Speaker 1: Pushkin. You know, if I told you there's this pill
Speaker 1: that you could take that's available for free in pharmacies
Speaker 1: all across the country, that if you take it will
Speaker 1: reduce your chances of feeling depressed or anxious, that will
Speaker 1: reduce your risk of premature death and heart disease, and
Speaker 1: might actually make society more peaceful and less vitriolic. You
Speaker 1: would say, gosh, well, where is this thing? Sign me up.
Speaker 1: That's doctor Vivic Morphy, the US Surgeon General, And what
Speaker 1: he's prescribing here isn't actually a pill. It's more meaningful
Speaker 1: social connection, something many of us are lacking right now.
Speaker 1: Loneliness is not something it's just affecting a few people
Speaker 1: here and there. It is affecting an ordinarily high portion
Speaker 1: of the population. There are more adults who are struggling
Speaker 1: with loneliness than have diabetes in the United States. So
Speaker 1: we have to help people recognize that this is a
Speaker 1: public health threat, one that we can address, but we've
Speaker 1: got to put it on the map of critical issues
Speaker 1: and priorities for our country. On today's show, our nation's
Speaker 1: doctor tells us just how dangerous loneliness can be for
Speaker 1: our health and gives us strategies for building stronger social connections.
Speaker 1: I'm maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: a show about who we are and who we become
Speaker 1: in the face of a big change. In addition to
Speaker 1: serving as a certain general, doctor Morphe is also the
Speaker 1: author of Together, The Healing Power of Human Connection in
Speaker 1: a sometimes Lonely World. He's an expert on the science
Speaker 1: of loneliness, which is something he never thought would be
Speaker 1: the focus of his work. After all, he's trained as
Speaker 1: a medical doctor. But back when Viveik was a practicing physician,
Speaker 1: he met a patient who made the link between physical
Speaker 1: health and loneliness impossible to ignore. I saw him in
Speaker 1: clinic one day and one of the first things he
Speaker 1: said to me on our first visit, well, doctor, you
Speaker 1: might be surprised to know that I've actually won the lottery.
Speaker 1: And I thought he was speaking in a metaphorical sense,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't. He's being quite literal. And he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I won the lottery, but I got to
Speaker 1: tell you it was probably the worst thing that happened
Speaker 1: to me, and that really surprised me. So he had
Speaker 1: my attention before, but now he really had me leaning in,
Speaker 1: and he proceeded to explain to me that prior to
Speaker 1: winning the lottery, he was a chef at a restaurant
Speaker 1: in Boston, and you know, he wasn't rich, but he
Speaker 1: did okay. He was able to pay his rent. He
Speaker 1: had neighbors that he liked, he had people he worked
Speaker 1: with in the kitchen who were great, he had clients
Speaker 1: who really loved his food. And he worked incredibly hard
Speaker 1: and that was his life. But after he won the lottery,
Speaker 1: for a number of years he had very large checks
Speaker 1: coming to him, and he sort of decided, gosh, I
Speaker 1: don't need to work anymore. I don't need to live
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood that I live, and I can move
Speaker 1: somewhere that's like big and fancy and I have a
Speaker 1: large house all to myself. And so he did. He
Speaker 1: quit his job. He moved to a part of Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: metic Sea, where wealthy folks typically live, and he found
Speaker 1: over time that he was profoundly alone. And he would
Speaker 1: describe this to me. He said, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: have like my co workers anymore to hang out with.
Speaker 1: I wasn't getting the satisfaction of people eating my food
Speaker 1: and saying, oh, my God, how did you create this?
Speaker 1: This is incredible. But he didn't have his neighbors to
Speaker 1: chat with. He wasn't just seeing people walking up and
Speaker 1: down his street anymore. Instead, he was living in a
Speaker 1: house where they were big walls between the houses and
Speaker 1: fences and it was just him and his dog. And
Speaker 1: he said it was after that that he started to
Speaker 1: develop high blood pressure and diabetes, and that you are
Speaker 1: sort of experiencing mental health concerns as well. And he
Speaker 1: chalked it up to the lonely and isolation that came
Speaker 1: from that experience, a major shift in his life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you've said that you were so humbled in this
Speaker 1: moment because your medical training had not prepared you to
Speaker 1: help patients struggling with loneliness. It was a sobering moment
Speaker 1: because you go into medicine wanting to relieve suffering. I
Speaker 1: went into medicine because I wanted to do what I
Speaker 1: saw my parents doing when I was growing up and
Speaker 1: the medical clinic they ran down in Miami, Florida, which
Speaker 1: is I wanted to be able to take care of
Speaker 1: the problems that patients had. And I realized that I
Speaker 1: learned about a lot of those problems in medical school,
Speaker 1: I learned about everything in the structure of cells and
Speaker 1: mechanisms of inflammation, to how to manage somebody's diabetes, how
Speaker 1: to adjust their blood pressure medications, how to treat them
Speaker 1: if their hearts stopped. Like, I learned a lot, but
Speaker 1: I wasn't recalling a single thing that I had really
Speaker 1: learned about loneliness because it wasn't part of our curricula.
Speaker 1: It wasn't something that we understood to be one of
Speaker 1: the most common challenges our patients would face, even though
Speaker 1: it turned out that's exactly what it was. So I
Speaker 1: did feel a sense of sadness in that moment, but
Speaker 1: it was also a realization that Gosh I needed to
Speaker 1: figure out how to fill this gap in my medical knowledge.
Speaker 1: Time after time, seeing patience in the hospital, I came
Speaker 1: to realize that so many of them were struggling with loneliness.
Speaker 1: People would come into the hospital alone in ten moments
Speaker 1: where we had really difficult information to give to them.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was about a new diagnosis, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: a hard decision we had to make about whether or
Speaker 1: not to go for surgery or start a new treatment regiment,
Speaker 1: or whether or not to stop a treatment for a
Speaker 1: condition that wasn't responding. In those moments, I would often ask, patience,
Speaker 1: is there somebody I can call? Who you want to
Speaker 1: be here while we have this conversation. No, might be tough,
Speaker 1: but far too often they would say, gosh, I wish
Speaker 1: there was somebody, but there isn't anyone. Just have to
Speaker 1: have a conversation by myself. And I think most heartbreaking though,
Speaker 1: for me, was the final moments of life during people's death.
Speaker 1: There were so many times where the only people witnessing
Speaker 1: those final moments for a patient was me and my
Speaker 1: colleagues in the hospital, but there was no family member
Speaker 1: or friend who was actually there by the bedside. So
Speaker 1: seeing that time and time again just made me realize
Speaker 1: that loneliness is more than a passing concern. It's more
Speaker 1: than an isolated issue that only affects a few people.
Speaker 1: It was affecting so many of the people that I saw,
Speaker 1: and later when I became sort of gentle I came
Speaker 1: to see that it wasn't just unique to my experience,
Speaker 1: but loneliness is impacting people all across our country. Yeah,
Speaker 1: impacting them in manifesting in the form of lots of
Speaker 1: medical conditions. Right like high blood pressure, diabetes, And that is,
Speaker 1: I think, something that many people don't recognize. Even if
Speaker 1: they appreciate that loneliness is incredibly common, they may not
Speaker 1: necessarily know how consequential it is both for our mental
Speaker 1: health and our physical health. It increases our risk of
Speaker 1: anxiety and depression, but also our risk of premature death,
Speaker 1: of heart disease, of dementia, and of a host of
Speaker 1: other physical illnesses that we care deeply about. But it
Speaker 1: also has an effect that's comparable and in some cases
Speaker 1: even greater than what we see with other conditions we
Speaker 1: care about. Take, for example, smoking, Some great studies actually
Speaker 1: about bringing young University have showed us that the mortality
Speaker 1: impact of loneliness in fact is comparable to the mortality
Speaker 1: impact of smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. It's even greater
Speaker 1: than the mortality impact that we see with obesity and
Speaker 1: with substance use disorders. Now just pause for a second
Speaker 1: and think about how much time, effort, and energy we
Speaker 1: spend in combating smoking and obesity and substance use disorders
Speaker 1: because of extraordinary toll they take on society. But think
Speaker 1: about how little we actually tackle loneliness, or little we
Speaker 1: invest in thinking about our strategies for addressing it. So
Speaker 1: we have to help people recognize that this is a
Speaker 1: public health threat, one that we can address, but we've
Speaker 1: got to put it on the map of critical issues
Speaker 1: and priorities for our country. Yeah, to help us better
Speaker 1: understand loneliness and its consequences. I'd love to hear why
Speaker 1: we as humans have come to need social connection in
Speaker 1: the way that we do. We evolved to need each
Speaker 1: other and to depend on one another because it turned
Speaker 1: out that we could do far more together than we
Speaker 1: could do alone. So simple example, like when we were
Speaker 1: a hunter gatherers. You know, if you were one of
Speaker 1: those folks who said, you know what, I'm going to
Speaker 1: do it on my own, I don't need anyone else.
Speaker 1: What happened to that person is they either got eaten
Speaker 1: by a predator, they starve because of an insufficient food supply.
Speaker 1: And it turned out that when we actually helped one another,
Speaker 1: when we looked, took turns looking out around the you know,
Speaker 1: at night, for predators, When we shared our food supply
Speaker 1: so that none of us start on any given day,
Speaker 1: when we help each other with childcare, when we did
Speaker 1: these things, we actually were all more able to survive
Speaker 1: and thrive and prosper, and so it became then part
Speaker 1: of our nervous systems wiring, if you will, that when
Speaker 1: we were separated from one another, it actually put us
Speaker 1: into stress. Day. Yeah, one of the most fascinating insights
Speaker 1: that I gleaned from your book is that loneliness can
Speaker 1: be self perpetuating. Right, So, being in a lonely state
Speaker 1: of mind can actually sabotage our ability to meaningfully connect
Speaker 1: with others. This is one of the counterintuitive things about loneliness.
Speaker 1: But when we feel lonely, there are mechanisms triggered in
Speaker 1: our body that can actually perpetuate loneliness. One of them
Speaker 1: is that our threat perception increases, and what that means
Speaker 1: is that we are more likely to perceive what might
Speaker 1: be normal everyday interactions or gestures around us as threats. So,
Speaker 1: for example, if I'm feeling lonely and I'm in this
Speaker 1: state of elevated threat and you approach me, my Dusty, Hey,
Speaker 1: big I was wondering do you want to have lunch
Speaker 1: together today? Normally I might say, Hey, that's really nice.
Speaker 1: She's reaching out, and maybe you notice that I'm lonely,
Speaker 1: but in a state of elevator threat, which shifts my perception.
Speaker 1: I might think, does she have another motive here? Why
Speaker 1: she reaching out to me? And she's just trying to
Speaker 1: take pity on me? And she going to make fun
Speaker 1: of me, and she's trying to ridicule me in some
Speaker 1: way to sh have an ulterior motive. I might start
Speaker 1: asking questions which might either lead me to say no
Speaker 1: or alter my interactions with you in a way that
Speaker 1: may be unpleasant. So you start to push people away
Speaker 1: at a time where you need to pull them in.
Speaker 1: The second thing that happens is that our focus shifts
Speaker 1: in work toward ourselves. And if you understand loneliness is
Speaker 1: a state of stress and threat, you start to understand
Speaker 1: why that makes sense. If we're under a threat, we
Speaker 1: do want to focus on ourselves and make sure we're well.
Speaker 1: But that increased focus on self in some case excessive
Speaker 1: focus on self can also be off putting to others
Speaker 1: who might think, oh, that person is aloof for their
Speaker 1: too self absorbed, or they seem narcissistic. And there's a
Speaker 1: third dynamic that's happening here too, which is that the
Speaker 1: lonelier we are, the more we come to believe that
Speaker 1: we're lonely because we're not likable, so loneliness chips away
Speaker 1: at our self esteem, which can make it even harder
Speaker 1: to take their risk of going out and talking to
Speaker 1: people new people, but also folks that we know, and
Speaker 1: that can perpetuate loneliness. And that's why we have to
Speaker 1: want to recognize that, and that if we understand that,
Speaker 1: that may give you an added reason to be empathic
Speaker 1: and understanding towards others who may seem might they are
Speaker 1: self absorbed, or or may seem might they're or aloof,
Speaker 1: they in fact may be struggling with loneliness. I know
Speaker 1: that has been true for me, and I'm not proud
Speaker 1: of those moments where I have been aloof and have
Speaker 1: pushed other people away at times where I really needed them.
Speaker 1: We all have, but we all have, and I will
Speaker 1: tell you I so deeply appreciate the people who stuck
Speaker 1: by me, yeah, despite me being who I was, and
Speaker 1: who reminded me what we all need to be reminded of,
Speaker 1: which is that we are not alone. That there are
Speaker 1: people who see us for who we are and who
Speaker 1: still care about us. I was reflecting back the other
Speaker 1: day on my own periods of loneliness and anxiety and everything,
Speaker 1: and being like, oh my god, your souls self absorbed
Speaker 1: and your friends back then are still your friends today,
Speaker 1: So you should just like give them all huge hugs
Speaker 1: because they deserve it, a golden medal for sticking by
Speaker 1: me when I was at my peak narcissism. You know,
Speaker 1: it really feels. And the research corroborates this that our
Speaker 1: minds are wired for social connection. And there are these
Speaker 1: fascinating neuroimaging studies that I read about in your book
Speaker 1: The Ones by Matthew Lieberman. Yea. So one interesting thing
Speaker 1: that Matthew Lieberman found is that when our brains are
Speaker 1: effectively shut off, like when we're not interacting with other people,
Speaker 1: that our default mode is actually to process and make
Speaker 1: sense of, if you will, the social connections and relationships
Speaker 1: that we have, whether we're introverts or extroverts, whether we're
Speaker 1: interacting with people or not, our brain is processing those
Speaker 1: connections and using them to make sense of the broader world.
Speaker 1: It's actually another indication of just how we are hardwired
Speaker 1: to connect as human beings. And again, sometimes people hear
Speaker 1: them and think, oh, we're all meant to be extroverts. No,
Speaker 1: We're not all meant to be extroverts, and I say
Speaker 1: that as an introvert myself, but we are all meant
Speaker 1: and designed to thrive in part because of our relationships,
Speaker 1: and we need those, and in the absence of those,
Speaker 1: we struggle and we suffer. And you know, it's interesting
Speaker 1: because it's tied into how we experience pain as well.
Speaker 1: You know, we think about pain as a purely physical phenomenon. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the things that people like Matthew Lieberman and
Speaker 1: Callie have found is that when you experience emotional pain,
Speaker 1: it registers in your brain as well as pain. We
Speaker 1: used to hear people say often when people were struggling
Speaker 1: with emotional difficulties in life and where they've felt actually
Speaker 1: physical manifestations, you would hear people say, yeah, it's all
Speaker 1: in your head, right. Yeah. It turns out that may
Speaker 1: be literally true, but in a way that makes it
Speaker 1: even more real, which is a yes, that emotional pain
Speaker 1: does register in your brain, which is where all pain registers.
Speaker 1: For what it's worth exactly, and it can feel as
Speaker 1: real and as hard to manage as a physical pain
Speaker 1: that we endure. I mentioned this because one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I've been so concerned about loneliness is I see
Speaker 1: this as one of the most common sources of emotional
Speaker 1: pain that people are experiencing right now. And people are
Speaker 1: in pain, then we have to talk about how we
Speaker 1: address that. After the break, the vehicle will give us
Speaker 1: strategies for building more meaningful social connections with others. We'll
Speaker 1: be back in a moment with a slight chain of plans.
Speaker 1: We're back with us, Surgeon General the vague morphy. In
Speaker 1: order to create a culture of greater connectedness, the Vague says,
Speaker 1: we first have to understand what loneliness really looks and
Speaker 1: feels like, because there are many misconceptions out there. We
Speaker 1: have this stereotype of loneliness. We think about the person
Speaker 1: who's socially awkward, who's sitting in the corner of a
Speaker 1: room at a party of all by themselves. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that is so not the picture of loneliness. And as
Speaker 1: Surgeon General, when I was in the Obama administration, I
Speaker 1: was surrounded by people all the time, you know, And
Speaker 1: I was constantly at events, as constantly in meetings, as
Speaker 1: constantly at all kinds of engagements. But I was struggling
Speaker 1: with a profound sense of loneliness during that time because
Speaker 1: I had made what I recognize now critical mistake, which
Speaker 1: I had convinced myself that in order to make the
Speaker 1: most of this opportunity to serve, I had to give
Speaker 1: up everything else. I had to sacrifice my time both
Speaker 1: family and friends, and always, always, always put work first.
Speaker 1: But what I realized is that came at an extraordinary
Speaker 1: cost to me personally, and it turned out that I
Speaker 1: was not as well sustained in the work as I
Speaker 1: otherwise would have been if I had realized that I
Speaker 1: needed to focus on keeping my relationships present and keeping
Speaker 1: them close. Yeah, you talked about the stereotypes that day,
Speaker 1: and one thing you clarify in your book, which I
Speaker 1: think is so helpful for us as we build mental
Speaker 1: models of what loneliness is that loneliness is a subjective feeling. Right,
Speaker 1: It is a state of mind that we are lacking
Speaker 1: the social connections that we need. Right, we feel we
Speaker 1: are missing trust and closeness, or might feel abandoned. But
Speaker 1: it really is defined by this internal feeling, and you
Speaker 1: make it a point to distinguish that from other states
Speaker 1: like isolation and solitude. It is very important. Loneliness is
Speaker 1: a subjective term. It's when the connections we need in
Speaker 1: our life see the connections that we actually have, and
Speaker 1: in that gap we feel lonely. Isolation is a more
Speaker 1: objective description of the number of people we may have
Speaker 1: around us, for the number of social contacts that we
Speaker 1: may have, but one could be relatively isolated. You can
Speaker 1: have few contacts, but you may not feel lonely at all,
Speaker 1: because it's really about the quality of those connections, and
Speaker 1: solitude is different altogether. Solitude is a welcome state of
Speaker 1: a loneness. It's a state which can be renewing. Solitude
Speaker 1: is those moments where we may be physically alone, but
Speaker 1: where we actually connect with something that replenishes us and
Speaker 1: nourishes us. That might be just time in silence, meditating.
Speaker 1: It might be time in nature. It may be time
Speaker 1: that we spend in prayer, maybe time that we spend writing. However,
Speaker 1: we find it that time in solitude is actually very
Speaker 1: important for everyone, whether an introvert or an extrovert. What
Speaker 1: differs maybe how much time in solitude we need in
Speaker 1: our lives. But there's one last thing here that is
Speaker 1: really important to recognize, which is that if you recognize
Speaker 1: that loneliness is subjective state where the connections we need
Speaker 1: are great. In the connections we have, one question is
Speaker 1: how do we know what connections we need, how much
Speaker 1: connection we need? It turns out that this is something
Speaker 1: that can be influenced in ways that can be harmful
Speaker 1: to us. So imagine that we live in a relatively
Speaker 1: extroverted culture, which we do surrounded and immersed in platforms
Speaker 1: like let's say social media, for example, which may lead
Speaker 1: us to think that the kind of optimal social engagement
Speaker 1: we need is incredibly high. Where we're going to parties
Speaker 1: all the time, where we're constantly going on vacations with friends,
Speaker 1: or we're surrounded by people that can affect Sorry, what
Speaker 1: is this party of which you speak? I don't know.
Speaker 1: It turns out I didn't attend many of them in
Speaker 1: college either. I missed out. But you know, if you
Speaker 1: are growing up in an environment where the bar is
Speaker 1: shifted for you and you're made to feel like you
Speaker 1: need to be engaging with people all the time, that's
Speaker 1: an optimal level of engagement. Then even if you are
Speaker 1: engaging with people at the pace that feels right to you,
Speaker 1: you might feel like something is wrong. And this part
Speaker 1: is incredibly important because when you feel worse about yourself,
Speaker 1: it makes it harder for you to reach out and
Speaker 1: connect with other people, especially new people, because it feels
Speaker 1: like taking your risk. And again, if you are struggling
Speaker 1: in terms of your self esteem, those risks become much
Speaker 1: much harder to take. Yeah, so let's give listeners some
Speaker 1: hope for fake because we're all feeling in this moment
Speaker 1: a little bit verdened by the consequences of loneliness. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, one thing you say when it comes to
Speaker 1: staving off loneliness, the first thing that we all need
Speaker 1: to just accept is that loneliness is this natural signal
Speaker 1: to us that we need to connect with other people.
Speaker 1: I love you say, it's akin to feeling hungry or thirsty,
Speaker 1: and the fact that those signals tell you, oh, I
Speaker 1: probably need to eat or drink something. And so there's
Speaker 1: just this acceptance that we have this vital need for
Speaker 1: social connection and we should just lean in. What are
Speaker 1: other techniques that people can use to try and stave
Speaker 1: off loneliness in their lives. There are few things that
Speaker 1: I think about in this regard. So one is to
Speaker 1: recognize that connection to self is a foundation for connecting
Speaker 1: with other people. What does that mean to connect with yourself, Well,
Speaker 1: it means to know that you have worth and that
Speaker 1: you have value. And look, if you're like me, you've
Speaker 1: gone through many periods in your life where you've questioned
Speaker 1: that you know, because it's not about how much money
Speaker 1: you have in the bank or how longer list of
Speaker 1: accomplishments are. Like, all of us have moments of self doubt,
Speaker 1: but that's actually when we need things that we can
Speaker 1: reach for that remind us that we have worth and value.
Speaker 1: Connecting with other people is also really essential, of course,
Speaker 1: in the battle against loneliness. But again, small steps can
Speaker 1: go a long way. So just taking, for example, a
Speaker 1: few minutes each day to reach out to one person
Speaker 1: that you care about. It could be a quick phone
Speaker 1: call that you make on the way to work. It
Speaker 1: could be a quick text message that you send to
Speaker 1: check in on someone. It could be a video call
Speaker 1: that you make before you go to sleep to talk
Speaker 1: to your parents or your kids. Those few minutes can
Speaker 1: make us feel so deeply connected. But the other thing
Speaker 1: that helps us is to be present when we are
Speaker 1: connected with other people. So if you're like me, you've
Speaker 1: probably made the mistake of catching up with their friend.
Speaker 1: But then somehow, like your hands sneaked into your pocket,
Speaker 1: you've got your phone. You're like checking the scores on
Speaker 1: ESPN dot com or freshing your inbox, doing all kinds
Speaker 1: of things on your phone that you really don't need
Speaker 1: to do that are an urgent, but your head is
Speaker 1: just distracted. And we all convince ourselves we can multitask.
Speaker 1: It turns out we actually can't. There's more and more
Speaker 1: science to back that up. But it turns out that
Speaker 1: if you can just be fully present with someone for
Speaker 1: five or ten minutes, if you can give them one
Speaker 1: of the greatest gifts you can give anyone else, which
Speaker 1: is a gift of your full attention, it can be
Speaker 1: so deeply fulfilling, you know, for the listener who's hearing
Speaker 1: you say the recommendation of try to even find small
Speaker 1: moments in the day to connect with people that you
Speaker 1: care about, right the quick phone call. But they're thinking
Speaker 1: to themselves that I don't even have one person that
Speaker 1: I can do that with. I want to give them hope.
Speaker 1: A couple of things I would say to those who
Speaker 1: feel like they don't have people in their life right now.
Speaker 1: One is to recognize that the connections that matter to
Speaker 1: us in our life are not only connections let's say
Speaker 1: with people in our intimate circles with a spouse or
Speaker 1: a best friend, but it's also our connection with a community.
Speaker 1: These are the people that we may see in passing,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe when we go to temple or church,
Speaker 1: you know, if you go to religious gatherings, or people
Speaker 1: who may be folks who may encounter in the workplace.
Speaker 1: But those connections matter too. And simple acts of kindness
Speaker 1: with those individuals, simply acknowledging people, greeting them, offering, just
Speaker 1: checking in on them, seeing how they're doing, those are
Speaker 1: moments of connection that are very powerful. They feed our
Speaker 1: soul in ways that our body is hardwired to receive.
Speaker 1: It feels good to use that muscle of kindness and
Speaker 1: compassion that we are designed to use and operated by,
Speaker 1: but which we often forget because the world around us
Speaker 1: will often tell us that if we're too kind and
Speaker 1: too nice and we'll get taken advantage of right. But
Speaker 1: it turns out reaching for that, using that muscle, it
Speaker 1: can make us feel good. One last thing they would
Speaker 1: just remember is something that is not my wisdom or
Speaker 1: my sort of knowledge. It's something that was given to
Speaker 1: me by a good friend in Boston when I was
Speaker 1: finished my first term as certain General was really struggling
Speaker 1: a lot with loneliness, with having really no sense of
Speaker 1: real community. I had lost connection with so many of
Speaker 1: their friends that I had been close to before during
Speaker 1: my first tour of duty. And I remember lamenting this
Speaker 1: going to Boston and seeing a friend from my residency
Speaker 1: training and she said to me, she said, Vibe, you
Speaker 1: know what your problem is. She said, Your problem is
Speaker 1: not that you don't have friends. She said, your problem
Speaker 1: is that you're not experiencing friendships. She said, you have
Speaker 1: people in your life from years past who, if you
Speaker 1: reached out to them, would be more than happy to
Speaker 1: talk to you. And she knew that I felt a
Speaker 1: sense of shame and guilt because from not being in
Speaker 1: touch with them for years, from showing up when I
Speaker 1: was tied up with work at times where they really
Speaker 1: needed a friend, you know. But she said, Vivek, if
Speaker 1: you reached out to those people just to say hello
Speaker 1: and reconnect, guarantee you the vast majority of them would
Speaker 1: welcome the connection. And she was right. And I share
Speaker 1: this only to say that the connections from our past
Speaker 1: don't need to stay in our past, but sometimes they
Speaker 1: can be rekindled with a simple outreach, a simple message
Speaker 1: from me, a simple call, and more often than not,
Speaker 1: you may find that the people were reaching out to
Speaker 1: may be struggling with loneliness themselves and then finally looking
Speaker 1: for ways to serve other people. Why does this service matter, Well,
Speaker 1: it turns out that service is one of the most
Speaker 1: powerful ways that we break this cycle of loneliness because
Speaker 1: remember when we struggle with loneliness because of our elevated
Speaker 1: threat level, sometimes inadvertently pushing people away, and we're chipping
Speaker 1: away at our sense of self esteem. What service does
Speaker 1: is it allows us to connect to somebody else in
Speaker 1: an environment where we are truly helping in a way
Speaker 1: that's immediate. But we also reaffirm to ourselves that we
Speaker 1: have value to bring to the world. Right, so both
Speaker 1: lifts our esteem but also helps us forge an immediate
Speaker 1: connection with another human being. And service doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be quitting your job and joining an organization does charitable work,
Speaker 1: although certainly if you feel call to that, you should,
Speaker 1: but service can be stopping to check in on a
Speaker 1: coworker who maybe is struggling. It could be asking a
Speaker 1: friend how they're doing because you know that they are
Speaker 1: worried about losing their job. Yeah, and I love how
Speaker 1: this really helps to reframe what social connection even means
Speaker 1: and what it can look like. Right, There's one line
Speaker 1: that I found so stirring in your book where you
Speaker 1: say belonging involves more than being accepted, known and loved.
Speaker 1: It's about sharing in the concern and responsibility for others. So,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the people who I remember talking
Speaker 1: to is a woman named Sarah who moved to Texas
Speaker 1: away from our family and our friends, and she was
Speaker 1: really struggling. She felt really alone, and she ended up
Speaker 1: developing something that really helped her call the Neighbors Team.
Speaker 1: And this is a way through which she served her neighbors.
Speaker 1: She would bring them together periodically at her home. Her
Speaker 1: father helped her construct this really big table that she
Speaker 1: put outside on the grass wherever could come sit. She
Speaker 1: asked her one to just bring a dish, and then
Speaker 1: she became a host for people. She would walk around
Speaker 1: helping people learn a little bit about each other, saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, this is Maya. He's a little bit about
Speaker 1: her background. Like she would just walk around serving as
Speaker 1: a connector, and which she founds two things. There were
Speaker 1: a lot of people who were struggling with loneliness around
Speaker 1: her in her neighborhood, and just a little bit of
Speaker 1: structure and a little bit of an introduction allowed them
Speaker 1: to connect in powerful ways. But the other thing she
Speaker 1: found is that serving as a connector herself actually made
Speaker 1: her feel more deeply connected to her community. And it
Speaker 1: was a powerful example to me. I sometimes when we
Speaker 1: are feeling is like we're struggling, like we need help.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it is by us giving help to others that
Speaker 1: we find refuge and that we find solace. One other
Speaker 1: story I'll share is a very personal one about my
Speaker 1: mother and my father. This is what you know. When
Speaker 1: I was really young, I was woken up in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night by my mom who said, hey,
Speaker 1: we got to get in the car and go as
Speaker 1: quickly as possible. It must have been two in the morning,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know what was going on, and may
Speaker 1: have been seven years old at the time. As bleary
Speaker 1: eyed get in the car, and my sister who's eight
Speaker 1: years old is also bleary eyed in the car next
Speaker 1: to me, and my mom and dads are driving us
Speaker 1: and they tell us along the way that their patient, Gordon,
Speaker 1: had just died from a long struggle with metisatic cancer.
Speaker 1: And we were driving to go to the trailer park
Speaker 1: where Gordon lived because his wife, Ruth was still living
Speaker 1: there and they were worried she would be grieving alone.
Speaker 1: And I always remember that moment because my parents this
Speaker 1: was not in their job description to drive out to
Speaker 1: the trailer park at two am to check on, you know,
Speaker 1: patient's widow. It is what they felt that they needed
Speaker 1: to do. It's what they felt they wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I remember my mother. She was wearing us Sadi as
Speaker 1: you know, a tradition Indian dress, and she walked up
Speaker 1: the stairs of roots trailer and knocked on the door,
Speaker 1: and the door opened, and I saw Ruth come out
Speaker 1: and her hair was frazzled and there were tears streaming
Speaker 1: down her face and she just looked at my mother
Speaker 1: and didn't say a word, but they just embraced and
Speaker 1: they just held that hug. And looking at the two
Speaker 1: of them, I thought, these are two people who come
Speaker 1: from such profoundly different backgrounds, by immigrant Indian mother and Ruth,
Speaker 1: who had been in this country for generations from a
Speaker 1: completely different cultural background. But in that moment, there were
Speaker 1: two human beings forging this extraordinarily powerful connection and speaking
Speaker 1: the language of connection and love that I think we
Speaker 1: all speak in our best moments, And so I remember
Speaker 1: that moment often because it stands out to me as
Speaker 1: a reminder that we all need connection. We all have
Speaker 1: the power to build connection in our lives and the
Speaker 1: lives of others. And it's thought about the big moments.
Speaker 1: It's often about the small moments, the small decisions we
Speaker 1: make to show up for somebody else. Hey, thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Next week we'll be off for the holiday, but join
Speaker 1: us the following week for our season finale. When we
Speaker 1: hear from Javier Zamora. At age nine, Javier left his
Speaker 1: childhood home in El Salvador and embarked on a harrowing
Speaker 1: immigration journey to reunite with his parents in the US.
Speaker 1: Now in his thirties, Javier has revisited his past and
Speaker 1: a memoir called Solito Spanish for a loan, and it's
Speaker 1: helped him see his nine year old self in a
Speaker 1: new light. In looking at this kid, I also realized
Speaker 1: that I was treating him how politicians and the news
Speaker 1: outlets treat immigrants, so I was believing them, and that
Speaker 1: also affected how I viewed my nine year old self.
Speaker 1: He had committed a crime. He is somebody that doesn't
Speaker 1: belong into society. He's an outsider, and slowly I was like, no,
Speaker 1: hold up, this kid is a g he's a gangster.
Speaker 1: He survived the unsurvivable. Rarely, rarely have I heard that
Speaker 1: term survivor be attached to immigrants. A Slight Change of
Speaker 1: Plans is created, written an executive produced by me Maya Shunker.
Speaker 1: The Slight Change family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our
Speaker 1: story editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our sound engineer Andrew Vestola,
Speaker 1: and our associate producer Sarah McCrae. Louise Scara wrote our
Speaker 1: delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a
Speaker 1: very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker