295: Overcoming Loneliness: Practical Mindset Shifts to Build Friendships Starting Now with Becky Harling
Many of us feel lonelier than ever, but what if there were ways to start building connections and overcoming that loneliness? Author Becky Harling joins us to discuss powerful mindset shifts for loneliness that we can implement today.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
- [04:56] Why Do We Feel Guilt and Shame Around Loneliness?
- [06:57] How Can We Break Free From The Things That Keep Us Stuck in Loneliness?
- [10:15] How Does Authentic Connection Relate to Our Connection With The Lord?
- [13:36] Why is Embracing Humility an Essential Step in Working Through Loneliness?
- [16:05] “Stop Comparing and Start Cheering”
- [19:38] How Has The Cultural Shift Towards Self-Sufficiency Kept Us From Giving and Receiving Comfort?
- [26:58] Why Is It Important to Overcome Being Easily Offended?
- [36:41] Alicia’s Reflections: Ask Yourself “What Is My Responsibility and How Can I Look At Loneliness in a New Light?”
[04:56] Why Do We Feel Guilt and Shame Around Loneliness?
Becky shares that many of us feel guilt and shame around loneliness because it makes us feel less than. As Christians, some part of us feels like we should not be lonely because all we need is Jesus. While our deepest needs are met in God, even Jesus needed people while He was here on Earth. But we still feel this guilt and shame when we are lonely which leads us down a spiral. Becky often hears people say “I have nothing to offer, I am a bad conversationalist, my mother said I am never going to amount to anything, and all of this means I am a bad person.” They allow these thoughts to snowball but most of what people feel about loneliness can be changed.
[06:57] How Can We Break Free From The Things That Keep Us Stuck in Loneliness?
The first thing we can do to break free from loneliness is to change our narrative. We have all been created in the image of God which means we all have value and a purpose to connect with others. If we believe that we are here to form deep connections with others, then we realize that we just need to learn how to do it better.
The second thing is reframing the statement “I do not have these relationships because something is wrong with me” to “Maybe something is missing and God wants me to lean into it.” Loneliness is just a signal that something needs attention. You may need a deeper connection with God or friends but it is not the end of the world. As I say in Emotional Confidence, it is like the “check engine light” in a car. You do not just ignore the signal, you have to learn what is going on so you can fix it and move beyond it. This light is just an indication of what is going on inside; it does not reflect our identity.
[10:15] How Does Authentic Connection Relate to Our Connection With The Lord?
In Becky’s book “Cultivating Deeper Connections in a Lonely World” she says, “The deeper and more intimate our relationship is with God, the more we will be at home with ourselves, and the richer our connections will be with others. Too often, our relationship with Jesus is, in the words of one writer, ‘seriously underdeveloped’ and as a result, we are not able to offer these deep friendships and connections to others. Tight bonds of community form out of the overflow of a heart that is experienced deep belonging in Christ.”
The deepest place of connection is always going to be with Christ, Becky shares.. Becky recently shared with her husband that she feels the most loved when she is on her knees worshipping the Lord. When we deeply connect with God, we realize we are completely known, loved, and feel at home. And once we can feel at home within ourselves, then we are a better friend to others. We are no longer looking for others to meet this need and we have a full heart that we can reach out to others.
Even though we do not need them to fill the hole in our hearts, we still need friendship. Even God needed His friends. But the difference is we are no longer saying “Fill me, fill me” because we have already been filled by Christ and have done the work to accept ourselves. Self-acceptance is a long journey for women but the deeper we go into the love of Christ, the easier it is to find contentment in who He has created us to be.
[13:36] Why is Embracing Humility an Essential Step in Working Through Loneliness?
Becky also says “Humility encourages vulnerability which results in honest community.” She reminds us that if you go into a relationship like you have it all together, people are going to push away. They do not want to be around someone who always thinks they are the expert. It has been said that there are two types of people in the world:
The one who comes into a room and says, “Here I am”
The other one who comes into a room and says, “There you are”
We are naturally more drawn to the person who says, “There you are”. Harvard did a study and found that humble people are happier because they have better relationships. They do not cling to needing to be the center of attention, they do not always talk about themselves, and they do not need to prove they are an expert on anything. They just bring their vulnerable selves to the relationship and that creates the fabric of a beautiful relationship.
When our identity is firmly rooted in Christ, we no longer feel the need to seek validation from others or prove our worth based on their opinions. Instead, we can simply be ourselves which allows us to genuinely love and enjoy others, to listen instead of dominating conversations, and to serve selflessly. It creates space for real, meaningful friendships, which is such a gift.
[16:05] “Stop Comparing and Start Cheering”
Another practical shift that Becky shares in her book is to stop comparing and start cheering. Several years ago, she was in a bookstore when she noticed that an acquaintance of hers hit the New York Times bestseller list. She started to think “That is not fair” and then felt the Holy Spirit say, “If I want her to be on the New York Times bestseller list, what is that to you?” She instantly realized that she was comparing so she started to ask for God’s forgiveness and pray that He blesses her book. This reminds us that when we are comparing, we are competing with each other and that is not going to help our relationships – it is going to damage them. She started praising God and thanking Him for what He has allowed in her life.
Becky recently asked her 11-year-old granddaughter “What is God teaching you?” and she said, “He is teaching me contentment and I am learning to be content with who He has created me to be and the gifts He has given.” She runs track and when she is done with her race you will see her on the sidelines cheering for everyone else. Becky has learned from her to cheer for others because we cannot cultivate connection when we are in a comparison battle.
[19:38] How Has The Cultural Shift Towards Self-Sufficiency Kept Us From Giving and Receiving Comfort?
Another practical shift is the idea of giving and receiving comfort. Becky writes, “I am convinced that one of the reasons why we experience so much loneliness is that we have forgotten how to hold and comfort one another in life's sorrows as the broken body of Christ.” Particularly in our Western culture, we value independence but this is not Biblical. If you read Genesis through to Revelation, nowhere in Scripture will you find independence affirmed. God calls us to interdependence.
There is a sculpture where Mary is holding the broken body of Christ and this is how we are meant to be with one another. We are here in times of need to comfort one another. Sometimes grieving and sorrow make us so uncomfortable and we are not sure how to comfort someone but we can learn this skill. Something we should not do is send a verse that says “Do not worry, all things work together for Christ” This is not comfort, this is preaching and it is going to push people away. Do not try to fix other people’s sorrow, get in it with them. If your friend has a miscarriage, stop by with pizza and paper plates so they have something to eat. Let them know you are there for them and you are praying for them.
We also cannot sit in this discomfort with others if we cannot sit with it ourselves. Too often, we want to bypass the pain, rushing to verses like Romans 8:28, “All things work for good,” without learning how to truly comfort ourselves or others. We have been taught to rejoice, and to mask pain with a smile, but Jesus shows us another way. At Lazarus’s tomb, knowing full well He would raise him moments later, Jesus wept. In His divinity and humanity, He grieved with Mary and Martha, stepping fully into their suffering. That is what God calls us to: to mourn when it is time, to allow space for our own grief, and to sit with others in theirs. Perhaps part of our loneliness stems from this lack of shared vulnerability, we have not learned how to truly be with each other in pain.
2 Corinthians 1:3-7 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffered.” We first receive comfort from God then this comfort can flow out of us to other people. A lot of times we are trying to put up this superwoman complex which does not increase the depth of connection. We can build this connection not just by giving comfort, but by receiving it as well.
[26:58] Why Is It Important to Overcome Being Easily Offended?
Another tip is to not be easily offended. In her book, Becky says “Every relationship will offer you the opportunity to take offense.” She reminds us that offenses do not just happen to you, you have to take them. The word offense comes from the place on a trap where they put the bait and this is exactly where Satan wants us. We are all human so we are going to get our feelings hurt but taking offense is where we take that hurt feeling and start ruminating on what we should have said and what XYZ means.
Becky shares that we need to clarify things with people. She recently had a conversation with her daughter and then 20 minutes later her daughter called back and said “Hey, I want to circle back to our conversation because I am making up meaning and I would like to clarify.” If we all did this, it would lead to a lot less upset and frustration. We have to have a self-management meeting with the Holy Spirit. First, we need to think the best about the other person because they probably were caught up in stress and then we need to go back and let them know the meaning that we are making in our heads and ask them to explain what they meant by it. Then we are not trapped like Satan wants us to be.
One of those big things that keeps us from getting out of loneliness is that we are convinced we are the victim. In marriage, I have learned that there are things that my husband will say or do that will offend me – but I get to decide what I am going to do with that. Nine times out of ten I take it to the Holy Spirit and do not even bring it up to my husband. We need to stop thinking everyone is out to get us and we have to make space for each other's faults. How can we give space for people to be imperfect? This is a part of relationships.
Many people leave church because they get offended. Becky’s husband was a pastor for years and the community of pastors would meet up every week and discuss how many people left because they were offended. We need to get a grip on this because it is causing division in the body of Christ. We are never going to agree with everything in a church – just like in relationships, there will always be an opportunity to get our feelings hurt. We need to address this internally and not take offense.
Becky reminds us that we do not have to be a victim to loneliness – it is merely a signal. If you are feeling lonely today, start by reaching out to God and spend some time in prayer. He loves us completely and Scripture tells us that you are actually never alone, because He is with you. Start there and then reach out to one person this week and ask them to have coffee. Just go with them, ask a few questions, and listen to what they have to say. You will immediately feel more connected.
[36:41] Alicia’s Reflections: Ask Yourself “What Is My Responsibility and How Can I Look At Loneliness in a New Light?”
We are so used to thinking about loneliness as something that happens to us – I love how Becky reminded us that we are not victims and gave us specific things that we can do to get us out of loneliness. Each one of these loneliness triggers has a huge area in which we can potentially get stuck.
Pick one that stood out to you, bring it before the Lord, and get His help with working through it to combat loneliness. We have to be able to name these feelings and bring them before God to have the emotional confidence to work through them. My book, “Emotional Confidence: 3 Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science and Scripture” can help you with this and it is a great resource alongside Becky’s book “Cultivating Deeper Connections in a Lonely World”.
Having a part that we can own is exciting because that means we can do something about it. I encourage you to ask yourself, “What is my responsibility here? How is God calling me to look at this issue of loneliness in a new light?”
Begin to take these steps and if you need support in doing so, please reach out to me on Instagram. I would love to help you brainstorm and help you get past this point of loneliness. This is a powerful yet tricky topic but there are so many great things that can come from it. If we begin to look at these aspects (even just one of them!) it can make a huge difference in our lives.
RESOURCES:
Tired of up-and-down feelings stealing your peace, sabotaging your relationships, and filling your mind with self-defeating thoughts? If so, make sure to get my new book, “Emotional Confidence: 3 Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science and Scripture”.
Want to see what Emotional Confidence is about? Download the first chapter for FREE!
Connect with author Becky Harling
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