A Lift in Lonely Times (Fighting Loneliness w/Counselor Matt Lawson)

A year ago, when we talked to counselor Matt Lawson about loneliness, he said it was a huge issue that he had seen continually getting worse in our society. At the time, we were surprised that out of all the mental health problems people faced, he zoomed in on that one as one of the most important. Of course, that was before coronavirus, social distancing and lockdowns happened. Back then we had never heard of COVID-19 and had no idea that it would push many Americans (and people all over the globe) into isolation and extreme stress. We had no idea that loneliness was about to ramp up and grow on an even larger scale.

In our 2019 episode and blog Imagine Yourself Leaving Loneliness Behind, we shared this after talking to Matt:

People need people. Loneliness can affect anyone, even someone in a room full of laughter and loved ones. It can be even more potent when we’ve lost a loved one, moved to a new area, or become isolated. However, being alone and being lonely is not necessarily the same thing. What’s the difference between enjoying a little alone time and lacking the necessary connection to others? How can we make sure that we and those around us have the connections we crave? Our guest, Matt Lawson, Licensed Professional Counselor discussed these and other issues:

Counselor Matt Lawson

· All humans experience periods of loneliness.

· Being lonely or being alone is not always a bad thing.

· Loneliness can be a serious issue and the answer is often forming deeper connections.

· Forming deeper connections takes intentionality.

· Connections on social media are often only "surface" and don’t meet our needs.

· Those of us who are able should seek out others in our circles who may be feeling lonely and help/encourage them.

As we re-visit the episode from a year ago, the issues are virtually the same except they are compounded by many more feeling isolated. The way we can deal with loneliness may be different as well. Calling, texting, using FaceTime, Zoom, or other technology/platforms often replace traditional gatherings. However, we can also be creative and find safe ways to get together, whether it’s grabbing some socially distanced coffee in the park, joining an outside exercise group, or something else.

The coronavirus has presented almost everyone with new mental health challenges, and for those already suffering it has the potential to make things worse. Here are some guidelines from the CDC if you are facing difficulties. You can also find Matt and other therapists to get professional help virtually through TALKSPACE.

If you’ve been feeling lonely, we think this episode will help bring you clarity and hopefully some healing. If you’re OK, but know or want to assist someone feeling lonely, this episode should help you recognize it in others and give you tactics to comfort and assist them.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Sandy Kovach [00:00:00]:

During the coronavirus pandemic, we're facing more loneliness than ever before. So Lanee and I wanted to revisit an episode from a year ago where we had an expert speak on the topic. It's Sandy and on behalf of Lanee and myself, welcome to Imagine Yourself. Let's jump to August 2019.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:21]:

We just hope that by the end of this episode, you will see so clearly that yes, people need people and we want to offer tangible ways to connect with others, whether you're the one experiencing the loneliness or if you're the person who gets to help lift someone up out of their loneliness. So we today have reached out to Matt Lawson. He's a licensed professional counselor with Chicago Compass Counseling. He specializes in various areas, but I love that he also focuses on healthy lifestyle creation. So we wanna get help and advice from someone who sees loneliness as a significant issue, who sees people struggling with it, and who can help us. Matt Lawson, thank you so much for joining us today.

Matt Lawson [00:01:09]:

Hey. Thank you for having me on. I'm really excited to talk about this. It's something that I see a lot of.

Sandy Kovach [00:01:14]:

When we talk about loneliness, there may be a little bit of a misconception too because we may have a lot of people around us, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're not lonely. Right?

Matt Lawson [00:01:24]:

Exactly. I'm really glad you brought that up to kind of open things. You say the word and the perception is maybe this person that has all the blinds and windows shut in their house, sitting in the dark watching television by themselves with this forlorn look on their face. But the reality of it is, it's not so much the number of people that we have in our lives or what we do day to day. It's really the mindset. It's really the way that we think about our world, the way we think about ourselves. People can get absolutely surrounded by groups of individuals and still feel lonely. They actually did a study back in 2016, I believe, where they followed about 1200 people around over the age of 60 years old.

Matt Lawson [00:02:07]:

And of those people that reported chronic loneliness, about half were actually married.

Sandy Kovach [00:02:12]:

Wow. Oh my goodness.

Lanée Blaise [00:02:13]:

This is affecting not just the youth, not just seniors, but middle aged young people, older people, everybody.

Matt Lawson [00:02:20]:

Absolutely. Yeah. I think the focus used to kind of be on the latter years in our lives and the loneliness that we experienced. Lanee that empty nester or that retiree that maybe lost a loved one or their significant other that really doesn't have much of a social life anymore. But we're seeing this impacting people across the board regardless of their age, regardless of their socioeconomic status, whatever.

Lanée Blaise [00:02:43]:

And people who are married. That is just

Sandy Kovach [00:02:46]:

interesting to me. And probably that doesn't mean they have a bad marriage, right, just because they feel lonely in the marriage, Or does it?

Matt Lawson [00:02:52]:

It doesn't necessarily. Loneliness is a state of mind. You can seemingly be happy with your marriage. You can seemingly be happy with your life, but still kind of hold on to these thoughts and feelings around loneliness and being alone and not feeling connected to individuals. Oftentimes, when we see this, there is kind of I wouldn't say a difficulty with communication, but maybe there's something that their significant other is missing or they're missing that's just not giving them the depth of connection that they want. Maybe something's happened at work or something has happened in their lives where one of the significant others in the relationship, has this kind of been a lot busier than lately and is not spending as much time at home, not spending as much time with the people in their lives, And then you kind of get these these feelings loneliness popping up as well.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:41]:

I'm wondering if that's been happening more often in this society because I feel like people either say they're so much busier than they used to or they really are so much busier than they used to be.

Sandy Kovach [00:03:50]:

Or they're feeling busier. Feeling overwhelmed. Whatever. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:53]:

That mindset state of minding again. Yeah. And that makes it harder to make time for others?

Matt Lawson [00:03:59]:

Absolutely. I mean, I can wag my finger at different corporations and companies. I don't wanna generalize too much because there are companies that absolutely are very good about employee self care and making sure their employees are treated well and take their vacation time and things like that and tend to their family lives. But there are a lot of companies out there still that still have this work is life mentality, and people are working crazy hours, 14 and 15 hour days.

Sandy Kovach [00:04:28]:

And even when they're home, they're connected by email? Or Oh,

Matt Lawson [00:04:31]:

yeah. Oh, yeah. God, that drives me absolutely insane. At the same time, you know, it's so hard to absolutely disconnect from our work life. You have to be very mindful and create those boundaries.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:43]:

Because it sounds like what you're saying is people are doing a better job of connecting with their devices than connecting with their spouses and their friends, and that's just a shame.

Sandy Kovach [00:04:55]:

And then speaking of connections with devices, people have all those connections on their social networks, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever, that Yeah. But those Lanee times are not real at all.

Matt Lawson [00:05:07]:

So kind of going back to this idea of loneliness as a state of mind, it's very much so connected to personality type. You can have that person, say that teenager or that young adult that they look at their Facebook and they look at their actually, we're seeing a lot of younger adults connecting with each other through video games a lot of these days, and that's, like, their new social network. Like, the days of Facebook and things like that are kinda, like, and they're actually, like, connecting out through Fortnite. They're talking to each other through that

Lanée Blaise [00:05:37]:

thing. Sense. Yeah.

Matt Lawson [00:05:38]:

But, yeah, they are connecting there. And depending on the personality type, some will report that feeling of loneliness. But we also need to separate that from the the sense of social isolation because they are 2 different things.

Lanée Blaise [00:05:52]:

Okay.

Matt Lawson [00:05:52]:

You can be somebody that's lonely and not socially isolated, and then you also have somebody that's socially isolated but not necessarily Lanee, if that makes any sense.

Lanée Blaise [00:06:03]:

Yeah. Does. And so you have the person who maybe likes their alone time. Is that what you're kind of getting at?

Matt Lawson [00:06:09]:

Moving it isn't necessarily always a negative thing. I don't know if you have any introverts in your life, but when we talk about introversion versus extroversion, especially from a therapeutic point of view, it's not necessarily the idea of the person that the extrovert is the person that goes to the party and they're the life of the party and blah blah blah. Meanwhile, the introvert is maybe not even at that party or if they are the party, they're up against the wall. It's not necessarily what we're talking about from a therapeutic point of view when we're talking about introversion versus extroversion. What we're talking about here is how people energize. Some people do very well energizing when they're around other people. I'm one of those people. I love being around people regardless of what's going on, even if it's sitting at a coffee shop and just being around people.

Matt Lawson [00:06:50]:

That's one of the ways I energize. Other people I know, maybe the introvert that you know in your life, they need that alone time. They need to lock that office door sometimes and just have that space.

Sandy Kovach [00:07:00]:

So you're saying being alone or wanting to be alone does not necessarily equal loneliness.

Matt Lawson [00:07:06]:

Right. Loneliness is actually a part of our life. We go through periods of time when we prefer to be alone. What we really look at when we look at this becoming a problem is how long is it going on for. Like with social isolation, it's one thing for your teen to go lock themselves in their room for periods of time, couple of days, whatever. It's another thing for them to do it for a couple of weeks. And that's when they start looking at, like, okay. Well, what's going on here? There's a deeper problem that needs to be looked at.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:35]:

I like that, Matt. Now I don't know if this is the best time or not, but I really honed in on this quote about loneliness and it said that loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself. And so when you say things like that, it makes me think that sometimes the way through all of this might be by going within and evaluating some things within yourself and spending some time loving and being with yourself to help that mindset that you mentioned to begin to change and lighten up and and turn directions.

Matt Lawson [00:08:07]:

Yes. I'm so glad you said that. If we think of loneliness or the feeling of loneliness as a cue, like hunger, if you're hungry, you should probably eat something.

Lanée Blaise [00:08:17]:

Mhmm. Yeah. It's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just an indicator. Yeah.

Matt Lawson [00:08:21]:

Exactly. Yeah. You can be hungry and actually need to eat. You can feel tired. It's not needed time to go to bed. If you're feeling lonely, this is a cue just like anything else. This is something that we've developed as human beings. Yeah.

Matt Lawson [00:08:34]:

That is kind of saying, hey, you need to check yourself. Maybe there's some connections that you need to revisit in your life with other people. Maybe there's somebody that you need to reach out to that you haven't reached out to in a while. If we look at this more as a cue in our lives to be like, okay, this is me needing to check that because we are social beings.

Sandy Kovach [00:08:53]:

Yes.

Matt Lawson [00:08:53]:

The most introverted individual needs deep connection in their lives. Even though they like their alone time, we are social beings and we do actually need connection. We need relationships to strive.

Sandy Kovach [00:09:06]:

Connection seems to be the word of the day. It seems to define really what we need as opposed to do we need to be around people or not be around to people. It's just the need to connect in some way. Correct.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:18]:

How do we develop those? Because I'm wondering if sometimes it's a situation where people have a fear or intimidation of stepping forward to try to find their place and find people and activities or that person

Matt Lawson [00:09:32]:

Mhmm.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:33]:

Where they could connect. Even like you said, someone who's married, perhaps the one of the spouse needs someone in their own little circle to be able to connect with because you can't have everything rely on your husband or or wife. What about those people who have trouble taking that first step?

Matt Lawson [00:09:50]:

This is where we can kind of take a broader look at the social scope around what loneliness is in our society within groups of people and really start to push change. The trappings of social media is this idea that we're connecting to others. Right? We have thousands of friends supposedly on these networks that we connect with. In reality, we need depth connection.

Sandy Kovach [00:10:15]:

Depth connections. Good way to put it.

Matt Lawson [00:10:16]:

Yeah. It's interesting because we've actually seen declines in social groups, like civic groups, religious groups, groups that we typically have relied on to connect with others in. And I think that's something that really needs to be revisited and looked at in our society, in our cities. These are great places for people to really connect with others.

Sandy Kovach [00:10:36]:

But they're feeling like they don't have to connect in real life because they're connecting

Matt Lawson [00:10:41]:

Right.

Sandy Kovach [00:10:41]:

On Instagram or Snapchat or Facebook, whatever.

Matt Lawson [00:10:45]:

Yeah. And it's actually kind of sowing these seeds of chronic loneliness when they rely too much on these social networks.

Sandy Kovach [00:10:52]:

Things are harder for people. We might be okay with liking somebody's Facebook post or commenting even if we don't really know them that well. Mhmm. But coming up to somebody in real life, all of a sudden, we're vulnerable. And especially, like you say, young people who grew up with this, they are not just out of practice, but maybe just don't really know how to approach it at all.

Matt Lawson [00:11:15]:

That's definitely something that we're seeing a lot of too is a lot of younger individuals coming up don't even have that baseline for what it means to really develop actual face to face social groups. In those respects, it might mean, like, that parent stepping in and actually, like, teaching and showing what it looks like to develop, making sure that that teen or that young adult is with you when you go to these social places.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:39]:

I like that idea of modeling behavior for others that are not used to it and for using the people not using, but having the people that you already care about in your life and making deeper connections with that base is a good way to start. Because I think I have a bit of a take on your personal story, Matt, as far as I feel like you started off as a personal trainer for fitness purposes and then transitioned. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Matt Lawson [00:12:10]:

Yeah. I had my own little personal training business here in Chicago, and what I was starting to see was a lot of people coming in using their personal training sessions as their therapy sessions. So Yeah. We you know, and then people would joke, like, personal trainers are modern day hairdressers.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:27]:

Right. Yeah. Or bartenders. Yeah. But there

Matt Lawson [00:12:29]:

are still modern day hairdressers and bartenders that do the same thing. But that was a big part of for a lot of people is to have this private safe place where they could talk about these things.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:41]:

What can we do if we see that there is someone calling out, almost like that Aesop's fable with the little lonely shepherd boy who cried wolf? Because he just wanted some attention, and he just wanted some interaction and a little something. But what do you do when you find someone who you can tell they're you see them going within, but you believe that they really want to kind of blossom out or if you're that person who is kind of calling out for help for loneliness.

Matt Lawson [00:13:08]:

There's a couple of things here. As I said before, I think when it comes to loneliness and supporting people, this is the responsibility of our society as a whole. We do need more people that are willing to have those conversations, not being afraid to just say, hey, or not be afraid just to say, how are you doing?

Sandy Kovach [00:13:25]:

Can we do something as simple as ask him to go to Lanee? Or how do we approach that without feeling like we're, you know, intruding? Yeah.

Matt Lawson [00:13:33]:

Taking that step would be like, hey. What's up? You know, let's go grab some lunch together or, hey, did you feel like going for a walk together? Like, just something, like, kinda give them that space. And and allow it to be on their terms, like, doesn't necessarily have to be something where you're badgering them. Just kinda keep an eye on on the people around you. I I think that's something that we haven't forgotten how to do, but maybe it's a little bit out of practice with our society.

Sandy Kovach [00:13:55]:

Because we're so busy, and we're so looking at our phones.

Matt Lawson [00:13:58]:

Yes. We have

Sandy Kovach [00:13:59]:

on social media, I

Matt Lawson [00:14:00]:

guess. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:01]:

Or even distrusting. Yeah.

Sandy Kovach [00:14:03]:

Well, that's another thing. I mean, there are so many scams out there, like people emailing you and calling you and stranger danger. There's a lot of stuff that you actually legit do need to worry about. It might make us a little over paranoid sometimes. And as parents, it makes us a little overprotective sometimes. That's true.

Matt Lawson [00:14:23]:

And absolutely. And, you know, I I wouldn't want anybody to put themselves in a situation where they are in Lanee. But that person, that's maybe a secondary connection from your church or some Lanee that you go to on a regular basis that you just notice or maybe you just wanna get to know. There's nothing wrong with doing something like that within a certain scope of safety, within a certain scope of your protection first.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:48]:

We won't even have to go back to the olden days where if some The olden days. The olden days where it's some eighties. In the middle of the eighties. Oh, yes. Madonna times and thriller. And you actually just say, hey. My nephew just moved to the area. Could you just kinda look out for him or show him around the city a little bit? Just I know you are safe, and I know my nephew is safe.

Lanée Blaise [00:15:15]:

And it doesn't have to be for dating purposes, but it can just be, like, show them around a little bit, start them off.

Matt Lawson [00:15:21]:

I've had, like, alumni reach out to me before and just be like, hey. I'm moving to Chicago. Can you recommend any good restaurants? And then it goes to, hey. Do you mind grabbing some coffee with me sometime? And it it is. I think people have kind of forgotten this very subtle art of just connecting with others. And it is an art, and I think a lot of people don't feel adequate. And this is kind of going back to some of the work that I do with people is breaking through some of these cognitive barriers that they have about who they are and what they have to give to other people. It doesn't always have to be what you can do for somebody else or what they can do for you.

Matt Lawson [00:15:55]:

It can just be like, hey, we're both people.

Sandy Kovach [00:15:57]:

We're we're We're both people.

Matt Lawson [00:15:59]:

We're both here. Let's just connect.

Lanée Blaise [00:16:01]:

It doesn't have to have an ulterior motive or anything like that. And people, I think, are often way more receptive and kind and open to that than you think. Because you might be intimidated again and say, oh, I don't wanna reach out to that alumni person because they'll probably just brush me off. But first of all, if they do brush you off, oh, well, then they weren't for you. But many times people are way more open and willing to help and open a door than you think.

Matt Lawson [00:16:27]:

Yeah. We used to do an exposure. I used to work for this eating disorder group and we used to do an exposure with people. Exposures are things that you put a person through that oftentimes is fear or something that they have a problem with. And you kind of help them through it in a controlled environment, give them a safety net to fall back on. So an exposure that we used to do with people is we used to take them out to Chicago and just go up to a stranger and ask them for directions. Ah, I I appreciate me. People at this

Sandy Kovach [00:16:57]:

And they were like, Google Maps full no. I'm just kidding.

Matt Lawson [00:17:02]:

Right? Like, do you have a phone?

Lanée Blaise [00:17:06]:

They were from the eighties and they pulled up the map.

Sandy Kovach [00:17:10]:

Those big paper maps. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:11]:

Remember those? They open that up for you.

Sandy Kovach [00:17:13]:

Yeah. Sorry. We I mean, we know this is serious,

Matt Lawson [00:17:15]:

but but, yeah, they have this fear of, like, getting their heads bitten off if they even talk to somebody. So being able to get them to go up to a stranger and be like, hey. How do you get to the store? Or I'm new to Chicago. How do you get here? And getting them to see, like, actually, that wasn't so bad. Mhmm. And that can lead to, hey, I'm new in town. What do you recommend, that I do, that I see, that I go experience? And once people start to feel like actually people aren't that bad and they welcome connection and it's very rare that they're going to do something mean to you. Once people start to get comfortable with that, it's amazing how it can snowball into their confidence coming up and their ability to wanna connect to others coming up.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:58]:

Because I have I have an example. I have a personal example because I lived all these years, but for the first time ever, I got called for jury duty. Oh. And so yeah. Oh, indeed. Right? So I know that there's gonna be a lot of sitting, so I took a book with me. They won't let take backpacks. There's all these stipulations.

Lanée Blaise [00:18:16]:

You can't take your cell phones. That's another thing. You cannot take your cell phone. Do that? Oh, yes. You'd have to.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:21]:

I am. You have

Lanée Blaise [00:18:21]:

to in fact, I had to walk back all the way back to my car, put it in the glove box, and then walk back again because they sent me away. But I just kind of figured that I was gonna stay in my shell and read my book and not really talk to anybody and hope that I did not get called to actually do a case. And thank goodness I didn't get called to do a case, but I met a wonderful lady there named Helen who came up to me kindly and said, I see the book that you're reading and I've read it before and I just really loved it and just wondered how you're enjoying it. And we got to sit and talk for hours because you're there for hours. But it was a a simple way where I came in with a closed mind. She came in with an open mind, and it was a blessing, I hope, for both of us because I I really like her. I just want to encourage others to consider doing the same thing. Maybe they would be the one to say they noticed the book and ask about it.

Lanée Blaise [00:19:19]:

Just casual things. When you're waiting in the lobby at the dentist's office or the doctor's office, go ahead and say hey to the person sitting there waiting also, unless they're actively on their phone.

Sandy Kovach [00:19:29]:

Which is probably 95.7 percent of the people.

Lanée Blaise [00:19:32]:

But maybe not because in the doctor's office, sometimes they tell you to turn that cell phone off

Sandy Kovach [00:19:35]:

Nobody pays attention to that. Fools are on their phone, man.

Lanée Blaise [00:19:42]:

Yes. So I just I think there's lots of good things. I'm wondering we always have a time at the end of our session called takeaway time, and I just wanted the takeaway to be from you, Matt. What is one thing that you wanna make sure that we remember? What's your parting piece of advice to us?

Matt Lawson [00:20:00]:

So here's the call to action.

Sandy Kovach [00:20:02]:

Yes. Alright.

Matt Lawson [00:20:03]:

If there's one thing that I would like people to just try, try to hold a 7 minute conversation with a stranger. 7 minutes. Why 7? That's about the time it takes to know whether or not this person is going to be somebody that you might actually wanna live into your life, and scientists say so.

Sandy Kovach [00:20:24]:

Okay. And doctor Matt says so, so I'm gonna write that down. Okay.

Matt Lawson [00:20:29]:

But yeah. You know, it doesn't have to be a time thing. I guess I'm kinda going more for looking at having something more substantial than, hey. How are you doing? Or connecting with somebody that you haven't connected with in a while. Also, turning to that person next to you, turning to that person in your life, turning that significant other in your life and saying, hey, where are we going? How are we doing? And seeing what happens there. Because I think people just forget. It's so easy to forget. So those are some calls to action.

Matt Lawson [00:20:54]:

May I put the phone

Lanée Blaise [00:20:55]:

down and say, Sandy? Let's just talk for a little bit. Just, you know Put

Matt Lawson [00:21:00]:

the phone down for it.

Sandy Kovach [00:21:01]:

Whereas my husband would refer to my phone as my banky.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:04]:

So Oh my goodness.

Matt Lawson [00:21:07]:

That's funny to think of. Like, a a phone has a security blanket.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:11]:

See? I don't think

Matt Lawson [00:21:13]:

that's whole different conversation around, Internet addiction.

Sandy Kovach [00:21:16]:

Yeah. I think it's more it's more of a distraction than, like, a impediment to socialization for me. But I wonder sometimes if I had grown up with it, what would happen.

Matt Lawson [00:21:27]:

I'm really interested to see how that pans out with these generations. I mean, I have a 6 months old. We got her a toy iPhone. Oh, boy. I was like, did I mean to do that?

Sandy Kovach [00:21:39]:

You're a therapist too. Right?

Matt Lawson [00:21:42]:

I know. Yeah. No. But she wouldn't stop messing with my iPhone. Please. I was like, oh, no. This is how you're gonna come up, and this is all you're gonna know.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:50]:

That's what my husband said. There's a generation of Instagram babies. They are used to being photographed and videod

Sandy Kovach [00:21:55]:

They have their own accounts too. Yes.

Matt Lawson [00:21:57]:

Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:58]:

And it's just, the interesting dynamic. It's not all bad, but it is very different.

Matt Lawson [00:22:04]:

Right. It's very different from how, like, how I came up, you know

Sandy Kovach [00:22:08]:

In the olden days?

Matt Lawson [00:22:09]:

In the olden days.

Sandy Kovach [00:22:10]:

In the olden days.

Matt Lawson [00:22:11]:

They they did this study where they put kids on information, they had them look the information up, come back and report on it, and majority of them weren't able to tell you the information they looked up, but they could tell you the website where you could find the information.

Sandy Kovach [00:22:30]:

Wow. That is interesting.

Matt Lawson [00:22:33]:

Yeah. So they can remember the website, but their their minds are having a hard time with the actual info that they got out of the website.

Sandy Kovach [00:22:40]:

So speaking of websites, what we'll do, I think, Matt, is get your website, which hopefully people will remember. And also say that I think maybe we have a topic for you next time, and that is maybe we go a little bit deeper into Internet addiction. And, we

Matt Lawson [00:22:57]:

love that.

Sandy Kovach [00:22:58]:

Yeah. That's huge. Right?

Lanée Blaise [00:22:59]:

And that's something you work

Matt Lawson [00:23:00]:

with patients to do. Video games are a really big area that I'm working on right now. Love to talk about that.

Sandy Kovach [00:23:07]:

Cool. So where do we go and find out about Matt?

Matt Lawson [00:23:10]:

So I'm here in Chicago, Illinois. The website for the practice that I'm out of is chicagocompasscounseling.com, all one word, and you can find out more about me there and what I'm doing here in Chicago.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:21]:

We always put on our own website, imagine yourself podcast.com, the different links to our guests because there may be a question or there may be if someone lives in the area, they may be interested in seeking therapy. There also so we just always wanna make sure that we lay things out for our listeners. Absolutely. And I welcome any questions people have or our listeners.

Matt Lawson [00:23:39]:

Absolutely. And I welcome any questions people have or any interest that they have in this topic. More than happy to talk to them about it, more than happy to give us insights.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:48]:

I challenge everybody who is listening to take something from today's episode. I wanna know what is every person gonna do in their own personal life to add to make their life more full. If they're the person on the lonelier end or if they're the type of person who is not necessarily lonely but is interested in making connections and is willing to do like my fellow jury duty mate and just actually open up and start dialogue and then like you said too, even go back to people in our own lives and check-in on them in a deeper level.

Sandy Kovach [00:24:22]:

Could you imagine if we all did that? Imagine. Alright. Wait a minute. So we can imagine ourselves?

Lanée Blaise [00:24:29]:

I'm just gonna say imagine yourself. Well, first, before that, I gotta say thank you so much, Matt. Thank you for your knowledge, for your guidance in an area that you understand, that we understand now better. We see you out there. The people who feel lonely and unseen, let's see you. Let's see one another. Imagine yourself breaking through these gates of loneliness, building bridges of connection, making sure that your heart remains a house of love for yourself and for others.

Sandy Kovach [00:25:01]:

Thanks for revisiting this episode on loneliness with us. Of course, with the pandemic, we do face new challenges and may have to connect with folks virtually or use other creative methods. More suggestions are on our blog at imagine yourself podcast.com. Time when we have something new to imagine, take care of yourself and be kind to others.

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