Going it alone and feeling separate and unsupported can prove to be deadly.

Numerous studies show that people who are - “self-absorbed, cynical, and hostile to the world – are more likely to die from a heart attack”.

Feeling like you don’t belong can literally put your life at risk.

Feelings of isolation have more to do with cardiovascular illness than every so-called lifestyle risk factor. In this sense, heart disease can be seen as a disease of alienation.

An enormous body of research reveals that the root of stress and ultimately illness is a sense of isolation and a lack of support.

When we pit ourselves against others, we negatively impact our health. Feelings of isolation hijack the nervous system leaving us stuck in cycles of stress and survival mode.

And cycles of stress and survival mode perpetuate the fear pain cycle that makes pain and illness chronic.

Yet the bonds we make with others generate our most authentic state of being and illustrate the most powerful need we have – the need to belong.

And where there is belonging there is safety and where there is safety we can shift from a state of surival to a state of parasympathetic nervous system healing.

So today I’d like to invite you to take inventory of the places where you feel isolated, separate, alone or under supported in your life?

Sometimes we are reaching for faulty limbs - or branches that don’t really have the capacity to support us the way we need to be supported.

Where do you feel misunderstood, or not seen or not heard? What does this feel like? Where do you feel it?

What stories do you tell yourself about feeling isolated and/or separate?

What beliefs are organized around feeling isolated?

What behaviors are organized around feeling alone and unsupported?

What does this cost you?

How does it keep you stuck in survival mode and pain?

Now I’d like you to take inventory of all the places where you do feel connected and supported in your life?

Where do you feel understood, seen and heard? What does this feel like? Where do you feel it?

What stories can you tell yourself about how you feel connected?

What beliefs are organized around feeling connected?

What behaviors are organized around feeling connected and supported?

What are the payoffs of feeling connected and supported? What’s possible when you are connected and supported?

The path to healing is two fold.

One.

Give the parts of you that feel isolated, alone and under supported radical love and acceptance. Nurture and support these parts of yourself. Be curious and compassionate towards the parts of you that have felt unseen and unheard.

And two.

Be on the lookout for where you are in fact supported. Pay attention to the ways in which you are in fact connected. Acknowledge the ways in which you are seen and understood. Then make the conscious choice to draw upon and lean on these supports.

The more we can let go of faulty limbs the more we can reach out for and lean on the branches that can actually support us and make healing chronic pain and illness inevitable.