's, and I need something wrong there, that you need to find out.

And what about the other people?

I think there's quite a few of them.

They're not disconnecting, changing back, changing different.

They've been lonely for a long time.

It's there, maybe they're shy, they're introverts, you know, back to being the kid who goes to the lunchroom at school, and he tries to find a table where nobody's sitting because he doesn't have any friends.

And that happens at work, too, you know, you could go to work and just be the one person out, no actual social circle at work.

How do those people break their, you know, come out of their shell, not be lonely?

It's affecting their health.

What do we as society do to help them?

Well, to be honest, yeah, you know, life is a journey.

We all live in one multicultural society.

We all live in one society.

And our journey is all individual.

We go through challenges around our journey, you know, in pace, you know, when we're going to feel lonely.

Loneliness could happen anytime of our lives.

But I would just say, to be honest, if you know, you know, because you might be feeling lonely and you might be reaching out to make friends or connection with somebody completely stranger.

So if you see somebody in that way, somebody sitting on their own at lunchtime or at work or at school, why don't you try to reach out to that person and then try to make good friends, make new friends, meet new people, you know?

So that would help you and that other person as well.

So you're making yourself happy as well, making contributed to new friends, meeting new friends.

And that other person, you'd be quite surprised, they're actually waiting for another person to connect with them as well.

So yeah.

So I think relationships work both ways, but it's good to know, good to find out, you know, making new connections, meeting new people.

Why don't you make the first approach, you know?

I think you nailed it on the head.

We keep hearing about awareness.

In America, it's, you know, I was reading about the shirt in general, new campaign.

It's probably old news now to you.

Trying to get awareness out about loneliness.

It's like suicide awareness.

It's like, so what?

What do we do now?

You nailed it when you said it's kind of like drunk driving.

You take the car keys away from someone, you intervene with the person.

As a society, all we have to do is go, notice the lonely person, like you said, with the body language, the disposition, and say, hey, you want to sit with us at lunch.

It's that simple, right?

But why aren't people doing that?

Why do people, they get locked in their social bubble, the people that aren't lonely, do you suppose they don't instinctively know this, or maybe they don't care?

Someone asked, somebody told me, Dan, you're the only one that cares.

But yeah, we live in a multicultural society.

Everyone's, we all got individual thoughts or feelings.

We're not all mind readers.

We can't read everybody's mind, especially when we create mental health, it's all associated around the mental health.

And when it comes to the mind, you can't read everyone, you can't read minds, because it's all inside the hidden gender thing, isn't it?

So we're not mind readers, but we can do a little bit of slowly, slowly, step by step if we could just approach.

It might be, you might not get a positive reaction from that person, but it's a step.

So they will know that person.

I think part of the, that is part mind reading is part of the trouble.

You can never read somebody's mind.

So the only way to know is to ask, get out of your own head and ask.

Because the other person could be waiting for somebody.

The other person could have just broke up with someone and want a lonely moment for this week or today.

And you go, you know, okay, thanks.

Thanks for asking.

But I think getting stuck in your head trying to analyze as the person lonely or not, it only makes everything weird because then you're, well, you're looking at the person staring at them.

Are they lonely?

I don't know.

Why are you looking at me?

I don't know.

I think it's more people are engaged on their phone, for example.

Here's a topic to cover.

Often when I'm out by myself, because I just like to talk to strangers, meet people like you mentioned.

And people think I'm an extrovert, but they have no idea.

When it was lunchtime at school when I was a kid, I not only ate at a table by myself.

When I was done, I would go and hide.

So I didn't have to go out and play recess.

One time some kids found me around the corner, hide next to the building and go, we found you.

So when I say this, it's not like I'm an extrovert.

It you have to, you have to have the courage, right?

But okay, but so back to phones.

What are, what is your opinion, your thoughts on how to break this endemic wherein where it seems like you're in public and you want to talk to someone, but they're all on their phone?

I would just say, you know, like, you know, fine.

Yeah, it's all media these days, isn't it?

All media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, it's all connection with the phone, all technology, people are always on the phone.

They've got the phone 24 hours with them as well.

But if you see somebody on the phone, constantly on the phone, 24 hours, don't even leave the phone, there's definitely something going on there as well.

They're disconnecting themselves from actually talking to somebody face to face.

And they're putting their head down.

That says a lot of things as well, because they might be just put their head down, but they might be nothing in that phone.

But that's the way for them to disconnect from the society, from face to face interaction with face to face people.

But yeah, a lot of stuff is with the media as well, and also with the phones.

But I will say, somebody is on the phone all the time, and you feel lonely as well, why don't you start connecting with the people that you've lost contact with?

Ring them up, find out how they are.

You'll be surprised, they might be learning, waiting for you guys to reach out.

Make some group connections, WhatsApp groups, activities on their Facebook groups, so you're actually connecting.

Make some social groups on the website as well.

So everything is on connection.

But as long as you're connecting with society, so you still don't feel alone, as long as you're still connecting with people outside the community as well, on the phone as well.

But phones is quite a lot of these days, every single person, even from 11-year-old child, every single person has got a phone.

But why don't you put that useful as well?

Why don't you set up some group activities on the group, socialized groups on there, where you're actually connecting communication with each other as well.

Set up some groups as well, where you can actually meet new people, rather just in your phone, trying to disconnect from people and you're feeling lonely.

Why don't you make it into a positive connection through your phone?

When I go out and say I'm going to a cafe or coffee shop, and I want to talk to people because I like to meet people, it keeps me probably from being lonely.

It seems like the right thing to do.

I see people on, say their computer, working away or their phone, working away or doing something.

I actually break the bubble by waiting for the moment that I know they're going to hear me, and know I'm speaking to them, and I'll go, are you working really hard today?

You got a lot of work?

Or basically, what's so important that you have to get that done right now in the coffee shop?

Or even better, in a non-critical way, what's up on your computer?

Like sometimes I'm like, are you writing a book?

Like are you writing a research paper?

What are you researching?

What are you doing?

So I express interest in what they're doing.

Or if I can tell that they're just googling, like because they're bored and not what people do, say they're googling pictures of the whales.

I don't know what, I'm just making this up.

I know they're just spinning their wheels.

They're there, but they're in the coffee shop, but they're not.

I'll go, oh, cool picture of whales.

You're interested in whales.

I will get into their head and open the conversation.

Sometimes, because I live in a place that's very touristy with people traveling, they will literally be trying to get some work done before they go on a hike or go on a drive someplace, a scenic drive.

I'll go, okay.

But I learned some cool, I met somebody interested in what they do for work, and I'll go, okay.

I'll just get done, so you can get your work done.

But most of the time, people are just, you look around, like pick one.

Joe, Sally, they're all on their phones and computers, and none of them have that important thing to do.

So that's what I'm talking about.

Trying to find out, like you said, make that communication, break that barrier.

Hi, how are you?

Can I sit there?

If they're in the cafe.

Oh, can I, do you mind me sitting here with you?

Love that one.

I don't like sitting in front of the window or there's too much noise for the children sitting in that other space there.

So make that connection.

That person might be surprised.

Oh yeah, of course.

No one's sitting there.

Sit down.

And then slowly, slowly build that, oh hi there.

So I'm so-and-so.

And so what's happening then?

It's nice weather today or not a weather nice day.

Make a conversation.

Anything.

Nothing is silly.

If you think, oh, if I say this, it might be because nothing's for, don't feel that way.

Just make that connection.

You'd be so surprised even yourself, how much people, that person, you might be the first and the last person that they must be all day as well.

Even at the bus stop, you're waiting for the bus or traffic somewhere.

Yeah.

Or you might go put a petrol in your even the local park as well in the summer as well.

People sit on the benches on their own as well.

Anywhere you can make that little bit of connection, say, hello, can I just sit there for a while, and waiting for my break or something like that.

You're making that connection, you'd be so surprised.

Honestly, you'd be so surprised what you get from the other person.

Yeah.

Speaking of sitting on the park bench, that's a place I try to more respect people's silence, because maybe they're just coming to.

So I once did the park bench thing, and this guy whose eyes were closed or open or both, he was in some kind of meditation.

I could tell he was doing some kind of meditation, I think.

So I kept my distance, like sat down on the bench next to the bench, you know, my distance, but, and I just waited and waited.

And when he was done with his, whatever he was doing, meditating or prayer, whatever, he looked at me and he's like, you know, thanks for respect and the silence for this moment.

I have to go to work.

And then he's, then he's brought up conversation with me and he appreciated the fact that I appreciated his own recognized his, like you were speaking with the body language.

I could tell he was not lonely, but he wanted some silent moment because we're in the park.

And yeah, and we had a quick conversation before I met an even better friend because he realized that I was actually not just going around, hey, can I sit with you?

Hey, can I sit with you?

Hey, can I sit with you?

See how many like I was generally recognizing somebody by themselves and want to say hello.

So but that's a great tip.

Sit with people, ask if you can sit, and yeah, I love that tip.

Any more great tips like that for breaking the loneliness endemic?

I would also suggest that the main thing, some people have got some disability or some reason that they can't go out from home as well, and they always have to be at home for some reason.

And finding that self-sustained confidence to get outside, they haven't been outside from the home.

So I would suggest to those people as well, even people do go outside, why don't you start writing, journaling yourself?

Writing journaling is a really therapy, writing therapy is really good.

So rather you overthink in your power in your mind, writing things down, your thoughts and your feelings, and you see on a piece of paper, it's really good because when you start to understand why am I doing it, you can read it very better to find the way as well, path, clear path of your understanding, what are you feeling, why are you feeling it.

So I think writing generally is a very, very good therapy as well.

It's just like going to see a cancer, you're going to a completely stranger, talking about your own journey.

So when you're writing therapy, it's a journey, it's your journey, generally it's your journey, but it's about yourself.

So when you write things down, it makes it a bit more clear when you're reading, reflecting it back.

So you're actually clearing your mind as well, not overpowering, so that really helps your mind as well, and it eases off a lot of pressure as well.

So I will say to those people as well, start writing things down and, you know, and-

So give me an example because, or story with an example, because as an engineer, I've thought that's a perfect solution to figure out, not just loneliness, but depression or my highs and lows, you know, other things going on with me psychologically.

I'm like, if I can keep a record, then I can track all of data points, basically, is what you're speaking of.

With the description for the data point, oh, I was feeling great or I was not feeling so great in between.

Trouble was, and I should know this as an engineer better, I'm not being really descriptive or when I'm in it, I'm saying, well, I'm happy today or I'm sad today, that's not really helpful.

Like, that's not helping my data.

How do you, when you tell people the journal, what do you teach them to make the journal meaningful such that it's meaningful and useful when they go back and look at it?

Well, first of all, I will say generally, like I said, this is your journey.

It's about part of your journey.

Could you remind about yourself as well and what seems to happen?

Reflecting back on your past, what's happened and what's stopping you going forward as well?

What is what's going on with your mind as well?

How are you feeling as well?

What's happening?

What are you feeling to go forward in your life?

What is stopping you?

So when you're writing things down, like, you know, and I always say before you start writing, it's not like writing, sitting there writing pages and pages, A4 paper and everything.

No, it's not about that.

You know, you pick the page up.

Don't forget to write that day's date and the time as well.

So it might be that moment, you know, you might write just one word or you might just write one line and you, you might mind what something distracted you.

That's fine.

You know, come back, you might come back, you know, close it, sign it, and just put it in a safe place.

Or some people just like to carry the journal all around with them.

Because it's your journeys, but you're how you're feeling your thoughts and how well are you and where you come.

So you might go back to that, you know, journaling one week after two months or one year, whenever one day, next day or the same day as well, a couple of hours time, you know.

But it's good to because it's like a book, it's your journeys, like a book.

You go before you go into another page, pick the pen up, you always, we always remind you go back.

Oh, let me just watch what I said before.

So writing that days, the dates down, the time is really important because it's your you reflect back, oh my God, you'd be so surprised.

Did I really do that?

Did I really write that down?

Did that really happen?

And look, and how far you've come into your journey.

Yeah.

It gives you your journey, where you are, what's happened, and the understanding, what you want to do, how you want to do it, what's your plans, how you're feeling.

Is that a good feeling?

For me, it was a time when, like a six-week period when I was just on fire, like high on life, feeling great.

We'd all love to feel like, literally, I said to myself, Daniel, if you could bottle this, like whatever the recipe is, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, whatever you're not doing, you got to figure out this recipe.

So that was when I was keeping this journal, like where am I?

What am I doing?

What am I not doing?

Like when am I not at work?

Like you said, the dates, the weather, is it sunny?

Is it like, I would just keep track of everything so that later, because I knew, you know, you can't stay, you're gonna have a bad day, a sad day, a different day at some point.

I'm like, I gotta remember what's happening right now.

So when I get to a low state or a lonely state or whatever, I can read this and go, so that didn't help things or this did so that I could have some compass, so to speak.

Yep, definitely.

So it's pretty important when you write the day, state, and the time as well.

And just sign at the end as well.

Some people like to, even when they're writing one word as well, some people don't even know how to write as well, or don't know what to write as well.

Sometimes it's really good, maybe you just want to draw a picture of it, just a little symbol of it, just to make sense of it, or put things around it as well, like a compass.

So it's your journey, it's how you want to journalize your journey, part of your life as well.

So it's your life, your journey, where do you want to be, what's happened, circumstances, how can I change, it's how you'll be.

So rather you're actually pouring it all on a piece of paper, and you're clearing that mind, so you're making that mind relaxed, feeling better, mentally you're feeling better, and even you feel better physically as well.

And whatever is going with you in that moment, you'll be so surprised, your mind will be clear, because you've only got one brain, one mind, we've got one health as well.

So it's really important how we look after that one brain.

It's overpowering, overthinking, and I always say, in my research, generally, it's important people start writing things down, thoughts, because-

Do you have an example of something like a journal, either of your own or somebody else, like an aha moment that they discovered by reading their journal?

Yes, I've read, as a counselor, I always recommend to my clients, always start when they come first to me to see me as well.

I always say, well, have you ever heard of journaling?

Oh, what is that?

Some people might say, oh, what is that?

Oh, I've never heard of that, you know.

Oh, start writing, you know, write things down and all that.

And some people just say, oh, what should I write?

And I do anything, you know, whatever comes to your mind.

It could be anything negative, positive, anything.

It's your life, your journey.

You see with me, you talk about anything.

So, you know, I will say, with me, when I still write journaling, I know when I was learning as well, I start to write things down.

My counselor agent recommended to me as well about journaling and I found it really, really comfortably and really, I used to write things, you know, what happened to me, where I was, you know, how I was and where I'm now, where I wanted to be, you know, how I was feeling as well.

So when I'm looking back as well, I could see my life, how far I was and where I'm now.

That reminds me of Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift still has it.

She showed it one time when she was young, before she was famous.

On her journal, she had four squares, four boxes.

Who I am, who I'm going to be, my songwriting career, you know, my superstar and whatever.

She was creating who she was going to be actually by journaling.

Really writing about herself before she was famous in the pretense.

Who I'm going to be, what my songs are going to be like, how they're going to inspire people, where I'm now, my circle of friends now, my circle of friends then.

So she's writing about the present moment, but also how she was going to do it.

And as well as writing who she was going to be, I believe, like as if it was already happened.

Kind of like the Arnold Schwarzenegger, like how did you become an actor after you were a bodybuilder?

Easy.

And with journaling would be, I wrote about it as if I was a bodybuilder.

I pretended every day that I was a bodybuilder in my journal.

And also journaling, it really does help, though, to be honest.

It's a really good therapy.

Because it makes you understand, it makes you look at it when you read back as well, understand, and it makes you also realize what things that you want in your life going forward, and what things that you want to throw away, not want those things as well.

So it's a really good thing, because when you're writing things down, you can read it as well.

What things actually resonates for me?

What things are really good for me to take forward?

What things can I leave behind?

A lot doing really good for me, and they're not really, no purpose for me as well.

So generally, I think they're very, very good.

Everyone's got their own life, personal life.

We will go through challenges in a different, different phase of time as well.

Obstacles in life.

But only we know ourselves personally, where we want to be, where our life was, and how we want to, what things that we don't want, and what things that we want to leave behind, and what things we want to carry forward.

And then a positive.

You've said leaving, leave behind a couple of times, which reminds me of, so in regard to social connections, the Lifestyle Medicine College also promotes strengthening relationships that bring you meaning and purpose.

To which, it seems to me, as an engineer, that requires two things, not just making new meaningful relationships, but leaving behind, breaking up with those that do not support meaning and purpose in your life, right?

In other words, what if you're lonely because the people around you always belittle you, tell you're not good enough, yell and scream at you, even worse, physical abuse, mental abuse.

I'm not speaking just of your partner or your spouse, but your friends, your acquaintances, your work colleagues, right?

So you have to, what I'm asking or saying is, what are the strategies for breaking up, leaving behind?

He word was leaving behind, intentionally making an effort to leave behind, not waiting for people to leave you behind, and leave behind the people that are not supporting purpose in your life.

How do you do that?

Or talk to me about that part of the equation.

Well, first of all, I was, people, when we start writing things down in a journal, journal is a very important part of our therapy, a journey.

When we start writing things down, a lot of things come into mind that we would never thought in our mind, we never think about it.

Things around us, like I said, friends as well, families, colleagues, anybody, even objects as well, activities and things like that.

Anything around us, putting us down in negatives, everything's negative, that's when we aspire to negative things as well.

What I will say is look at it, what I was to say, if you're always been a people, find that are you people's pleaser?

Are you the person always pleasing other people?

If you are, start, think about putting healthy boundaries, start putting things, small little steps, boundaries, healthy boundaries, and stick to them.

Like if you're saying that that person puts me so down, every time I meet that person, I've known them for a very, very long time, but every time I meet and we do things together, I always find that person puts me down.

Well, that's something that's putting you down.

You're not what that person is saying.

So start making to disconnect from that person, not any purpose for that person to be involved with, round with.

Start putting a little boundary and say, okay, start putting yourself first.

Don't knock yourself down.

Start putting yourself, put yourself first.

Put smaller boundaries.

When I mean boundary, it's like, okay, when that next time that person says, okay, do you want to come out or do you want to?

No.

Make excuse.

I know you go on your own terms.

So that person know that you are sticking to, and start sticking to them.

Well, your time is you only have so much time, so you had to choose how you want to spend it.

Definitely.

I'm going back to the loneliness concept.

Well, if I say no to this person, I'm not going to be lonely.

Well, you got to decide, do I want to not be lonely, but not really make progress in my life to be meaningful and purposeful?

What are the key words that the organization says we need to strive towards?

Not just not being alone, but when with people, really having meaningful and purposeful relationships.

You got to choose how you spend them.

So, tell me about texting, your take on texting.

Because one side of my brain, logic side, says if I text, I'm not alone.

But the other side knows if all I do is text, it's better if I pick up the phone and talk to people, right?

There's, I will feel less alone talking to people than texting, even though technically texting, I might not be alone.

Am I correct with that?

Well, to be honest, sometimes, you know, personally, my own experience, sometimes when you're connecting with texting, sometimes you misunderstood each other as well, and that goes to be a problem, negative for you.

Or did you say that?

Because you're not even talking properly, you're not explaining.

Texting, quite sometimes you might put something in a mistake, but it's already gone to that person, and then you've got another problem, you know, how that person is going to react to the reaction from the other person.

So if I was you, trying to, if you are a texter, trying to put a little bit of boundaries, try not to text, you know, long, long sentences as well.

Yeah, you get those people who, yeah, my mother was one of them.

I could tell she was using the speech thing on her phone to translate it to text, because it would take me like two minutes to read the text.

As like, I'm not even responding.

You send me a text, you type in at least, or I'm reading it.

I'm not reading it.

So I will say, look, if you're going to text, if you're a person who texts, trying to get to the point, don't make too many long texts, you know what I mean, long, long texts.

Just get to the point, because that will save you a lot of aggro as well, and just get to the point, what you're trying to say to the person, the person you're trying to feed back to.

So that was less be misunderstood as well, miscommunication as well.

Because sometimes when you're texting, texting, you might be texting and something else distracts you, and you might, oh God, I shouldn't have said that.

Did I say that?

Did I write that?

Your phone picked it up accidentally.

Yeah, your phone, yeah.

At what point, can we give people a number, like after three texts, just call?

At what point do you actually make a phone call instead of, some people never will, is what I'm saying, they will just always text.

At what point do you suggest people pick up the phone and make the call?

Stop the texting.

I would just say, make some boundaries.

If you're texting, say, look, if you want to text me a message, text me this all the time, put a time frame and then no picking text.

If you want to call me up, if you want to interact with me, call me after a certain time, then we will speak or you will speak.

When is the time I can speak to you?

I can't text you this time, but I'd rather talk to you.

So start making that communication and trying to avoid reducing all these texts and start communicating, even over two minutes on the phone, that will make a lot of time.

Trying to reduce your texting, trying to keep the time scale as well, keep times on as well.

Okay, you're going to text me this time, I'm going to text you this time, that's it.

After that, if you want to communicate with me, I will ring you.

Are you free that time?

Put some boundaries in it.

If you put more boundaries, the life will be more easier for you and the other person.

Exactly.

So we're changing a little bit off the loneliness topic, but in terms of stress and feeling better in your life, there was a month, the whole month, because I live in a small town and even the town an hour away, my phone company couldn't fix the problem.

So for a month, I had no texting capability, only voice.

At first, it was rather frustrating because a lot of the apps, a lot of the programs I use that use authentication, I couldn't get the authentication code, the security, so it was rather frustrating.

But I was so relieved not to have to text people.

My self-texting because people expect you to text back.

The littlest texts take up minutes of your time all day long.

And to not have to do any texting myself, to not have to be on my phone texting was astonishingly good.

Besides the frustration of not being able to get my authentication codes when I needed to go online and do some secure.

I was like, wow, all this free time.

I don't have to waste it.

People are not expecting me to text.

And so I did still get my calls, my voice calls, and it was really cool because I could tell who really cared.

But that's an important call.

You called me.

Thank you.

Yes, it's really important.

It's reducing what you do constantly, changing that mindset of your changing your thinking, changing your behaviors.

So it's really important how you think about doing things reactions as well from the other person as well, who you're actually interacting with.

Do that person likes to have a communication with you.

Why don't you take that time out to ring each other, meet each other, rather texting?

Because I find sometimes also texting, texting, texting, texting.

Do you not fingers start to get tired?

Do you not get tired of texting?

Because what you're actually doing is you're constantly waiting.

When you send a text, you're waiting for that person constantly looking at your phone.

Are you going to get a reply back?

Because sometimes you send a text, you might not get a reply back on the same day.

You might get it on the next day, you know?

So it's really good to try to break that texting a little bit of your time and that as well.

Start making that communication ring a person or voice notes as well.

Mild note, voice notes as well.

Because sometimes if you're texting, texting, that person might get distracted and you're waiting a text, waiting reply back and you'll be sitting there all day, all night waiting for this person and then that person communicates you, texts you back the next day or a few days.

There's another misunderstanding.

Oh, I was waiting for your texts, this and that.

Because sometimes texts can just get lost as well in your phone.

It's all technology, isn't it?

So if we just take your time out, let's talk, if you're busy, I'm free this time, can we talk to each other by phone?

Put a time scale.

I just like after so many texts, I maybe have a three-text rule or something.

I don't know what the number is.

I go, this is ridiculous.

I call the person and sometimes they won't answer.

Seriously, really you want to keep a text?

Fine, but I don't text them back then.

I think I subliminally give them a message.

If you don't answer, that means you're busy, which might be they might be busy, so they can only text or not in a quiet location.

But whatever, I'm Daniel out.

Call me.

But so let's get back into the mindset of the I am lonely, because there's a lot of people depressed and lonely and how they can break out.

So and give me some ideas for those people.

One that comes to my mind is you must physically, because we've been talking about texting, phone.

We did talk about a great one where you go to a community table, you get out to a cafe, sit down.

Another one that comes to my mind is just go out the door and go for a walk.

Meet strangers, right?

Yes.

If you're feeling lonely, you'd be surprised how many people are out there also in your same shoes as well.

Yes.

But why don't you make that first?

Trying to find out if you got so busy, lifestyle, working, constantly living, why don't you start making little boundaries for yourself?

Okay, this time, I'm going to do for myself care.

It might be like, okay, I haven't had time to join that activity I really enjoyed in the past, so it's time for me to join that even a little bit of a gym as well, or so many social groups that you can actually join as well.

It's not all about people say it's cost a lot of money and this and that, I haven't got financially.

No.

Google where you are, where ever you live in.

I'm sure there is so many social activities, group sessions where they meet up once a month.

Even your local churches where they have a cup of tea and chit chats once a month.

Where you actually connecting with live people face to face, half an hour then, half an hour then.

Trying to reach out yourself before you start waiting for other people to reach to you, because they might be waiting for you.

It's always two-way system in a way connecting people.

Trying to join the gym, trying to do activity, go to local gym somewhere, or you'll go to little local park somewhere, or find out if there's any group session activity, events happen once a month or weekly basis, where you're connecting with people.

So trying to find where you are in the area.

What about just walking out the door and going for a walk though?

Would that work in where you live?

Definitely.

So if you just go for a walk, 10 minutes walk around the corner, trust me, you will definitely meet somebody.

Even going for a shop, just go around to your supermarket, just go out the house, anything to get out the house for five, 10 minutes.

If you haven't got a dog or any pet, just go yourself or go with your family member, your friend or anybody.

Ask your neighbor, do you like walking?

Let's go make a connection.

Let's make a little activity.

Once a week, we're going to go together.

Reach out to somebody who hasn't actually spoken for a very long time.

Oh, so how are you doing, buddy?

What's going on?

My neighbor, he just moved or he's house-sitting.

He's in the neighborhood.

I'd ran into him before, but he just returned after being gone for a while.

I was like, you know what?

Text me.

Always tell us to everybody, text me if you want to meet for coffee one day, because I knew he was back in town just by himself house-sitting.

And most people don't take me up on it.

I actually got a text to him.

I'm like, yeah, I met him at the coffee shop.

But in terms of walking out the door, I think sometimes people think they have to, they make it too difficult.

They're like, okay, in the morning at this time, I'm going to go for a walk.

And then when I go for the walk, if I meet someone, I have to know how to say something, what to say.

I'm like, no, just in the, what time is it right now?

You're ready to go.

Put shoes on, go out the door.

Don't worry about what am I going to say when someone, when I see somebody, right?

Yeah, don't worry about that.

That's the last thing you need to worry about.

The main thing you need to worry about is find the time.

Put a slot in your routine, your busy lifetime.

Okay, if I finish work this time before dinner, I'm going to prep for the dinner, whatever you got to do at home, five minutes for yourself.

Take that five, ten minutes.

It has to be like walks and walks, hours and hours.

That's not walking.

So you'll be very surprised.

You might see on your walks, you might see somebody walking their dog or someone, or someone just sat at the bus stop.

You might just be like, oh, hello, how are you?

You waiting for the bus?

Oh, I just saw the bus.

It's just coming now, ten minutes.

Well, that's great one.

That's great.

Because you're actually helping people too.

Like the example you just gave, like the bus just left.

Did you know that?

So you see someone else sitting at the bus stop, and you're the lonely person.

This is how easy it is to change the world.

You're like, and they didn't realize the bus already left, and you saw it leave.

Now you've made conversation, a new friend for a moment, and help them because they didn't know the bus left.

Yeah.

Then you just stood there, oh, I just saw a bus around the corner.

So it won't be too long.

How are you going there?

Or, you know, so where are you going there now?

Say that for me.

You might be so surprised, even when you're going for your walks, somebody might be with their dog.

Oh, that's a nice dog.

And this is, oh, thank you very much.

So you might be surprised that person, you might be the first person that they have spoken to all day.

And just come out there, you know.

It could be that that bus, that person at the bus stop with the dog that you are mentioning too, is the lonely person.

And you are not the lonely person, right?

You're out for your morning jog or your morning bike ride.

So it works both ways.

It's just basically talking to strangers.

And that stranger becomes your long term friend or somebody might meet on a regular basis on your walks as well.

Somebody might sometimes might need advice from you, that same person, you know, they might be waiting for you to, you know, come along, that person comes a regular walk, you know.

Relationships are two way systems.

So not always wait for that person to connect with you.

Why don't you start connecting to other person as well?

Find out what's going on, you know, what's other person's and say, they'd be really, because like I said in the beginning, when we're human beings, we live in a multi-cultural society, we're not mind readers and we can't see inside, we can't see what people are thinking, because their mind is inside, it's a hidden mind.

So it's really good to word, speak out, speak, say anything.

Nothing is silly, don't feel pretty bad like that.

Anything can anything, even a hello and just walk past or just stand if you can.

Hello, how are you?

Oh, it's been raining today.

How's the weather?

Oh, it's really good today.

You'd be so surprised how much smile that person, but I look at their faces, how they've lighten up because you've said hello to them.

And you might be the first and last person that they've had in Speckledore all day and make a lot of difference as well.

What do you think about?

Oh, yeah, always makes me feel better when I talk to, I just like to talk to people and I am an introvert again, the shyest person ever.

People like, you don't seem shy.

I'm like, well, that's because we're talking now.

But I had to make the, I had to make the effort, yeah.

Hello, I'm Daniel.

Or what are you doing on your computer and your phone?

That's so interesting.

Can I bring me into your world?

I had to make the effort.

Let's talk about people who in America and probably there, they all don't want to go back to work after the pandemic.

They want to work from home or don't want to do the drive commute or go to work because they feel it's not productive.

And part of that's correct, but also I think part of it might be affecting people's loneliness and that not everybody is staying home to take care of a family.

Some people are by themselves.

What's your opinion on that?

Is it making the situation worse in terms of loneliness by only having a three-day work week, for example?

Yes, I think so.

Now, if some person works from home, you've got no choice, some reason, you work from home now.

But I will just say to them, even if you finish work as well over lunchtime, so I'm sure you get a break in that time, even when you're working from home as well, I'm sure you get a break as well.

Make connection, bring the person somebody up, that you work outside of work as well, or in the work as well, and they might be in a break as well.

Go outside for a little walk, go in the fresh air as well.

Don't just stay inside.

If you're working from home as well, if you're having a break as well, five minutes, go outside for that break, and come back.

And don't feel that all the time you have to be at home, because you're working from home.

And that's basically, go out as well.

Even after work, you finish early or something, go out for that little walk, go out.

Even buying something in the grocery shop, just get yourself out of fresh air.

What I mean is also one of my question was, do you think it's making the loneliness situation worse by not going back to a five-day work week where you have to go to work?

Yes, definitely.

Definitely.

Because that person stops all the connection, goes in the outside, where you've been doing that routine, going to work.

If your main routine, you get up, you're collecting with the community, you're working outside from home as well.

And all of a sudden, you've stopped yourself, going that routine at the door.

That routine suddenly stops and you're at home as well.

So that can make you feel a lot of loneliness as well.

So that, what I would say that people as well, with that, if there's any circumstances, people have to stay at home for some reason, but still trying to make that self-care to get outside as well, make that connection, keep that connection outside as well.

With those people in that workplace, keep that communication going with your work qualities as well.

Even there, you don't see them on regular basis, make that friends because you always been with them all the time.

So keep that connection open.

Communication is really, really powerful and very important as well, even if it's any circumstances, you have to stay at home as well.

But keep that communication.

How about this one?

Back to the phones, another question for you.

Some in America have proposed a solution to the problem, because I'm a solution guy.

I like to focus on the solutions, not complain all the time about the problems.

And they're like, well, we'll make it a law that someone's kids can only be on the phone so much of the time.

Like literally, if you're home, like a federal law, like you kids aren't allowed to watch TV so much.

But at schools, let's say, take away the phones, which I think is good.

Take away the phones at school.

But I think anytime you force something on someone, kids will find a way, people will find a way.

What's a better answer than limiting?

What's a better way to encourage people to connect more person to person than to mandate you can't use your phone here?

I think it's best ways to, the communication is a powerful key.

The way we communicate to each other, the way we explain things to, why this is important to not have your phone this certain time, and this certain is really good for your health as well, your physical and your mentally.

This time, if you can't, the kids can't have it at school, but you can always have it when you've come from school as well, this time.

So I think the key important is having very good, healthy boundaries and healthy communication with each other to understand, not shouting and lashing and putting that aggressive boundary on to that some person.

Obviously, like you said, then they're going to find a way of finding your that.

I just thought I just started one because I'm a troublemaker.

Yeah.

My brother were troublemakers in school.

I would make a game out of it.

Meaning, okay, the law is it's not that you can't be on your phone and we're not going to take your phones.

But if at any point, anybody is on their phone, unless everybody, if there's at any point, somebody who is not on their phone, you have to put your phone away.

So if every everybody was on their phone, it would work perfectly.

But if I want to be the troublemaker or if I was a lonely person and just wanted to put my phone away and look around, everyone would have to stop put their phone away.

That's going to be a bit tricky though.

If you're a lonely person, you can put the phone away and you expect other people to do it.

I think that's going to be a very, very hard, tricky solution for you to do that.

Because that's putting yourself like your aggressive way.

If I've done it, I expect other people to do it.

That's not the way to do it because that's never going to happen as well.

No, but I would frame it.

You got a good point there.

If the lonely person would, you don't want to do that if you're lonely.

I'm not the lonely person.

I'm the person that sees someone lonely.

I recognize that body language.

I'm on my phone.

I have something to do that's actually quite important, but I put my phone down.

I'm not the lonely person because I'm calling attention to the lonely person who is on their phone.

Now they have to put their phone down.

They're forced, even though they don't want to put their phone down to the shy person, as is everybody else.

We recognize the situation as a community collective.

I'm just the leader.

As the leader, I go, you know what?

Time to put the phone down.

I'm not being told by the principal or society or law, you can't use your phone or by the restaurant I go to, I can't use my phone.

I'm empowering, we're empowering to do something, not being told to do something, that kind of thing.

Yes, that's a different scenario, you said yes.

So if you put your phone down, you spent other person to put them, go approach them, explain them why you're saying this.

Why is it a good benefit for you as well?

Because now we could connect with each other without our phones.

I put my phone because I want to connect with you, has a person to person to communicate, talking to each other.

Let's do things together in a connection.

Why don't you put your phone?

So find out why that person is not putting their phone.

What is the reason behind those screen as well?

What is the benefit they're getting from there?

What are they seeing in the daily basis?

What is going through that?

Make that connection for why I put my phone down.

How come you're not putting your phone down?

What's going on with them?

The thing that comes to mind is, because Daniel, this is a true story, because I'm making a lot of money on TikTok with my videos.

I'm like, okay.

Why are you here?

Why aren't you at home doing TikTok on?

Because they're doing it everywhere, at the restaurant, at the cafe, at the bus stop.

They're all have people on their phones because I think part of the problem is social media has such a claw into people addictive to that.

They can't get off of it.

But of course, it's contributing to this loneliness things.

I'm plugging from that.

So to summarize and then I'm going to get into your book, There is Light at the End of the Tunnel of Loneliness.

To summarize though for people, before we talk about your book, what are, again, what's my homework?

I'm lonely.

Pretend I am the lonely person.

What do I do?

Firstly, I will say, recognize why you're lonely.

What is the reason behind that?

Is it something that you've actually, when you were born and you've carried it along with you, part of your journey bringing up as well?

Where is that lonely?

What is creating that loneliness for you to be lonely?

What is going around with you?

Accept that you need help as well.

That you need help, you need support to understand why you're feeling that way.

What has happened or you feel something is going to happen?

What is around you?

Find why.

The biggest thing is why you're feeling it.

What has happened or what is you feel is going to happen?

Or what is happening around you?

What is making you feel lonely?

Is it something that someone is saying or something that you've got in profession with you or someone, find out why the world is why.

What if it's just I'm not good at making friends?

I'm not good at talking to strangers.

I have no friends.

I'm not good at being social.

So find out why, where is this all created from?

Is it from when you were in the nursery?

Where did it start?

When did it start?

Did you primary school?

Bullies.

How about bullies?

Like I got bullied.

People bully me at school.

People bully me at work.

I just don't like to pick the battles, so I've decided to shut down.

Yeah.

So if I say that as well, find out why is that?

Did you get the support?

When you were feeling like, when did that first happened?

When what happened?

Did you get the support?

Did that person get in trouble?

Did you report it to anybody?

Did somebody listen to you?

Did you get the support?

I said second grade and I got beat up and teacher didn't do anything.

And I just want to go to school at work and do my own thing and not cause trouble.

So I'm shutting down.

I'm just going to do my schoolwork.

I'm going to get out of there.

I'm just going to do my work.

I'm going to get out of there.

I'm doing a great job at school and work, but now I'm lonely.

How do I fix that?

So if you've got a really good relationship, find out who's your good relationship with.

Is it your parents?

If you've got siblings or it's another friend that you know, more than one friend you go out there, have you got a good relationship with a headmaster, not your teacher?

Find out who's a good relationship with that you've got and reach out to that person, even next to a neighbor, your friend, another friend, or your sibling, your parents, or your GP, any other professional in your school.

But reach out, don't, you know, isolate yourself or just do your job, and this is what I need to do.

Yeah.

So when you say reach out, I'm pretending now I'm the lone guy.

I'm doing two situations here.

One, I'm the young kid in school, the one I'm the older one at work.

Which one should we take here?

Let's do the school, the young people.

I have no friends.

When you say reach out, what exactly, how do I do that?

Well, if you haven't got friends or you feel that you haven't got friends, what will you do?

Because you need to reach out.

Like when I say reach out, look around you, who you can reach out, who do you have the good relationship with?

I'm sure there is somebody out there that you have a very good relationship with.

So if it's not your, for some nobody from school, I'm sure there's somebody at home, your parents or one of your siblings, if you haven't got siblings, you're just the only child.

Maybe it's somebody you're related to, your cousin or somebody that you interact with, somebody your neighbors, or anybody you interact on a daily basis, you see them.

I will say, if you have a good relationship with that person, definitely reach out to those people.

Even if you can't speak to somebody in your community or your family, you're feeling that side as well, they might feel different of you.

I will say definitely like myself, I reached to my parents and my parents took me to my GP.

If you haven't got a really good relationship with your parents, I just feel that I'm sure there's somebody at them.

So my parents, this true story, my parents say you need more friends.

So what they did was they drove me around the neighborhood, and they're like, you're going to knock on every door here till you find someone to play with.

And I did.

I finally found some, oh yeah, you can play with our kid.

So I'm playing with this kid.

I'm actually starting to feel good now.

I made a new friend.

You know what he did?

I started to be too happy.

And he's like, oh, those are my, that's my toy, my bike, my football helmet.

You can't wear it.

He wasn't that way until he actually saw how much joy I was finally engaging with someone.

And for some reason, he, I don't know what his problem was, to which I went back to, you know what, I don't need people.

I don't need to make friends.

So I would just say that if you can't, if you're finding it difficult to, like the friendship, you had a bit of a problem before, you know, something triggered, something happened, challenges came before making friends in between your friends.

You know, the trust is gone, you know, building that trust with friends as well, or anyone in the community.

I would definitely just reach to your professional GP then, you know.

We don't have one.

Yeah.

Didn't have one.

All right.

But this is what I'm saying, like when you say reach out, I'm putting myself in the picture again.

I would just go to the principal and say, kids are mean to me.

They don't want to play with me.

I probably did that.

And he's probably like, Daniel, I guess.

I think, you know, what I think, it needs to be flipped around.

It's the lonely person is lonely because it's the people that need to treat people better.

The solution I think is people need to treat others better.

Okay, so part two of summarizing, I wanted to ask you, we summarized for the lonely person, what they can do.

And you gave us some things.

What can the people, the rest of society do different?

Yeah, I think the society needs, like I said, we live in a multicultural society.

That stigmas, well, I think we people need to be less judgment as well, less selfish as well.

A lot of ego going on and trying to be, trying to put yourself in that person's shoe, and trying to learn to be a bit more kind and humble to each other.

And so we can live a better life as well into society, a better place, make the living better place for yourself and for other people as well.

And also look at yourself, how would you like to be treated?

So if you want to be treated nicely, as spoken nicely to, and say things nice, you expect other people to be nice to you and say things nice to you and treat you nicely.

So why don't you try to do that to other people as well?

Yeah.

You know what comes to mind is?

Yes.

Is why?

And at first I'm like, well, good point.

Why is it my problem?

Well, why is global warming your problem if you believe in global warming?

Why is recycling your problem if you believe it's a problem?

You do things to help the planet and to help make the theoretically you think you do things to make the world a better place.

Hello, this is one of them, right?

I think people don't realize how important this is maybe.

Yes, of course, yes.

And education is very important as well.

We need to educate ourselves as well, you know, into this as well.

We care about the environment, but really do we really care about the environment?

What about how we talk to each other as well?

So that's important as well.

You know, modern need to communicate to each other.

Communication is really, really key power thing, you know, to speak to each other.

So I think we should treat people how we would like to be treated as well, from other people.

We spent a lot of people to do things for ourselves.

We spent a lot of things from other people.

So what about we put ourselves in that person's shoot, how we want to treat, we want to treat other people.

I think what you're saying is the key point.

Maybe we focus, we, in general, the people trying to solve this loneliness problem are focusing too much on or as much on the lonely person.

Here's what you can do.

You know, go to WhatsApp, go to Meetup, you know, get out of the house when in fact, it's really the as big a part of the problem, the solution to the problem is the people who are not lonely, they need to, well, I don't know.

It was something Jesus said, and there's a lot of religious figures that will probably have said some similar to encourage people to love your neighbors or something like that.

Like you said, be, treat people the way you want to be treated.

But it's got to be proactive.

It seems like people kind of are just kind of kicking back like, yeah, I treat people good.

Yeah, I treat people.

You didn't recognize, like Sukhvinder, like you said, recognize the body language.

You're not doing it.

You're not being as good as you think you are.

You think we can improve as a society, right?

Yes, definitely.

You know, let's step by step.

We got, we are, I think we are getting there.

We started to, but we've got a very long way, you know, and it's just like mental health is a stigma.

People don't want to talk about it, but we want to talk about other stuff as well.

But it's a stigma.

We need to break that stigma, break that barriers now.

Let's start talking.

Yeah, there's a very big possibility that the mental health is connected to the loneliness, because at the beginning of our conversation, it almost seemed like we were talking about depression and mental health in the same sentence, while we're saying it's loneliness, the symptoms.

If the mental health problem is connected to the loneliness problem, and it's as simple as when you see your neighbor going by themselves on a walk, you're walking your dog, you say, hello.

It's not that hard to do, solve this problem.

Tell me about your book.

There is light at the end of the tunnel.

You can hold it up.

There is light at the end of the tunnel of loneliness.

It's a picture of a guy walking on railroad tracks in a dark tunnel towards the light.

He's walking towards the light.

There's hope at the end of the tunnel.

When the writing process, what did you decide to put in it?

How did you decide what you were going to put in your book?

What's in the book?

Okay, so this is a self-help book.

So when I meet by self-help book, where everything was managed to help me to combat my loners, I wanted to reach out to people who want to support and help as well to combat their loners and live a happy life like I'm myself.

So I created this self-help book for every single person.

And so when they pick this book up, they'll have things that I've used to combat my loners.

So I wanted to give things back that I've managed my loners, so they can actually live a happier life as well.

So when I mean things, I mean strategies, resources, organization that they can reach out to.

All over the world, this book is in as all over the world for every single person.

So they can actually use things out there, that everything I used to.

So I wanted to put things for them as well, that everything I've used and helped me as I wanted to help them as well, to use them as well, to support them as well.

It'll be in the show notes also where you can get it on Amazon, where you can find it.

The link to it on Amazon will be in the show notes.

Is there anything we haven't talked about that you want to add in your book or in your mind, or if you want to take a moment to think of everything we've been talking about, whether someone is lonely, what they can do, or if just someone's like, yeah, I get it.

I understand now why we're going to make the world better just like I recycle, and I care about the universe, the planet Earth.

I'm going to do this for strangers, talk to strangers.

Anything we haven't talked about you want to add?

Well, my book is on Amazon.

It's all across the world.

It's for every single person.

All the money I'm raising from my book is going to the mental health charities.

It's got my personal details in the books so people can reach out to me to say hello and how they're finding the book as well or whatever they want to say.

I'm actually a qualified counselor as well, so it'd be really nice to hear from them as well.

Please do leave a review on Amazon when they do reach the book as well.

It's on Kindle as well.

It's a hard copy as well.

But I will say, if you are hurting, my book can be a resource of healing, a reminder to you all that hope and joy is always within reach.

I want this book to be a powerful beacon of hope, reminding you all that even in the darkest time, there is always light.

You're not on your own.

I care, and that's why I wrote this book for every single person.

We all care.

You're not alone.

I just thought of another tip or idea if you're lonely, because a lot of things seem to be people are shopping online.

It's the holiday season, people shop online.

They shop everything people buy on Amazon these days.

Even if you don't buy it in a store, you can go to the mall, go to the store, get it out of the house.

Yeah, if you don't want to buy, it's on Kindle as well, so you don't have to buy the hard copies well on Amazon.

So you can actually read it on Kindle as well.

That's another idea.

You could take a snapshot of the book on Amazon, take it to local bookstore, say, can you order this for me?

And they can.

And even if you don't, and they don't want to, you would, at least if you're lonely, this is something to do.

You get offline and you go physically talk to people.

Yes.

And if you're not feeling lonely, but you know somebody who's feeling lonely, please do reach out to those people and talk about this book.

This book is for every single person.

Do mention the book as well.

Yes.

So, yeah, I really, really recommend the book.

It will save a lot of money and time to go into a qualified counselor because sometimes you can't even reach your counselor.

So, this book, it will help everything.

It's got every single thing in there to support you before you even get to the-

if you can't get to a professional counselor.

This book has all the answers in there for you to help you, self-help book.

And this book is always going to be with you.

So, every time you're going to feel lonely, reach the book out.

This book is a comfort book.

It's got every single thing in there.

Strategies, resources, top tips, skills, organizations.

It's got absolutely everything in there.

So, I very, very recommend, please do reach out for the book and tell everybody about the book and leave a feedback and to reach out to me as well.

Because I care, I went through, I know what it feels like and you're not on your own.

It's everything.

That's why I write everything.

This book is for you guys, for every single person across the world.

Nice.

Thanks so much for being on my show, Sukhvinder.

It's been enlightening and I hope your book helps a lot of people.

I know the work you do helps a lot of people and good luck with it all.

Thank you very much for having me.

It's been absolutely a pleasure.

Honored.

Thank you very much for having me.

Thank you very much for your time though.

I appreciate you guys here.

And thank you very much.

It's been meant a lot to me for your time as well.

And yeah.

Thank you.

Have a great day.