Platonic Intimacy: The Cure for the Loneliness Epidemic

Earlier this month, the Surgeon General for the United States issued an advisory about loneliness, isolation, and the lack of connection in America. Have you seen this? It’s really interesting, and I want to talk about it in this episode of Surviving to Thriving because it affects us all.

Hi, I’m Laura Giles, your host of Surviving to Thriving, and connection is what we’re all about. I’ve identified 5 stages that we all go through that lead to a sense of fulfillment and connection, and each week I talk about one aspect of those 5 stages to help you move the needle a little bit at a time. If the podcast inspires or informs you - or even enrages you - please drop me a comment and let me know why. Or subscribe so you don’t miss out! You can do that at letitgonow.net.

So, I know most people do not take the time to read something like the Surgeon General’s reports, but as a transformational coach and the founder of the Surviving to Thriving Sanctuary, this is something I am super interested in. It’s an 82 page report, so I am just going to give you the highlights, cool?

Basically what the Surgeon General is saying is that loneliness is a health epidemic. Lonely people have the same risk of death as someone who smokes up to 15 cigarettes a day. Lonely people have a greater risk of heart disease, dementia, stroke, depression, and anxiety, and have lowered immune responses. And check this out - isolation is more risky than drinking 6 alcoholic drinks per day, being a coach potato, being obese, and air pollution! So, newsflash - we need each other.

The coolest thing that I read - or maybe this was my interpretation of what I read - is that he acknowledges the necessity of feeling connected to friends, family, your neighborhood, and society. So, it’s not just about having a lover, which I think is how we are generally socialized to think about how we meet our need for connection.

Have you seen the movie The Lobster? I think it does a great job at capturing and poking fun at the way society can view being single. The Lobster is this movie about a guy whose wife leaves him. He goes to this hotel that’s like a, I don’t even know what to call it. it’s like a retreat sort of where single people go to meet other single people. They have 45 days to find a mate or they turn into an animal. Everybody has quirks, and each person is looking for a mate who shares their superficial quirks thinking that that is a sign of compatibility. It gets more and more bizarre with the symbolism for how we think of courtship and being alone. For instance, they go hunting, and if they tranquilize someone, they get an extra day added to their stay. Anyway, the movie is pretty extreme, but it does highlight how weird we are about relationships. It’s like we have this preoccupation with finding a lover who is going to end our loneliness.

I think this expectation contributes to the fact that suicide rates for middle aged men who live alone are twice that of guys who don’t live alone. 

Many fairy tales are all about finding your soul mate and living happily ever after. And I think all of this adds to our loneliness because it shows that there is a gigantic, obvious thing that we’re all missing, and that is that platonic intimacy is a thing. Can we normalize platonic intimacy?

When I say, “platontic intimacy” what I am talking about is friendship. We can be friends with people of the same sex, people of the opposite sex, older people, younger people, neighbors, coworkers, anybody. Relationships do not have to be about sex. 

Remember that song, “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On?” It was released by Cherelle in the 80s and then again by Robert Palmer. It’s basically a story of dating. The couple goes out. One wants sex, the other one doesn’t, but it’s like it’s expected. If you say no, it’s like you reneged on the deal. And then the one who refuses feels guilty for saying no. What the what? It’s 40 years later, and this is still going on? Just because you enjoy someone’s company doesn’t mean sex has to happen. And we can enjoy relationships with people who are not potential sexual conquests.

Since when did sex become the only doorway to intimacy? It’s like, once you’re over 12, you can’t hold hands unless you’re at least flirting. We live in a low touch culture anyway, so it’s no wonder the skin hunger is so bad. We can only have socially approved touch as adults if we’re getting a massage or having sex. That’s insane. 

Our need for touch isn’t just physical. It’s emotional, mental, and spiritual. We all need to feel seen, be heard, be intellectually stimulated, and to feel a sense of belonging. You’re not going to get that, or at least not in a deep and authentic way, from virtual relationships or transactional relationships. Lucy was right when she said in the Charlie Brown Christmas, “You need involvement.”

We all need involvement. We need to invest in our families, friends, and communities. If we’re just in it for what we can get out of it, our material needs might get met, but our social and emotional ones won’t, and life’s holistic. It’s connected. We need it all in healthy, balanced ways.

So, let me show you what I mean. I’ve been hosting sacred travel adventures around the world since 1999, and they have always been magical. I thought it was because the sites are fantastic. We always go to places where there have been miracles, where people have worshipped for hundreds or thousands of years. We go to places with reputation for healing or that just have this amazing energy that uplifts me and makes me feel like singing. In fact, I typically do sing all the time when I am on a tour. Nature just inspires it.

We come together as strangers and as the days pass, we become a community, a unit. We share these incredible experiences that touch our hearts, and our insides just get softer. Our breath comes easier. But it’s not only that. The connection with the land and the local people increases, too. Connection expands. And when you think of it in that way, doesn’t it seem silly to limit your goal to having a romantic partner? We can connect to everything. We are everything. It seem silly to me not to be a part of that Infinite Intelligence.

The Surgeon General’s report said that when we are connected to our communities, we’re safer. Murder decreases by 21% and car theft decreases by 20%. We don’t steal from our friends, right? It makes total sense. People who live in connected communities also experience more economic prosperity. It’s like if I lose my job, and my neighbor knows someone who is hiring, he connects the two of us. That makes sense, too, right? 

The other day I was talking to someone about how I believe the Women’s Liberation movement has destroyed the family and communities because when women got birth control, more education, and more job opportunities, households became dual earning with the kids being cared for by strangers. There were also more latchkey kids. So, we started teaching kids things like “stranger danger” and “safe touch” because they were more isolated and with people they didn’t have connections with. It was necessary.

Now, I don’t think equality for women is a bad thing at all. I think it was necessary to balance power and to keep women from being economically vulnerable if their relationships failed. I wouldn’t want to spend ten years or twenty years in a marriage taking care of a man and our kids only to have to start over with the skills and education of a 20 year old. It’s too risky. So, I totally get it, but this is where all that has led us.

We’re a nation of isolated people who grew up with parents who didn’t know how create emotional safety or connect because their parents didn’t get it either. And the Surviving to Thriving Sanctuary is the free place for people who want platonic intimacy to meet and stick their toe in the water. It’s like a virtual version of my spiritual retreat. We don’t have cool scenery or experiences, but we do have likeminded people who are willing to be vulnerable and explore platonic intimacy.

And the Surviving to Thriving Academy is the place to learn the stuff you didn’t learn to have those juicy connections with other people, Nature, Spirit, and the universe. See, it’s not just as easy as making more friends. I was a meeting organizer for years on meetup, and I liked it a lot. I met a lot of people, but they came for the event, got what they wanted, and left. The whole idea that you’re going to connect and have a community takes more than just being in the same space with people. You have to be with people who are interested in making a connection. And those people have to have the skills to maintain healthy bonds.

One of the stories my clients speak of a lot is meeting someone who looks really cool at first, and then it’s not so cool. Rupi Kaur has a poem about this called “The Middle Place.” It says, 

the middle place is strange

the part between them and and the next

is an awakening from how you saw

to how you will see

this is where their charm wears off

where they are no longer

the god you made them out to be

when the pedestal you carved out of your

bone and teeth no longer serves them

they are unmasked and made mortal again

To me that reads like, when we meet someone new, we both put on our polite mask. We are the best version of ourselves to impress the other. Then with familiarity, the mask starts to come off. When we’re no longer the shining version of ourselves, we have a choice to make. We can either relate on an authentic level, or be disillusioned and go off in search of someone new to play with.

I’m challenging you to be authentic. Let the other person be authentic and meet in that middle, real place. That’s the only place you can have a meaningful connection. If we’re looking for Prince Charming who is going to take care of all our needs, or the beautiful princess, or the person who is always positive, or whatever, we’re going to be disappointed. People are flawed, lazy, and they don’t always want what we want. And to me, that’s where the magic lies.

If I wanted to be with someone who is just like me, I’d be bored to death. There would be no challenge, no surprises. If I wanted someone who was nothing like me, we wouldn’t have anything in common. So, we need people are who quirky, imperfect, and different to provoke us to grow, make us question our beliefs, and to keep us curious. But this doesn’t mean that we let just any old body in our inner circle. Everybody is lovely, worthy, and beautiful. Everybody is part of our earthling family, but we want healthy people in our inner circle. That goes for lovers and potential parents to our children especially because unstable lovers make unstable lifestyles.

In my Surviving to Thriving Academy, there are 5 stages that follow the sacred wheel. The first is Surviving. This is where we figure out how to create safety. Safety is always the most important thing. If you don’t feel safe, you can’t connect or grow. Safety is about survival. Fear is driving the bus here and this is not a place to live. It’s a place we go when things are falling apart. 

Falling apart is natural. It’s normal. We recently had an eclipse and I saw lots of things fall apart during that time. it’s great. It’s big energy that creates transformation, but we don’t want to live here. It’s chaotic. So, figure out how to get your feet on the ground and move to the next step.

This is coping. If there is an earthquake or tornado, the storm passes and then there is all this damage to clean up and lots of stuff to figure out. This is that stage. This is about life. It’s about you. It’s big picture stuff, we’re not into connection yet because we’re still figure out how to make it through, but we can’t really make any satisfying connections until we get through this part. Life is full of conflicts. Some are big and some are small, but until we master that part, intimacy - whether it’s platonic or sexual - isn’t really possible long term because even relationships require skills.

If you wanted to get a fence built, you’re going to ask someone with construction skills, right? If you want to travel somewhere, you want a pilot to fly the plane, right? If you want help learning algebra, you want someone with math skills. Why aren’t we looking at potential friends, lovers, and relationships the same way? Don’t you want someone with good relationship skills? We’re probably going to have more satisfying relationships if we have relationship skills and connect to people who have good relationship skills., but not just relationship skills, but all skills.

Now, the more coping skills we have, the fewer waves that knock us down, so we have a firm foundation and we can focus on knowing ourselves. If you’re always dealing with something, you are either in crisis or have a skill issue. Life doesn’t have to be that hard.

Think about the scene in Napoleon Dynamite when Pedro asks Napoleon if he’s asked anyone to the prom. Napoleon says that he hasn’t because girls only want guys with good skills, like nunchuck skills, computer hacking skills, and I think he said bow hunting skills. He’s got the right idea. We need to be problem solvers. These things generalize. 

When we are little, our parents influence us to be who they want us to be. The media influences us to buy stuff and to think of ourselves as inadequate so they can sell us something. As we experience life, some of that stuff will not ring true. Those coping skills we learned will help us to separate it out, push back, stand strong in who we are, and be our true selves.

 If we come into relationships as our true selves, that Middle Place that Rupi Kaur talked about doesn’t happen or isn’t particularly extreme because there is less of a mask. We show up more vulnerable and real than if we’re socially or emotionally unskilled, in the crisis phase, or trying to impress someone. 

So, that’s the Vibing stage, and this is the time for us to build our relationship with ourselves. This should happen during adolescent and up through early adulthood. Unfortunately, if we didn’t have healthy parents and learn good skills, we can latch on to people who rescue us and keep us from growing. If it’s a good enough relationship, we can stop searching for who we are because it’s comfortable enough. 

We have a lot of important relationships in our lives. Our parents, our first love, our partner, and Spirit to name a few. But this relationship with yourself dictates how all the rest of them will be, so my suggestion is to focus on this one. When things fall apart, go back to this. You can’t be happy if you are not in alignment with your values, so you have to know who you are.

Now, once this is done, you can do the connecting with other people thing. That’s Tribing. A lot of people are searching for their tribe, the place where they feel they can belong, but belonging isn’t just about finding people who like what you like. You have to have healthy attachment. If you don’t, you will either find people who are clinging who want you to complete them, or you will do that to other people, or you will have people in your circle who don’t know how to connect, can’t open up, and don’t give of themselves - and that will feel pretty stinking empty.

If there are a lot of healthy people and a few people with attachment issues, the healthy ones can carry the unhealthy ones. But what we have now, society wide, is a lot of people with unhealthy attachments, lots of disconnection, and the healthy ones can’t carry the load. This is why we have so many horrible bosses stories and things like human trafficking. Healthy, connected people create healthy connected societies. The Surgeon General said it. We’re safer, healthier, and happier when we have healthy connections.

The next stage is the part that I find the most delicious, and that is Thriving. Thriving is what we do on tour and at our gatherings. We are good. Our peeps are good, and that juicy goodness flows out into the environment where we can start to feel connected to the neighborhood, the land, nature, our ancestors, our culture, history, and the universe. It’s a feeling of knowing who you are through the ages and in your bones. You’re firmly planted here, in this time, in this place, with these people, in this body, and it’s good. It’s always good because there is always something bigger than yourself holding it all together.

When you are the only thing in your world that is carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, it’s lonely and overwhelming. When you are connected to the past, the mountains, your neighbors, and everything you can see, you’re never alone. 

This isn’t some pipe dream type of promise. It’s real. I can tell you that it’s real because it’s my existence. I can’t really tell you why I have never felt lonely, but I believe what I’ve been saying is the reason. 

My family isn’t perfect, but it’s always been reasonably healthy and we all have good boundaries. I wasn’t the most popular person in school. I was very shy and I’m an introvert, but I always had a couple of good friends beside me. I talked about my neighborhood in my interview with Brigadier General Marlon Crook. We grew up together and had some of the same warm, connected memories of growing up in a place where we didn’t have to look over our shoulder or worry about stranger danger. We had neighbors who knew each other and looked out for each other. 

My parents are capable people. When my car broke down on a country road, and I couldn’t fix it, my dad came and got me. I could rely on things like that. That helped me to become a capable person. I took pride in gaining skill and learning things so that I wouldn’t have to ask for help and could help myself. So, all the things that I see as the pathway to a connected life are things I’ve lived.

When you are safe in your skin, you have the space to notice what’s always here. You notice how amazing the sky is, or how truly awesome the ocean is. You can marvel at the insane beauty that is a whale or a bunny rabbit when it appears before you. You really notice that, hey! I am a part of all this crazy, wonderful nature. Wow, how profound. And when you get there, you really are plugged in and connected to all of it - nature, people, Spirit - all of it. And hooking up out of loneliness doesn’t even seem like a real thing because how can you be alone when you are a part of all this?

Platonic intimacy is just what you walk in every day. It’s satisfying. It’s real. It’s life. And it’s a part of life that you want to introduce others to and to share. At least, that’s how I feel. So, it’s my goal to bring 100,000 people along this journey with me, and I want you to be one of them. Sound good?

If so, head on over to the Surviving to Thriving Sanctuary, sign up for a free membership and start posting. Share yourself. Talk to people. Every day I post something to get the conversation started. Comment on it. Don’t worry about being clever or popular, just say what you think. Then ask yourself if what you said was true. Is it effective? How can you use what you said to know yourself better? What are you sharing about yourself? I can’t tell you how often participating in our talking circle has helped me to see something more clearly. We all have to show up for each other. Wearing a mask won’t do that. It’s not real. 

If you do this  - so 30 posts in 30 days, you will know yourself a lot better. If you read what other people are posting, you will feel more connected. As a trauma therapist for over 20 years, I’ve heard a lot of stories that start with, “Iive never told anyone this before, but….” People keep stuff inside because they are ashamed and afraid. When you start saying what you won’t talk about, you realize that you’re not the only one with these thoughts or feelings and we’re all human. So share. Let’s conquer this loneliness epidemic together.

And if you want to go deeper, join the Surviving to Thriving Academy. There are activities to help you get out of Survival mode, grow your coping skills, get to know yourself, and connect with others. But it’s up to you. This is a Hero’s journey. Nobody can give this to you. You have to walk the walk yourself. The experience of life is a personal and internal thing. You can’t buy it, rush it, or outsource it. You have to live it. And if you want to start living it, join us.

I am really glad that the Surgeon General is making loneliness and connection a priority. I have said this before and will say it again. I think that most mental illness comes from a lack of healthy connections. If we each heal ourselves, society would be a much better place in a very short time. It doesn’t require us to throw any money at anything or to pass any laws. It just requires us to be the best people we can be, to be our true selves. So, all our effort positively impacts us and everyone around us. It’s a big, fat win/win. I love that.

Quality of life is not about stuff. It’s not about what job you have, how much money you have, or how beautiful it is. I just read an article online about someone who left Miami to move to Afghanistan and is raving about how great it is. I’ve seen this over and over. There is this poor village in southern Egypt that has a lot of pale skinned brides who were visiting on holiday, fell in love and decided to stay. They don’t have washing machines or cable or every day things we take for granted, but they stay there because there is community. There is belonging and love. You can’t buy that. You can’t manipulate or manufacture it. You have to create it for yourself. 

And you can’t do it if you are in fight or flight or don’t have basic people skills. We have many different types of intelligence. There is body awareness, the intellect or your mind, emotional intelligence, and spiritual intelligence, and those things have to be developed if you are going to be a good citizen to all the creatures who need you to participate in this wonderful world. Our culture focuses on intellect and intellect isn’t warm or sexy. If you want to feel well held, you have to develop the other forms of intelligence. So come on over. I’d love to see you there! It will add years to your life and make those years fulfilling. If you’re going to be here anyway, might as well have a good time in this life, right?

Thanks for tuning in guys. See you next week.