When a client says, “I am a loner, always alone and I hate it” or “I don’t have any real friends, nobody likes me” or “I have social anxiety” or “I can’t make any meaningful relationships,” we ought to assume that this person’s mental map is oriented inwards, showing only what the ego “gets” from the environment, not necessarily what it can give to others. This is a series of meta questions we can ask to help a client deal with self-induced loneliness:

Step 1: Having recognized that you feel and behave lonely, what strategies might you employ to seek out and include more people in your life? #

Step 2: Where exactly do you feel that loneliness in your body? #

Step 3: If that specific part of you had a voice, what would it say now? #

Step 4: What’s it like when you sit back in that chair and allow it to support you? #

Step 5: What’s it like when you sit up and elongate your entire back, allowing your head to float upwards? #

Step 6: If you knew that you’d die tomorrow, what would you miss out on that could happen later today? #

Step 7: If you remain in eye contact with me, what—if anything—changes within you? #

Step 8: Scan through your body. #

Notice where exactly in your body you feel the most aliveness—the most energy. Notice where in your body you feel most connected and present. Notice where in your body you feel the least alive—the least amount of energy.

Step 9: Just as you did with the X (part in the beginning), move your attention between the two locations of aliveness and dullness, presence and disconnect. #

Move back and forth and notice how it is basically a matter of perception, a choice you make to notice whichever one you’d like to experience.

Step 10: Future pace. #

Imagine a social event tomorrow or the next day, and you notice that your attention is drawn to the disempowered or low energy area.What is your immediate choice to remedy it?