Holidays, Loneliness, and Alarmed Aloneness

🎶 Silent night, oh holy (hellish) night.

🎶 All is calm (and kind of depressed).All is not feeling so bright.

🎶 Fa, la, la, la !@#$%^&*! off.

Holidays aren’t all tinsel and glitter for everyone.

🎄 You may not have family, a partner, or friends to share your time with.

🎄 You may not have time off!

🎄 Or you may spend time with family and find it feels more like an obligation—triggering, or something you would prefer to avoid—at the same time as you crave closeness.

If you relish your time to yourself, this blog post is not for you. Get out your skates, pour a glass of hot toddy or hot chocolate, fire up the Netflix, and unwind or go party with your people!

If this season brings loneliness to the surface and you are finding it hard to be with, read on…

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Why Won’t My Anxiety Calm Down?

Do you struggle with that shaky, nervous feeling inside where you just can’t settle or rest?

Have you ever been diagnosed with “anxiety” or “generalized anxiety” by a professional?

Has medication and talking it out failed to bring the full relief you hoped for?

Even deeper than loneliness is a feeling that so often goes unnamed.

It is called Alarmed Aloneness.

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What Is Alarmed Aloneness?

With “trauma” becoming such a buzzword these days, most of you have heard about the activated nervous system states called fight, flight, and freeze.

Each of these expresses differently and feels distinct in your body.

When we work together, in the 6-session Clear Trauma & Emotional Blocks package, or the deeper 3-month Pain to Purpose journey, you will learn to recognize each one, as well as how to tenderly engage each and discharge the energy charge from your body, nervous system, and energy field. The “technique” is different for each one. I learned all of this in my four years of training in Somatic Experiencing.

Alarmed Aloneness holds a similar intensity as fight and flight and activates all the same stress responses and biological systems in your body. But it’s not flight (nothing to run away from), it’s not fight (no one to kick out of your boundary), and it’s not freeze (though it can escalate to freeze if it is not attended to and accompanied with empathy).

Alarmed Aloneness happens on the neurobiological circuit within you called the GRIEF/PANIC circuit.

You feel deeply sad, but also anxious or scared.

GRIEF/PANIC arises when you lose connection with your safe loved ones—the ones who help you feel safe and attached.

🐾 It comes up when you lose a pet.

💔 It comes up when you break up with a lover.

🕊️ It comes up when a loved one (especially a parent) dies.

🚫 It comes up when you feel ostracized by a group, especially through shaming.

🎄 It comes up around the holidays.

🌍 It can be triggered by current events and awaken the backlog of past unattended abandonments, which will intensify the feeling.

👥 It can come up even when you are surrounded by a group of people. If you don’t feel connected, you can still feel alone.

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What Does Our Alarmed Aloneness Need?

Accompaniment.

Connection.

What Is Accompaniment?

A safe and calm (well-regulated) other person with you who is holding space and resonating with how you are feeling.

What Is Resonance?

It is not reassurance.(“I’m sure they just forgot to invite you.”“You will get through this.”“Holidays are such a fake, anyway.”)

It is reflecting back to you, with empathy, exactly how you are feeling and “tuning into it” with you so you are no longer alone in it.

(“Does it feel like your heart could shatter trying to hold all the longing?”“Do you need acknowledgement of Alarmed Aloneness?”“Do you want to close up inside and stop hoping for someone to come?”)

If this sounds right and your body is saying, “Yes, this is what I need!”—I’ve got you covered.

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How I Can Support You

I have extensive expertise helping you discharge fight, flight, freeze, and Alarmed Aloneness from your body (seven years of trauma work so far, on top of eighteen more years of energy healing before that).

P.S. Alarmed Aloneness is not a widely understood concept. In fact it is a term that was coined by one of my teachers, Sarah Peyton, only a few years ago to give a name to the inner agitation we feel when we lose connection with our safe loved ones.

I also know how to do resonance work. It’s one of the ingredients in my “special sauce” of skills I bring to our work together.

When I read what is unfolding in your energy field, you will feel like I am right there with you, seeing you at a deep level. I can help you make shifts and clear things out of your energy field through virtual work when we meet on Zoom, or sitting in front of one another in person in my Wakefield office.

We can also all learn to do self-resonance and accompany ourselves with warmth and care. This is an entire skill set we need to learn. I’m still working on it for myself.

👉 When you work with me for 3 months, you will get lots of resonance from me.

You will learn what it feels like and how it helps soften and soothe your stress responses and bring relief to your heart and body.

👉 If you continue to work with me for the ideal 6 months, I will start to guide you into how to offer yourself resonance, so you can have this calming practice with you whenever you need it—and also learn how to offer resonance to your kids, your boss, your mate, and everyone you care about.

It does take practice, because it is not simply a mental skill, it is requires embodied presence, attunement and lots of practice!

Ho, ho, ho—I hope this helps!

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👉 Ready to get some resonance for your Alarmed Aloneness? (After the holidays…I’m taking rest in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada from December 21-January 1). Book a free 30 minute consultation to start your deeper healing journey.

👉 Or simply start with a 1 hour or 1.5 hour session to see what working with me is like. Book here.