Nicole: Hello and welcome back to another episode on Heal Out Loud. And today's episode has been inspired by someone who messaged me saying that she's feeling very lonely in life, that no matter what she does, the healing journey that she's been on, there's like this really painful loneliness surrounding her all the time. And when she was speaking to me, she reminded me of the time where I used to feel super lonely and I was always a person who was surrounded by a lot of people, thankfully. However, even though I was always surrounded by people who really loved me and they were fun people, I still felt very lonely throughout nearly all my life, as far as I can remember. So this episode is about how to navigate loneliness, how to stop feeling lonely. and I'm going to share what I've done in my life to stop feeling lonely even when I am surrounded by a crowd. buckle up, it's going to be an interesting episode. So, is not always about being alone. You can feel lonely in a relationship, can feel lonely in friendships, you can feel lonely when you're around your family. So, why do we feel lonely if we are surrounded by people and The reason is because growing up in childhood there were periods and moments where you might have felt alone. And again, when I say alone it doesn't mean that you used to go home and you never found your mom or your dad or your caretakers. It means that whatever you are processing, your feelings and your emotions, you felt that you weren't fully seen. That... you weren't fully held and maybe you've had parents who are working, maybe you've had parents who weren't emotionally available, like physically they were there, but when you had big emotions they didn't know how to help you with those emotions. So loneliness, as I described earlier, does not mean that you are alone. Loneliness means that deep, deep in your heart you feel this longing for something from outside of you, this need to be held, to be loved, to be seen and this is what I'm going to be talking about. I want you to understand that your brain is divided into two parts. You have 5 % conscious, the brain that you're using right now to listen to me, and 95 % subconscious. And in that 95 % subconscious brain, you have beliefs and old programming stored in there which were created from your childhood. So You are your inner child. Although right now you are in an adult body, you are your inner child. You are what happened to you, what you've seen growing up. You are all that you've experienced when you were younger. And all those limiting beliefs that you've carried from when you were a kid are now stored in your subconscious brain and they are literally, they are programming you on how to see yourself, other people, and the world and your life now. as an adult. So when your inner child carries loneliness, emotional neglect, emotional abandonment, loneliness can feel like constant background noise when you're an adult. So growing up, I was never really alone. Although I didn't have my mom and my dad, I lived with my grandma, I was lucky enough to have cousins that were like siblings to me, so I genuinely, I was never alone. But although maybe I was sometimes when my mom used to wake up and leave in the middle of the night and not be alone at home. But for most of my life, I wasn't alone. However, I still felt alone when I was next to my grandma, I felt alone next to my cousins who were like siblings to me. I felt alone when I was with friends, I felt alone at school. And it's not because these people made me feel alone. Actually, it was quite the opposite. These people really helped to not feel alone. However, the loneliness was still there. Growing up in my romantic relationships, even when things were going good, I still feared the end. I still feared being abandoned and I still felt alone. Even in my friendships, I could be next to my friends having fun, laughing and like I had this constant like black rock inside my body telling me that I am lonely. no one understands my emotions, that no one can understand what I'm really going through. And that only changed when I reparented my inner child. So little Nikki felt very alone in her emotions, she felt very different to what other kids were going through, she felt very different internally, I felt like there was no space for me on this planet and all that programming I carried with me into my adult life. So even when I was surrounded by people, I still felt like there was something wrong with me, like I didn't fit in, like there was no space for me on this planet. And that is what creates your loneliness right now. You might be surrounded by friends, you might be surrounded by family members, you might be in a relationship, and this is why you still feel loneliness, because you have old wounds, you have old limiting beliefs from your childhood that are still making you believe that there is something wrong with you, that you do not fit in. that there is no place for you here, that you are not lovable, that everyone is going to leave. And even though in the present moment these stories aren't true, your brain is preparing you, your brain is trying to protect you and telling you like, hey, listen, when you were around people when you were young and when you loved people when you were young, you got hurt, you got heartbroken, you got rejected. So as an adult, even though... This is not happening to you right now, this abandonment, this rejection, this loneliness. Even though it's not happening to you right now, I need to remind you of what happened in your past. Because if you're not going to remember what happened in your past, you're going to get hurt again, you're going to get rejected again, you're going to get abandoned again. And this is exactly how our brains create the abandonment that we fear, how your brain is creating the loneliness. that you're struggling so much to get out of. It's not because you're actually alone, but it's because you feel really alone in your emotions because your brain is trying to protect you from not going through what you went through as a kid. But ironically enough, when the brain is trying to protect you from all of this, what is really happening is you're not being protected at all. You're being sabotaged and what you're fearing that can happen in one month's time, two months' time, you're actually living it now in the present moment when it is not happening. Your brain is not reacting to the present moment. Your brain is reacting to old emotional wounds, old emotional triggers, old beliefs that haven't been processed yet. And until you sit with yourself, until you sit with your inner child, until you sit down and learn how to feel your feelings, how to feel the fear, how to feel the anxiety, how to feel the sadness until you're going to learn how to feel all these feelings. You're going to keep on trying to push away these feelings. Think of kids. When we tell a kid that, wait one second, we don't have time right now, I'll be with you soon. They cry even more, they scream even more, they try to come into your space even more. And the same goes to your feelings of fear, of sadness, of anxiety. The more you try to push them away because you're so afraid to feel them, the louder they're going to become and they're going to literally take over your current life. So you need to learn how to sit with the feelings and if you don't know how to sit with your feelings, send me a DM and I will send you an exercise that really helps me and my clients to sit with our feelings instead of trying to push them away. You need to learn how to sit with your inner child and how to reparent your inner child and I will open up on this soon. And you need to learn how to process old wounding. Because if you're not going to process your old wounding, you are going to keep on living from your past. And when you're going to keep on living from your past, you're going to keep on creating your same fears, the past, what happened in your past. And funnily enough, when you keep on living from your past, this becomes your self-fulfilling prophecy. So for example, my self-fulfilling prophecy was that everybody leaves. So I, without knowing, I would prepare myself, I would brace myself for impact, I would start acting in a way that this person is still going to leave from my life, so I'd become very anxious, or I'd become very avoidant, or I'd get snappy and cold. And anything that this person does in my life, I'd make it mean that, you see, this is the moment that they are going to leave. And that's when connection is unsafe, and that's when the loneliness gets... loud and loud and loud. When I was living from the end of you see everybody leaves, what was happening was I'd push the person away, then when that person leaves I'd be like you see everybody leaves. I was right, my intuition was right, but it's not intuition. It's you repeating the same wounds from the past. It's you using your old limiting beliefs, your old programming to create the same current reality as your past. And then that's how your self-fulfilling prophecy of everybody leaves, I am not good enough, I'm not lovable, there's something wrong with me, I don't have a place here on this planet, I don't fit in gets strengthened and it gets reaffirmed even more. So healing loneliness is all about creating safety from within. And how can you create the safety? Because I know that you're here just exactly for this because you're so tired of feeling lonely, you're so tired of feeling alone in your emotions. And if you want to... create the safety from within, you have to start by understanding that you have an inner child. We all do. Some inner childs of certain people, are more secure than others because maybe they had a more secure upbringing, but each and every one of us has a wounded inner child because our parents, each and every parent, they carry wounds. Some parents have bigger wounds than others and that's how generational trauma is created. And some parents have smaller wounds, however they still do. So the best parent that you can ever have is yourself. And once you're a parent, your inner child, genuinely, I promise you that you will no longer feel lonely in each and every situation. I'm not going to say that there will never be moments where you feel a little bit lonely. I do sometimes feel lonely, but it's not the same as I used to in the past. Like in the past I needed to be next to people all the time because I was so afraid of being alone and even being next to people made me feel alone in my emotions. Nowadays, the most time that I enjoy is my alone time and sometimes a little bit too much. yes, re-parenting your inner child and healing your inner child is going to make you feel so full, so at peace, so grounded and you're going to start loving your company way, way more than you've ever done before. And then when you're around people, you do not rely on them to not feel pain, to not feel sadness, to not feel fear, to not feel anxiety. They would just be a beautiful addition into your life. And sometimes I see online, like people share like, what did you used to enjoy doing as a kid? Go and do that now so you don't feel lonely. If you don't have people to hang out with, go and do these things. But it doesn't work that way. Because if your 95 % subconscious brain is constantly telling you, you see, you're not good enough, there's something wrong with you, that's why you're always alone. These thoughts and these little voices in your head which are coming from your subconscious brain are not going to allow you to enjoy your free time. It's not going to allow you to enjoy doing pottery or going to the gym or going for a walk. These thoughts are going to stay with you. And just because you're going to do something that should make you happy doesn't mean that these thoughts are going to vanish. So before you actually can feel alive and can feel at peace while doing things that you enjoy and while being around people that you love, to rewire your subconscious brain. And the fastest and most effective way to rewire your subconscious brain is through inner child healing. It's not through repeating positive affirmations non-stop because your body is not going to believe these positive affirmations. Your brain is not going to believe these positive affirmations. If I carry the story from my childhood that says I am not good enough, if I'm going to go in front of the mirror and I'm going to keep on saying, I'm good enough, I'm good enough, I'm the best, I'm so good, I'm so good, my brain and body are not going to believe this. They're going to be like, whatever. Even like think of a time where there were maybe five people who gave you a compliment. and there was one person who didn't give you a compliment. Maybe they said something which wasn't really nice or maybe they didn't even say at all. Maybe they just didn't even give you a compliment. And the reason why they didn't give you a compliment is maybe because they are so lost in their own thoughts or maybe it's because they do not feel secure enough to compliment others because they might think, why should I compliment this person when I am a nobody? So what happens then is you take that and you make it mean something personal, something negative about you. You all of a sudden forget about the five positive comments that you've received and you're only going to focus on why didn't that person also tell me that I'm dressed nicely. And this is exactly what I'm trying to explain that if you're just going to recite positive information nonstop, if the subconscious brain doesn't believe this, Your brain and your body are not going to believe this, so the only way to rewire the subconscious brain is through healing and re-parenting your inner child. Growing up, your inner child learned that love is unsafe, that when you're vulnerable you're gonna get hurt, that there's something wrong with you. And the way to let go of these old stories is to first understand where they are coming from, to understand why they are there. how they have protected you, then it is very important to shift this and start thinking of why is this not true and to try and get proof from other areas in your life why this is not 100 % true. So let's say for example you have a belief that you are not pretty enough and you try and find where this belief came from. Maybe you had a perfectionist mother who always wanted you to look better and better and better. And this behavior from your mom made you feel that you are not pretty enough. So then you need to grab proof from your life to why you are pretty enough, why you are beautiful inside out. Think of a compliment that someone had given you in the past, or maybe to remember the guy or the woman that you wanted and you've managed to ⁓ go on dates with to get proof on why this old limiting belief is not true. And then to ask yourself what is a belief I would rather carry with me throughout my life and to start slowly getting used to this new belief. Another important thing that you need to do is to try and understand whose love did you crave so much as a kid? Maybe it's your mom's. Maybe it's your dad's. Which love did you crave the most? And then when you have that answer, go to the second step. Who did I have to become to earn that love? So for example, in my personal life, the love I craved the most was my mom's love. And the person I had to become to earn that love was a perfectionist. I had to be perfect all the time because I believed that if I am perfect, because my mom looked perfect to me in my eyes. I believe that if I am perfect, she's going to love me, she's going to stop taking drugs. I had to become a hyperachiever. I wanted to achieve great results at school. I wanted to achieve a lot of things because that's what my mom always taught me to do. And I thought that if I achieve so much in my life. then my mom is going to finally be happy and she's going to come back home. And I also had to become the fixer. I had to fix her problems. I had to become the parent. I was the mother for so many years instead of she being my mother. So, perfectionism, hyperachiever and being the fixer. When you realize who you had to become to earn that love, you're going to have a great understanding of the person that you are today. And funnily enough, I am all those three things, perfectionist, hyperachiever and the fixer, which of course through reparenting my inner child, it has helped me to find a good balance but until you reparent your inner child, you're not going to manage to find a good balance. Once you understand who you had to become to earn that love, you're going to have a clear picture of who you are now and what your inner child really needs from you. So for example, let's say that you are a hyperachiever. So That means that your inner child believes that she is only loved when she is achieving. Whereas nowadays, as an adult, that is not true. So what you can do when you see yourself constantly trying to achieve something which is exhausting you, it's making you really tired, it's making you sick, like physically sick. In those moments, you need to sit with yourself, you need to think of your inner child, five-year-old you, six-year-old you, seven-year-old you, and let her know you are worthy enough. You are safe. you do not need to achieve anymore because I am here and I love you and I'm never going to abandon you again. You are never going to be alone. I am going to take care of your needs and wants. What do you need from me right now? And you're gonna hear like this inner voice which is gonna come from your heart which is you. Your inner child is you and maybe you're gonna hear I want to rest. I need to go out in nature. I need to stop and have lunch and do just that. Reparenting your inner child is literally sitting down with yourself, going on this visualization journey where you're going to find moments and memories of when you felt abandoned as a kid, when you felt alone as a kid, when you felt less than others as a kid, maybe when you felt different, when you felt maybe stupid, weird. And you as an adult today, you're going to become the new parent of your inner child and you're going to give him or her all that she or he needed whilst they were growing up. Once you start doing this, your inner child is going to start calming down. Your inner child is going to start understanding that there's nothing wrong with her, that she's lovable, that it's okay to trust, that it's safe to connect with others, that it's safe to feel loved. And once your inner child starts calming down, you as an adult start calming down as well. And you will be able to go out for a coffee on your own, you will be able to go for a walk on your own. without feeling this gloom and this black cloud of loneliness surrounding you all the time. To start getting used to who your inner child is, I suggest that you grab a photo from when you were young and you put it as your screensaver or maybe you leave it somewhere that you can see every single day and remember that you are your inner child. You are that little girl, little boy that you're seeing on your phone or on the photo that you left. next to your bedside table and you are that little kid. And that little kid already felt shamed growing up, she felt alone. That little kid felt like there was no one that truly sees him or her. So it's very important that you start connecting to your inner child, that you start doing things that your inner child needs from you. And that could look like saying no when you want to say no to people and saying yes to yourself. That could look like not over explaining when you can't attend to an event that looks like not over giving, especially when people are pulling away. That is not your cue to give them even more. When someone is pulling away, you need to give your inner child more and not give to that person more because when someone is pulling away and you're giving them more and more and more, more of you, more of your energy, more gifts, more time, more messages. You are abandoning your inner child. You are telling your inner child, listen, you're not good enough and I'm not going to parent you and instead I'm going to go search for love outside of me. And your inner child already felt alone growing up. So when you do that, you're just telling him or her that listen, what you've gone through as a kid. You deserved it. It's true that you're not good enough. It's true that you don't fit in here. It's true that you're weird. It's true that nobody loves you. And that is obviously not the way to repair into your inner child. It could also look like sleeping eight hours, resting when you need to rest, not going out if you're exhausted, cooking whole foods, taking care of your hygiene, taking care of your mental hygiene and not allowing everyone to come and dump on you. all their worries and letting people know like, listen, I am not in a position to help you right now and to sit with the fear of being abandoned. But when you fear abandonment from others, the true abandonment that is happening is you abandoning yourself. And remember, you are your inner child. So whatever you're saying to yourself when you go in front of the mirror, your internal thoughts, when you're shaming and blaming yourself, when you're saying nasty things about yourself, you are not saying all those words to adult you. You are saying those words to your inner child. And if you want to feel less lonely in life, to feel less sad in life, you need to start speaking kindly to your inner child. You need to validate all that your inner child's been through, that you understand that she or he feels lonely sometimes and that now she or he has you. So the way out of loneliness is through connecting back to your inner child because the loneliness that you feel right now in relationships, in friendships with your family is not because there's something inherently wrong with you. It's not because these people are all bad, but it's because your inner child is screaming and crying and craving to be held by you. And if you have absolutely no idea, on where to start to reparent your inner child, send me a message and I will provide more information and I will guide you on how to start your inner child reparenting journey.