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Episode Transcript
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Simone: Vulnerability it's emotional disclosure and there is a risk it's like pulling your heart out and putting it on a plate between you and that person. But there is something magical in that risk.
Vulnerability used at the right point, allows people to not be skeptical of us. So therefore, Trust is established. And trust is the cornerstone of connection, but there's a very fine line in this. If you are vulnerable with someone upon first meeting them this comes across as oversharing
and it would repel the exact kind of connection I craved
Sharad: Hi, everyone. Welcome to how to live a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I'm your host Sharad Lal this is episode 22. Loneliness is a topic that's been requested by many of you for today's episode. We are privileged to have with us. Simone hang Simone is a human connection. Her latest book, secret pandemic.
The search for connection in a lonely world is a best seller in Singapore. It's also number one in Amazon, us in the social science category, by combining science with personal stories and providing actionable tools. Simone makes human connection very accessible to all of us.
Her talks of inspired folks in Facebook, Google Lucas, films, Salesforce, SAP, and more. She's spoken in big platforms, TEDx south by Southwest and others. Simone's a former international broadcaster having worked with Virgin radio, Dubai, HBO, a share CNBC and others.
She's been featured in Forbes, wog L and CNN. Simone's a global citizen born in Singapore, raised in Australia, lived in Switzerland and Dubai. And now back in S. In our conversation. Apart from loneliness, we cover complicated connections that many of us special nations have with our parents. How do we move those relationships from a place of compulsion to a place of love?
We also discuss forgiveness, vulnerability and the power of therapy. Simone's a very engaging storyteller. Who's passionate, authentic, and brutally honest. But before getting to this interview, here's thanking all of you for supporting this podcast. With your support, we hit number three in Singapore. We are top 5% globally and are listened to in over 65 countries for new listeners, please do consider subscribing and rating us on Spotify, apple podcast, or wherever you're listening to this.
Thank you in advance now here's the interview.
Hi, Simone. Welcome to how to live. How you doing this morning?
Simone: Hello, Shara. Thank you so much for having me. I'm doing great. I'm drinking my breakfast smoothie while we're talking. So it's I'm almost having breakfast with
Sharad: That's awesome. Having breakfast. What smoothie are you having?
Simone: you. It's kale, strawberries, protein powder. It's very nice.
Sharad: Excellent. Thank you very much for making time. Your book is so wonderful. I really enjoyed reading your book
Simone: you.
Sharad: congratulations on all your success. This is such an important conversation today on. Human connection.
Loneliness, as you said, COVID obviously has amplified this, but this was always a secret pandemic going on. I love how you told your personal story, how you coupled it with principles, research data, put it all together. It was very powerful and is a great resource for anyone interested in human connection and loneliness.
Simone: Yeah, thank you. I had read every human connection book out there and none of them I felt made me actually feel connected to the author. So I'm learning all the studies and I'm learning the science and I'm learning about connection, but no one's giving me action points to go out and do it nor is anyone making me actually feel less lonely.
So that was the unique selling point of the book to talk about it in marketing terms.
Sharad: One of the things that really stood out for me, there's a lot that stood out, but one thing that really stood out was the starting point of a human connection is having a good connection with yourself.
Once you build that connection with yourself, that's when you can go out, connect with people and not be lonely anymore. Can you talk a little bit about this?
Simone: Yeah, absolutely. So what we know is when we spend time on our own and we're calm and we're activating the vagus nerve tells the prefrontal cortex to release hormones that make us happy things like. Dopamine melatonin but also oxytocin, which is the hormone, which helps us build trust with others.
That time to yourself, getting to know yourself, whether you go to therapy, when you sit in therapy and they give you grounding exercises and they ask you to meditate and they teach you things, these are all self connection exercises.
That help us to. Check in to see not only where we are at, but on a pragmatic level release the hormones that allow you to connect with other people and to behave in the, in an authentic way with the world. The definition of self connection in the book by a lovely social worker called Tim sit in Canada is self connection.
Is the process of being in touch with the worthiness of one's self, regardless of the external experience you're having. And this is a really challenging thing because the world sends us so many different messages, other people of different value systems that we come up against all the time, but still being able to know internally who you are and to regulate yourself so that you can react in loving, compassionate ways to other people and I think that it's also understanding that's the ongoing work for all of us all through our lives.
Sharad: You've had quite a journey in connecting with yourself. You mentioned in the book at one stage, you thought of yourself as unlovable, and then, you were addicted to love how's your journey been and how have you settled into a deeper connection with yourself?
Simone: Firstly, understanding that there was something that wasn't right in the way that I was interacting in romantic relationships or with other people and not being in denial about that being awake about that is the first step. If you leave these things unchecked your trauma.
Your addictions, your limiting core beliefs, things like you're unlovable, you're not good enough. You will be in so much pain when this trauma piles up and when the world throws you things. I had my father pass away. My mother became paralyzed and what actually tipped me over the edge was working for a toxic workplace here in S.
That tipped me over the edge. The pain was so intense that I could no longer go about my daily functioning in the world, interacting with people. And so I finally had to say, I am not coping and I need to get help. And so sadly for human beings, a lot of the time we only go and get help when we're at rock bottom.
So my hope is what the book does you're realizing hopefully earlier than later that you need help and you're not waiting to get to the rock bottom.
Sharad: That's a great message. You've talked about therapy helping you right now, and even in the book, what were some of the ways that therapy actually helped you? What did it make you see and how did it help you in your path back?
Simone: Yeah it taught me tangible tools. I think for me the stuff, which teaches me the reasoning and the science behind it allows me to feel less alone, which is why the book, isn't just a collection of stories. I've put the science in there because not everyone learns the same way. If I know that a fight to flight response is a BI biological reaction to feeling like you don't belong.
Then I feel less loathing that I'm unlikable and unlovable, right? In therapy you learn not only this, but you learn grounding exercises to take you out of that fight or flight, you learn to identify what are the four or five things that calm you down when you're in that state and to go to those things, to put yourself in delay.
So you're not reactive. I'm getting bitchy emails and WhatsApps from my former workplace, I leave my phone at home and I would go to walk in the Botanic garden. For one, two hours so that I can come back and I can respond in a calm non-reactive way. It also gives you things like cognitive behavioral therapy, which I found really wonderful.
] Now if I'm triggered and I feel unlovable because once you have a core limiting belief like that, don't think that disappears. It's still there. You just have to manage. And so in those moments where I still today feel unlovable, I use cognitive behavioral therapy to dispute those thoughts. So you learn to reasonably dispute those thoughts you learn about catastrophizing.
So catastrophizing, I helped a girlfriend the other day who lives overseas, where you have one small thought that snowballs into all these big life threatening, larger thoughts that are looming. And they all bowl together like a big plate of spa. And I see this with a lot of my coaching clients in terms of presentation skills, it's just a presentation, but the anxiety behind it leads to what if everyone doesn't like me?
What if everyone sees me after COVID and thinks I've aged? Oh, I've gained weight. What if they look at me like, it snowballs into irrational thoughts. And once you know, that catastrophizing is something that our brain. Gosh, you feel less alone. You go, this is an experience. Everyone else has.
We are not alone in this. And here's how I tackle that catastrophizing. I get myself out of lizard brain survival mode so I can become so whatever that is for you, meditation, yoga, going for a walk, playing with your puppy, whatever that is for you. And then you are able to weed apart, those irrational thought. And get some sense of clarity. So these are all like actual, tangible tools that therapy gives you which allows you to not only cope, but eventually thrive in the world.
Sharad: I like those two things do takeaways from there. Firstly, once you start therapy, you realize all these things that you were doing like catastrophizing or fight or flight is not just you. Most people are doing that. And that itself is a way of connecting with others. Even if you.
Are not physically connected with them. And the second it's an ongoing journey. It's not like a one time you've done therapy. You're good. But therapy gives you the tools to manage this because this was not gonna go away. All you need to do is have a better way to respond. Whether it's taking a walk in botanical gardens, grounding, exercises, meditation, whatever your tools are
Simone: I'm
glad it has transformed my life. Like people will see what's happening online for me or meet me and they'll be like, how have you managed to do this? And the truth is you just have to do the really ugly, painful work and most. I would say 70% of people that I meet don't want to do it. Look at the tiger in its face is a really painful thing to do.
But the growth that it gives you has just life changing.
Sharad: I like that thought of looking as therapy as something through which you can grow. There still is a little taboo about going to therapy. If you tell some friends that you're going to therapy, they say what's wrong with you.
But if it's thought of as a growth mindset where you're uncovering parts of yourself which. Tangled up together but you work towards untangling figuring yourself out. And just as a growth mechanism I found that very useful.
Simone: it sabotages, it can sabotage you. And I think this is why I'm, I've been so public about it on. Social media and in the book is because as a woman with Singaporean parents who was also born in Singapore, and grew up in a very Singapore household bit in Australia, I saw this as I remember when I lived in Dubai Shera, I used to watch, do you remember stomp blog?
How long have you been in Singapore? I would watch videos of enraged people in the heart. Spitting at people at MRT state, like the rage, the anger. And then when I started doing one on one coaching, I realized a lot of people were coming to me for presentation skills, but what they actually wanted was therapy without the label of therapy, but what they actually needed was to have therapy for their trauma.
So I would always, I have a duty of care. I tackle your presentation skills. I'm not here to, I'm not qualified for the rest of it. And so I would recommend them on, and this became like almost every second client. Plus a lot of direct messages on social media and I realized I have to be the voice for this in this particular part of the world to say this is okay.
And I think I was very lucky because my father has passed already. And my mother is no longer cognitive. I knew that it could never hurt my parents. And maybe no one before has been as vocal because as Asians, we are so scared to seem ungrateful to our parents or to be slapping them in the face, the journey in the book, I hope this came off to you.
Sharad like it was a story of forgiveness and actually love because I love and forgive my parents. But in order to connect with people, To make them feel less alone. You must take the risk of vulnerability yourself. I feel that's really important work because there's a lot of enraged repressed people.
Sharad: Simone. This is tremendous service that you've done to people
Simone: thank you. Sherad it was terrifying. It was absolute. Like I had anxiety. For the whole 15 months of writing the booking anxiety. Luckily we were in, so everyone had anxiety. So people just, I think thought it was that.
Sharad: And how did you get yourself? Because that was the same question I had in my mind while I was reading the book that, yes. Like you mentioned that your parents would not suffer right now with what you've written, but how did you still get yourself to write it? And you've mentioned your book, the uncles, aunties, judgments, et cetera.
Of course that doesn't affect you too much, but still how did you get through that anxiety?
Simone: Okay. So one of two things and both of these things, very reflective of my personality. So the first part, the part of me that is quite type a, that likes to do things well, I had a book coach from America and he's a multiple New York times bestseller. And he said, this one thing, he said, your book will be good in direct correlation to how truthful you. So the more truthful you are, the better your book will be. And so I decided I would just write it really truthfully, like even the parts of my behavior that I'm really not proud of. I'm gonna write it truthfully, and then you can always pull it back. But what I didn't realize was once the floodgates were open, that tone gets imbued into the whole book.
And so it then becomes quite difficult to pull it back. And in terms I have a very distinct writing style as well. So that became quite hard. So that was number one. Number two, I knew that there were a lot of cousins, uncles, and aunties that were awful to me. No matter what I did. Judgmental cruel, no matter how successful I was or not successful.
If I was and I think in my family, particularly it, if I had stayed small, if I had just lived in Perth and married some Aussie guy that they got along with and didn't do any of these creative things that literally set my soul on fire They still would have something to bitch about me about, you are south Asian, you've always got those aunties. And the wonderful thing about being almost 40 is that you realize when I go back to visit now, when I visit some of them, now, I realize that they're also getting older, that this kind of new world. Order, if you like of speaking about trauma and amending trauma and finding ways to cope with what happened to you is not even in their paradigm, it would be so far over their head anyway, that they would never read that book.
so that's, in fact, I don't even think they read and I have many cousins, uncle and artists who are incredible and wonderful thing about being Asian for everyone. Asian listening is our families are so large. So I made this rule that I would, I had this awakening that unlike I had been conditioned that I must love and respect everyone.
Even if an auntie is cruel, even if a cousin is bitchy, that I had to be nice them because they were blood. I made this new rule for myself after therapy that. Those aunties, uncles, cousins, who were lovely to me. And we were, there was reciprocity. We had an authentic connection. They would stay in my life and I would foster those relationships and the ones that were giving me pain and fostering them out of fill obligation.
Now that my mom was no longer cognitive, I could let them go. And it was one of the best decisions I made because by the time the book was ready to be published, they had already been relinquished. Much more difficult to do if they're
Sharad: That's such a good point that we have so many of these connections, especially as Asians even to our parents or maybe to extended family, which out of compulsion, out of the fact. Yes, the wedding. So like often, most people don't know, 50 to 60% of the people attending their wedding. So there are so many of
these huge connections that we have.
So it's like taking control and saying, you know what, I'm gonna build authentic love based connections. And these are the people I can do it with these people. I cannot, and that's a little bit of how, like you mentioned in your book and how you forgave your mother.
That's how I read it as well. I read it as of course it was a very difficult relationship and you painted that picture, but then you moved from a. Place of the starting point of the book, where out of compulsion, you were leaving Dubai and going back to your mom, but at the end, you arrived at a place of love where you were forgiving her and building something in terms of love.
So I'd love to hear you talk about that journey on how that journey of forgiveness of your mom went through in your mind.
Simone: Yeah. Look, it is the love story of my life. Sh like there's, without a doubt, other people have. These mad, romantic things. Like I was thinking when I was recently in Perth, how I built my own my whole business that I have now, so that I could have this laptop lifestyle, not so I can sit on a beach in the Maldives, but so I can sit next to her in the nursing home and work because she's nonverbal.
Now, it is more that my presence is next to her versus. Actually having to talk. So she's quite happy if I'm there just next to her typing away, but we're together. Do you see what I, so I had this beautiful moment of oh, you finally did it. It took you three years, but you now have this business and you have this team where you can be with her and do this at the same time.
I feel like my, maybe my my experience in as a millennial, because. What happened with my parents has been so different. My peers are traveling around Europe and jumping off cliffs in Bali and having the laptop lifestyle in Pettet and mine because of what's happened with my parents and that having us so late was wired so differently.
So she is on my mind all the time, the way that my peers think about their husbands um, and I it was, I was my daddy's girl.
And so when dad died and I, was 19, it was like, my world ended. And then I was left with this relationship. That was deeply wounded. That was the remaining parent.
And I had moments in my rage at her that I was like, why did the universe take my dad? Why did they not take her? These are the thoughts that you have in your grief. Now I realize it happened exactly the way it was supposed to happen so that she could leave this planet, having this beautiful relationship with both of her daughters.
And my mother is so much like me to not forgive her would be to not forgive myself. She's so complex. Maybe. Ahead of her time was a feminist don't even think she really deep down, wanted to be a mother, not the reality of mothering, but did it because that's what women did in that era. And then was moved to Australia and had no help and didn't know how to run a household and had these two girls that were not growing up very Singaporean, but were growing up to be these mouthy Western wild me, particularly wild things that she was like, what monster have I created? I look at it now as a 38 year old woman and I.
her experience, I think, oh my gosh. No internet, not even an online calendar to organize things, no wonder everything was chaos. But everything in life, there's a duality. So for all of the, for all of her inability to love me, functionally, because of the pain, she obviously inherited She was also fantastic.
One of the best things that she ever taught my sister and I was like, you must serve people in the community. Like you must be helping people beyond our family. And I thought this was normal because if you are like this in your nature, you attract other friends. Who are like this, but my last partner who I was with for three years, he was not raised with this at all.
He was raised very much in the Western individualistic thinking. So it's, we function with our own family unit. We give towards our own direct family. Maybe we see our cousins and extended family once a year. But as Asian immigrants for us, it was like, okay, someone in the community is down. We all bring food to their. Or if someone who's not in our community is alone. We give them a seat at our table at Christmas, Chinese near, Easter, because we as immigrants know what it's like to be alone. And this is the biggest gift. That my family gave me because even now, even at moments, when I feel unlovable or not socially connected, I know by doing good for other people, I can immediately snap out of it and give myself perspective.
It's probably gotta be one of the best tools to make you feel happier and more connected in general. And there's a whole chapter on this in the book, but that's probably, that's just one example in, in addition the love of education. And the, my parents were really good looking Shara.
One of my clients was like, your mother looks like a miss Venezuela. What ethnic is she? And one of the things which was interesting was I think my parents saw in the Singapore economy of that time, as well as the Singapore economy we have now that there was no real value in being good looking, like we have cousins who are former miss Singapores or top models, like they're in our family, but my parents always saw how finite that was.
And buying makeup going, shopping, talking about your physicality was never in the vernacular in the household. It was always about your education. How clever someone is, how independent and capable a girl was were held up as role models. And I loved that because now that my entertainment career is over, I can see how those tools have allowed me to have a second wind to provide for.
Till the day I die that does not require marrying a rich man or doing a lot of things that I see a lot of people from the entertainment industry or the, that the, not even that, how relying on your looks would just be finite and how it would cripple your options. And so those are the two things that, oh God, I love about my parents so much.
They were so maybe different in that way, because they were little baby supermodel, so good looking. And they were like, we don't want this. We don't want this for our children to have to immigrate, to do a step up. We want them to thrive regardless of what context they live in and a great way for them to do that is to be clever.
And so I really look back now as an adult and there's so much love because my mother's biggest issue was that she cared too much. And that's where if you are fiercely independent a bit wild, like I was, I found that suffocating, but as I've gone through the world and I've lived in Australia, Switzerland, Dubai, Singapore, and I meet people who have.
From every country, who've had parents that it was the opposite. They were apathetic. They didn't care at all. So as Asians, our issue is, oh my God, our parents are so controlling, but how does it hurt? What is the trauma of the parent that is absent or doesn't care? And so I think seeing that has allowed me to be much more balanced and even more forgiving of my parents because at least they cared to the point.
Kept them up at night and probably led to their illness foods,
Sharad: care. Wow, Simone, that is, that shows so much of love for your mom. The way you've talked about her. What struck out to me was you started seeing her as a human being, as a human being who has her fault, who has so many strengths.
And once you started seeing how this pretty lady moved to Australia, Settle for a life that she didn't really want and the decisions that she took and how that impacted you and seeing that bigger picture helped you understand her better. See some of the strengths that she's given you and move to a place of love and forgiveness.
I I love that. That's so beautiful. And I think that itself can be a topic of your next book because that's another very important conversation that people have their relationship with their parents. And how does it evolve, especially in the Asian context from compulsion to love.
Simone: Yes. Yes. And I think also it just because you've highlighted for me there, if we look at my mom's story and you say, because of the decisions that she took, so we all now live in a world that our parents didn't, we have. So much information to inform our decisions yet. I see so many people that I love around me choosing not to access that information.
And for 10 years, when I was in the entertainment industry, I chose where to put my attention. I chose to put my attention on my appearance on trying to stay as young to. To maintain my currency in that industry. I chose to put my attention into gossiping about other people. And then when I changed where my attention went, started to read a book a day, started to use the internet to search.
Search for courses and resources so that I could make better decisions. And I think if we look at certain things that my parents did and my, the choices, my mom made, the decisions she took, if she had the resources we had, I don't think she would've made some of those same decisions.
And so let's look at her as like a cautionary tale about please use all the resources we have. If there's one thing. And the people listening to your podcast are radio quite awake, which is why they're listening to your podcast. But I would love for more people to follow accounts that brighten them up to search for courses that improve them to read books, that they might not want to read, that they might find boring, but they know.
We'll challenge them, that's how you live a better life. Really informs your, the information informs your decisions.
Sharad: Absolutely Simone, Now on loneliness, a lot of people often don't know their lonely. In your book, you mentioned some early signs of loneliness, oversharing is a sign of loneliness, which I didn't realize what are some of the early signs of loneliness which are important to pay attention to?
Simone: Sure. One of the first signs you'll see. And we would've seen this during the pandemic is micro awakenings in your sleep. So if you've got less than good sleep it goes back to our days evolving as early man in tribes. So we had safety in numbers in those tribes. So with that tribe, we would have food to eat.
We would have safety from saber tooth tigers and resources to help us fight foreign tribes. But one of the other things we had was a different member of the tribe that would take turns to watch over us as we slept every night. Now, if we, for some reason were cast out of that tribe, we would have to wake up many times in the evening to look out for ourselves
So even to this day, our brain, when it perceives, we are cast out of that tribe, socially isolated, or socially distanced as we've seen, or even lonely within our own relationships, you can absolutely be lying next to your partner and not have good sleep because you don't feel connected.
And so Dr. Louise ley who I'm actually really excited to be speaking at a conference. Out of Washington in October where she's a board member. So you can imagine me the fangirl moment having quoted this study in my book and now getting to be one degree away from her. Dr. Louis ley actually uses Groups of highly connected like the Amish, for example it's a community similar to that. She uses them as a control group. They are very closely connected in the way they live work, eat. They have very good sleep of reduction of micro awakenings. So micro awakenings are now used as a measure of loneliness in people.
Sharad: That's a big thing. Sleep being affected by loneliness. And of course loneliness also has an impact on your health, like immunity. So many other things,
almost every part of
Simone: Cognitive decline. You get, you get dumber when you're lonely, you get more suspicious of people. So you often find we've all had a friend like this. and I used to be like this in Dubai, and I write about it. If somebody canceled, even if they were sick and had a good reason, I wouldn't be like, oh, I hope you get better.
I'd be like in my head, I'd be like they canceled. They're not getting another chance to be friends with me. If you have someone in your life where you see a little bit of that vibe or that kind of I always invite you to my house. Why don't you invite me to yours?
That kind of thing. That could be a lonely.
Sharad: Understand. It's like a vicious cycle because once you start thinking that you isolate more people, and then you think further and then, it just
Simone: Yes, you hold people to a higher standard.
And this is why the worst thing you can say to someone you suspect is lonely is oh, go out and connect with people. It's up to the rest of us in the tribe to be reaching out. In a constructive way, not demanding and telling, but being there for people and letting them know that they have access to you when they're ready and to drop in time to time.
Maybe it's a meal at the door, a message here or there, but to journey with them and not force them into what you perceive, they should be doing
Sharad: That's such a powerful, but very difficult thing to do. Very often we can't stand their loneliness. We'd want them to go out or take them
out partying
Simone: interfering.
Sharad: not ready to meet them. Yes.
Simone: We grew up with aunties. That would be like, ah, that person there just got, I think that she got a divorce. I'm not sure, but I suspect let's go over, let you know this kind of thing. And we grew up with that and I think that's one of the big things that I've had to really unwire.
So I'll do things like I'll send a bunch of flowers via delivery to the house to let them know I'm thinking about them, but then. They can then message me back saying, oh, thank you so much. I got the flowers and then we can start a dialogue versus physically showing up at the house. Then they feel obligated.
So there are nuance connection nuances, which are all explained in the book.
Sharad: Right now, what does an authentic human connection look like? What does it feel like?
Simone: Firstly, there's reciprocity. You don't have to chase the person. They're just as excited to catch up with you as you, you are with them, which is wonderful. And we see that in something called social penetration theory that I love. It basically says that the longer you. You are in someone's company.
The longer, emotional information will be disclosed and that it will be disclosed from both sides. So I think you can really check for that. If you're spending a lot of time with someone you're going on dates with someone and you are sharing and they're sharing nothing that's something to be mindful about and look at the communication there.
Sharad: I think we've covered a fair bit here. There's one bit, which we touched upon, but if you can go deeper about where you talked about vulnerability as a key element of connection, that's a very interesting area. If you could talk a little bit more about that.
Simone: Yeah, so we know. Vulnerability is a form of, it's emotional disclosure and there is a risk it's like pulling your heart out and putting it on a plate between you and that person. And hoping that they'll respond with their own story of vulnerability that they won't judge you, but there is something magical in that risk.
You see when we're openhearted like that. And it's so difficult for us as Asians because we show face. When we do that, we allow the other person to perceive us with a lack of suspicion. We're no longer a social threat. You see some work in my book. I talk about Dr. John Casio. He He's sadly passed away, but he did a lot of work about the fact that when we first meet people, we don't know.
Obviously we are skeptical of them. And vulnerability used at the right point, allows people to not be skeptical of us. So therefore, Trust is established. And trust is the cornerstone of connection, but there's a very fine line in this. If you are vulnerable with someone upon first meeting them this comes across as oversharing and I have a very troubled relationship with that because when I was in media, That was expected of you as a DJ or a public person that you would share about your life because audiences loved it.
And I got wired in my brain to feel rewarded when I did that. And I realized then when I would take that into my social circumstances and sit around a table at a dinner party and be vulnerable. It would be total oversharing and it would repel the exact kind of connection I craved. And so using vulnerability only after there is some rapport is very important.
Once rapport is established, which there's a whole chapter in the book, we can then move to vulnerability and then hopefully that's reciprocated. And from there we get authentic connection connections in your life. If you look around at collect connections in your life, that you can only have superficial conversations with.
Very likely as you get older, those people probably might not be there. And women tend to have deeper, more vulnerable relationships than men, which is why everywhere in the world, except for the blue zones. Women will outlive men by it's about seven to 10 years. Men go shallow and wide. So I would love to see more men being able to be vulnerable with their guy friends and to.
Tell at least a little bit of behavior from their life or what's going on beyond the sporting scores and see the absolute rewards that, that reaps for them in terms of how less lonely and more socially connected they would feel.
Sharad: Yeah, thank you for that message Simone. And I think more and more men are getting there and, and like your example, we may be a little messy and we get, when we get there, we may not know exactly how to do it. So we sometimes overshare sometimes unders share, but. The intent is there. And many of us are on that journey to slowly get there and we've seen some reward and that's what helps.
We've seen some reward. We've seen the kind of deeper bond we can build which is a positive reinforcement of doing it. More so I think many of us on the journey and hopefully we'll see more and more reward and build deeper relationships because of that.
Simone: Great. Good.
Sharad: Great. Is there anything else we should talk about in relation to
Simone: Yeah, I wanted to bring up something interesting. That happened to me on the weekend that I, that got me really thinking, don't perceive that you only are lonely. If you don't have people around you or you perceive that you don't have people around you. I went out for the first time to a night club in probably almost four years.
On the weekend and I never felt lonelier. And this is because there are certain environments where people are not behaving at the best of themselves, cuz they're inebriated. And you tend to see the worst of people's behaviors because when you're inebriated, your prefrontal cortex is not doing its work to make you rational.
And. Seeing the ugliness of people's behaviors made me feel more lonely than I had in years. And I only went cuz I've got a girlfriend in town and I love her to death. And we were reliving our youth of when we used to be together in Dubai. But it taught me a really interesting lesson. I started thinking about a video that I made about what are other contexts where people can be there.
It makes you feel more lonely. So things like casual sex, dating apps, transactional relationships. So this is where people only want to be friends with you, cuz you can do something with them. But yet for some reason you continue to hang out with the people. There are other contexts where other people can be in your presence, but they can actually make you feel more lonely.
So if you are in a fragile state, try and avoid those things. Yeah,
Sharad: That's great to hear. Thank you for so much work you've done on loneliness. Before I end, I have a personal question for you. You've done so much in life. You've clamed up and done very well in that. You've
used
Simone: have you and Sharon
Sharad: you've used your intelligence and cleverness to, to go deeper in life.
Written a book, number one in the us, number one in Singapore. You've done so well at the
end of your life. How would you know you've lived a good. Hmm. Oh, I look at it like when I was with my mom at the nursing home for those one and a half years, it's about the number of visitors that are coming to see me. It's who at who in those winter years is going to be there. And I think that's how, you sew the seeds of connection. I'm not a materialistic person at all.
Simone: So a lot of the projects I do are heart driven, right? They're not being money makers. And so when I and I, and that. I was raised, but it's also, I've become more so now, because I spent so much time in my late twenties, early thirties, hanging around in a nursing home when no one else my age was hanging around in a nursing home because my mom had become paralyzed.
And so I can tell you for sure, not one of those people. is talking about the job. They had the car, they owned the money. They made. Every one of those elderly people is praying and wishing from the moment they get up in the morning that somebody they loved and invested in is gonna visit. And I wanna know when it comes to my time that there's a line waiting to come and see me.
Sharad: I'm sure. Simone, with all the good work you're doing with the deep, authentic bonds you're making there'll be a huge line outside
Simone: All done.
Sharad: when whenever the time comes.
Simone: Thank you. Thank you.
Sharad: Thank you Simone for such a deep, authentic, and moving conversation by talking so openly and bravely you're doing a huge service to society. I would highly recommend Simone's book secret pandemic, the search for connection in a lonely world. The link to this book will be in the show notes.
I will also provide links to Simone's social media accounts for everyone. If you enjoyed this episode, you could consider listening to episode 15, where we talk about saying no, this is relevant to many of our nations episode 17 is also relevant. We speak with Singapore's leading therapist, Dr.
Orden Marti on intimate relationships from today's episode. Here's one action step we could all consider let's reflect on an important connection in our life. Maybe a parent or sibling or close friend. How much of our relationship is based on duty, societal expectations or compulsion. As we think about various interactions, what emotions show up, let's note these emotions without judgment.
Now let's step back and consider this important person as a human being, not as a father or a sister or a friend, but just as a human being, how does he, or she as a human being show up in our life, how does this affect our relationship with this knowledge? Is there an area of the relationship we understand better?
Just this knowledge could be a good starting point in deepening our connection. Best of luck. That's it. For today's episode. I hope it was useful. We will be back with another episode two weeks from now on August 30th. I hope you join me for that till next time. Have a wonderful day ahead. Bye-bye.
The transcript is auto generated. There may be errors in transcription.
Simone: Vulnerability it's emotional disclosure and there is a risk it's like pulling your heart out and putting it on a plate between you and that person. But there is something magical in that risk.
Vulnerability used at the right point, allows people to not be skeptical of us. So therefore, Trust is established. And trust is the cornerstone of connection, but there's a very fine line in this. If you are vulnerable with someone upon first meeting them this comes across as oversharing
and it would repel the exact kind of connection I craved
Sharad: Hi, everyone. Welcome to how to live a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I'm your host Sharad Lal this is episode 22. Loneliness is a topic that's been requested by many of you for today's episode. We are privileged to have with us. Simone hang Simone is a human connection. Her latest book, secret pandemic.
The search for connection in a lonely world is a best seller in Singapore. It's also number one in Amazon, us in the social science category, by combining science with personal stories and providing actionable tools. Simone makes human connection very accessible to all of us.
Her talks of inspired folks in Facebook, Google Lucas, films, Salesforce, SAP, and more. She's spoken in big platforms, TEDx south by Southwest and others. Simone's a former international broadcaster having worked with Virgin radio, Dubai, HBO, a share CNBC and others.
She's been featured in Forbes, wog L and CNN. Simone's a global citizen born in Singapore, raised in Australia, lived in Switzerland and Dubai. And now back in S. In our conversation. Apart from loneliness, we cover complicated connections that many of us special nations have with our parents. How do we move those relationships from a place of compulsion to a place of love?
We also discuss forgiveness, vulnerability and the power of therapy. Simone's a very engaging storyteller. Who's passionate, authentic, and brutally honest. But before getting to this interview, here's thanking all of you for supporting this podcast. With your support, we hit number three in Singapore. We are top 5% globally and are listened to in over 65 countries for new listeners, please do consider subscribing and rating us on Spotify, apple podcast, or wherever you're listening to this.
Thank you in advance now here's the interview.
Hi, Simone. Welcome to how to live. How you doing this morning?
Simone: Hello, Shara. Thank you so much for having me. I'm doing great. I'm drinking my breakfast smoothie while we're talking. So it's I'm almost having breakfast with
Sharad: That's awesome. Having breakfast. What smoothie are you having?
Simone: you. It's kale, strawberries, protein powder. It's very nice.
Sharad: Excellent. Thank you very much for making time. Your book is so wonderful. I really enjoyed reading your book
Simone: you.
Sharad: congratulations on all your success. This is such an important conversation today on. Human connection.
Loneliness, as you said, COVID obviously has amplified this, but this was always a secret pandemic going on. I love how you told your personal story, how you coupled it with principles, research data, put it all together. It was very powerful and is a great resource for anyone interested in human connection and loneliness.
Simone: Yeah, thank you. I had read every human connection book out there and none of them I felt made me actually feel connected to the author. So I'm learning all the studies and I'm learning the science and I'm learning about connection, but no one's giving me action points to go out and do it nor is anyone making me actually feel less lonely.
So that was the unique selling point of the book to talk about it in marketing terms.
Sharad: One of the things that really stood out for me, there's a lot that stood out, but one thing that really stood out was the starting point of a human connection is having a good connection with yourself.
Once you build that connection with yourself, that's when you can go out, connect with people and not be lonely anymore. Can you talk a little bit about this?
Simone: Yeah, absolutely. So what we know is when we spend time on our own and we're calm and we're activating the vagus nerve tells the prefrontal cortex to release hormones that make us happy things like. Dopamine melatonin but also oxytocin, which is the hormone, which helps us build trust with others.
That time to yourself, getting to know yourself, whether you go to therapy, when you sit in therapy and they give you grounding exercises and they ask you to meditate and they teach you things, these are all self connection exercises.
That help us to. Check in to see not only where we are at, but on a pragmatic level release the hormones that allow you to connect with other people and to behave in the, in an authentic way with the world. The definition of self connection in the book by a lovely social worker called Tim sit in Canada is self connection.
Is the process of being in touch with the worthiness of one's self, regardless of the external experience you're having. And this is a really challenging thing because the world sends us so many different messages, other people of different value systems that we come up against all the time, but still being able to know internally who you are and to regulate yourself so that you can react in loving, compassionate ways to other people and I think that it's also understanding that's the ongoing work for all of us all through our lives.
Sharad: You've had quite a journey in connecting with yourself. You mentioned in the book at one stage, you thought of yourself as unlovable, and then, you were addicted to love how's your journey been and how have you settled into a deeper connection with yourself?
Simone: Firstly, understanding that there was something that wasn't right in the way that I was interacting in romantic relationships or with other people and not being in denial about that being awake about that is the first step. If you leave these things unchecked your trauma.
Your addictions, your limiting core beliefs, things like you're unlovable, you're not good enough. You will be in so much pain when this trauma piles up and when the world throws you things. I had my father pass away. My mother became paralyzed and what actually tipped me over the edge was working for a toxic workplace here in S.
That tipped me over the edge. The pain was so intense that I could no longer go about my daily functioning in the world, interacting with people. And so I finally had to say, I am not coping and I need to get help. And so sadly for human beings, a lot of the time we only go and get help when we're at rock bottom.
So my hope is what the book does you're realizing hopefully earlier than later that you need help and you're not waiting to get to the rock bottom.
Sharad: That's a great message. You've talked about therapy helping you right now, and even in the book, what were some of the ways that therapy actually helped you? What did it make you see and how did it help you in your path back?
Simone: Yeah it taught me tangible tools. I think for me the stuff, which teaches me the reasoning and the science behind it allows me to feel less alone, which is why the book, isn't just a collection of stories. I've put the science in there because not everyone learns the same way. If I know that a fight to flight response is a BI biological reaction to feeling like you don't belong.
Then I feel less loathing that I'm unlikable and unlovable, right? In therapy you learn not only this, but you learn grounding exercises to take you out of that fight or flight, you learn to identify what are the four or five things that calm you down when you're in that state and to go to those things, to put yourself in delay.
So you're not reactive. I'm getting bitchy emails and WhatsApps from my former workplace, I leave my phone at home and I would go to walk in the Botanic garden. For one, two hours so that I can come back and I can respond in a calm non-reactive way. It also gives you things like cognitive behavioral therapy, which I found really wonderful.
] Now if I'm triggered and I feel unlovable because once you have a core limiting belief like that, don't think that disappears. It's still there. You just have to manage. And so in those moments where I still today feel unlovable, I use cognitive behavioral therapy to dispute those thoughts. So you learn to reasonably dispute those thoughts you learn about catastrophizing.
So catastrophizing, I helped a girlfriend the other day who lives overseas, where you have one small thought that snowballs into all these big life threatening, larger thoughts that are looming. And they all bowl together like a big plate of spa. And I see this with a lot of my coaching clients in terms of presentation skills, it's just a presentation, but the anxiety behind it leads to what if everyone doesn't like me?
What if everyone sees me after COVID and thinks I've aged? Oh, I've gained weight. What if they look at me like, it snowballs into irrational thoughts. And once you know, that catastrophizing is something that our brain. Gosh, you feel less alone. You go, this is an experience. Everyone else has.
We are not alone in this. And here's how I tackle that catastrophizing. I get myself out of lizard brain survival mode so I can become so whatever that is for you, meditation, yoga, going for a walk, playing with your puppy, whatever that is for you. And then you are able to weed apart, those irrational thought. And get some sense of clarity. So these are all like actual, tangible tools that therapy gives you which allows you to not only cope, but eventually thrive in the world.
Sharad: I like those two things do takeaways from there. Firstly, once you start therapy, you realize all these things that you were doing like catastrophizing or fight or flight is not just you. Most people are doing that. And that itself is a way of connecting with others. Even if you.
Are not physically connected with them. And the second it's an ongoing journey. It's not like a one time you've done therapy. You're good. But therapy gives you the tools to manage this because this was not gonna go away. All you need to do is have a better way to respond. Whether it's taking a walk in botanical gardens, grounding, exercises, meditation, whatever your tools are
Simone: I'm
glad it has transformed my life. Like people will see what's happening online for me or meet me and they'll be like, how have you managed to do this? And the truth is you just have to do the really ugly, painful work and most. I would say 70% of people that I meet don't want to do it. Look at the tiger in its face is a really painful thing to do.
But the growth that it gives you has just life changing.
Sharad: I like that thought of looking as therapy as something through which you can grow. There still is a little taboo about going to therapy. If you tell some friends that you're going to therapy, they say what's wrong with you.
But if it's thought of as a growth mindset where you're uncovering parts of yourself which. Tangled up together but you work towards untangling figuring yourself out. And just as a growth mechanism I found that very useful.
Simone: it sabotages, it can sabotage you. And I think this is why I'm, I've been so public about it on. Social media and in the book is because as a woman with Singaporean parents who was also born in Singapore, and grew up in a very Singapore household bit in Australia, I saw this as I remember when I lived in Dubai Shera, I used to watch, do you remember stomp blog?
How long have you been in Singapore? I would watch videos of enraged people in the heart. Spitting at people at MRT state, like the rage, the anger. And then when I started doing one on one coaching, I realized a lot of people were coming to me for presentation skills, but what they actually wanted was therapy without the label of therapy, but what they actually needed was to have therapy for their trauma.
So I would always, I have a duty of care. I tackle your presentation skills. I'm not here to, I'm not qualified for the rest of it. And so I would recommend them on, and this became like almost every second client. Plus a lot of direct messages on social media and I realized I have to be the voice for this in this particular part of the world to say this is okay.
And I think I was very lucky because my father has passed already. And my mother is no longer cognitive. I knew that it could never hurt my parents. And maybe no one before has been as vocal because as Asians, we are so scared to seem ungrateful to our parents or to be slapping them in the face, the journey in the book, I hope this came off to you.
Sharad like it was a story of forgiveness and actually love because I love and forgive my parents. But in order to connect with people, To make them feel less alone. You must take the risk of vulnerability yourself. I feel that's really important work because there's a lot of enraged repressed people.
Sharad: Simone. This is tremendous service that you've done to people
Simone: thank you. Sherad it was terrifying. It was absolute. Like I had anxiety. For the whole 15 months of writing the booking anxiety. Luckily we were in, so everyone had anxiety. So people just, I think thought it was that.
Sharad: And how did you get yourself? Because that was the same question I had in my mind while I was reading the book that, yes. Like you mentioned that your parents would not suffer right now with what you've written, but how did you still get yourself to write it? And you've mentioned your book, the uncles, aunties, judgments, et cetera.
Of course that doesn't affect you too much, but still how did you get through that anxiety?
Simone: Okay. So one of two things and both of these things, very reflective of my personality. So the first part, the part of me that is quite type a, that likes to do things well, I had a book coach from America and he's a multiple New York times bestseller. And he said, this one thing, he said, your book will be good in direct correlation to how truthful you. So the more truthful you are, the better your book will be. And so I decided I would just write it really truthfully, like even the parts of my behavior that I'm really not proud of. I'm gonna write it truthfully, and then you can always pull it back. But what I didn't realize was once the floodgates were open, that tone gets imbued into the whole book.
And so it then becomes quite difficult to pull it back. And in terms I have a very distinct writing style as well. So that became quite hard. So that was number one. Number two, I knew that there were a lot of cousins, uncles, and aunties that were awful to me. No matter what I did. Judgmental cruel, no matter how successful I was or not successful.
If I was and I think in my family, particularly it, if I had stayed small, if I had just lived in Perth and married some Aussie guy that they got along with and didn't do any of these creative things that literally set my soul on fire They still would have something to bitch about me about, you are south Asian, you've always got those aunties. And the wonderful thing about being almost 40 is that you realize when I go back to visit now, when I visit some of them, now, I realize that they're also getting older, that this kind of new world. Order, if you like of speaking about trauma and amending trauma and finding ways to cope with what happened to you is not even in their paradigm, it would be so far over their head anyway, that they would never read that book.
so that's, in fact, I don't even think they read and I have many cousins, uncle and artists who are incredible and wonderful thing about being Asian for everyone. Asian listening is our families are so large. So I made this rule that I would, I had this awakening that unlike I had been conditioned that I must love and respect everyone.
Even if an auntie is cruel, even if a cousin is bitchy, that I had to be nice them because they were blood. I made this new rule for myself after therapy that. Those aunties, uncles, cousins, who were lovely to me. And we were, there was reciprocity. We had an authentic connection. They would stay in my life and I would foster those relationships and the ones that were giving me pain and fostering them out of fill obligation.
Now that my mom was no longer cognitive, I could let them go. And it was one of the best decisions I made because by the time the book was ready to be published, they had already been relinquished. Much more difficult to do if they're
Sharad: That's such a good point that we have so many of these connections, especially as Asians even to our parents or maybe to extended family, which out of compulsion, out of the fact. Yes, the wedding. So like often, most people don't know, 50 to 60% of the people attending their wedding. So there are so many of
these huge connections that we have.
So it's like taking control and saying, you know what, I'm gonna build authentic love based connections. And these are the people I can do it with these people. I cannot, and that's a little bit of how, like you mentioned in your book and how you forgave your mother.
That's how I read it as well. I read it as of course it was a very difficult relationship and you painted that picture, but then you moved from a. Place of the starting point of the book, where out of compulsion, you were leaving Dubai and going back to your mom, but at the end, you arrived at a place of love where you were forgiving her and building something in terms of love.
So I'd love to hear you talk about that journey on how that journey of forgiveness of your mom went through in your mind.
Simone: Yeah. Look, it is the love story of my life. Sh like there's, without a doubt, other people have. These mad, romantic things. Like I was thinking when I was recently in Perth, how I built my own my whole business that I have now, so that I could have this laptop lifestyle, not so I can sit on a beach in the Maldives, but so I can sit next to her in the nursing home and work because she's nonverbal.
Now, it is more that my presence is next to her versus. Actually having to talk. So she's quite happy if I'm there just next to her typing away, but we're together. Do you see what I, so I had this beautiful moment of oh, you finally did it. It took you three years, but you now have this business and you have this team where you can be with her and do this at the same time.
I feel like my, maybe my my experience in as a millennial, because. What happened with my parents has been so different. My peers are traveling around Europe and jumping off cliffs in Bali and having the laptop lifestyle in Pettet and mine because of what's happened with my parents and that having us so late was wired so differently.
So she is on my mind all the time, the way that my peers think about their husbands um, and I it was, I was my daddy's girl.
And so when dad died and I, was 19, it was like, my world ended. And then I was left with this relationship. That was deeply wounded. That was the remaining parent.
And I had moments in my rage at her that I was like, why did the universe take my dad? Why did they not take her? These are the thoughts that you have in your grief. Now I realize it happened exactly the way it was supposed to happen so that she could leave this planet, having this beautiful relationship with both of her daughters.
And my mother is so much like me to not forgive her would be to not forgive myself. She's so complex. Maybe. Ahead of her time was a feminist don't even think she really deep down, wanted to be a mother, not the reality of mothering, but did it because that's what women did in that era. And then was moved to Australia and had no help and didn't know how to run a household and had these two girls that were not growing up very Singaporean, but were growing up to be these mouthy Western wild me, particularly wild things that she was like, what monster have I created? I look at it now as a 38 year old woman and I.
her experience, I think, oh my gosh. No internet, not even an online calendar to organize things, no wonder everything was chaos. But everything in life, there's a duality. So for all of the, for all of her inability to love me, functionally, because of the pain, she obviously inherited She was also fantastic.
One of the best things that she ever taught my sister and I was like, you must serve people in the community. Like you must be helping people beyond our family. And I thought this was normal because if you are like this in your nature, you attract other friends. Who are like this, but my last partner who I was with for three years, he was not raised with this at all.
He was raised very much in the Western individualistic thinking. So it's, we function with our own family unit. We give towards our own direct family. Maybe we see our cousins and extended family once a year. But as Asian immigrants for us, it was like, okay, someone in the community is down. We all bring food to their. Or if someone who's not in our community is alone. We give them a seat at our table at Christmas, Chinese near, Easter, because we as immigrants know what it's like to be alone. And this is the biggest gift. That my family gave me because even now, even at moments, when I feel unlovable or not socially connected, I know by doing good for other people, I can immediately snap out of it and give myself perspective.
It's probably gotta be one of the best tools to make you feel happier and more connected in general. And there's a whole chapter on this in the book, but that's probably, that's just one example in, in addition the love of education. And the, my parents were really good looking Shara.
One of my clients was like, your mother looks like a miss Venezuela. What ethnic is she? And one of the things which was interesting was I think my parents saw in the Singapore economy of that time, as well as the Singapore economy we have now that there was no real value in being good looking, like we have cousins who are former miss Singapores or top models, like they're in our family, but my parents always saw how finite that was.
And buying makeup going, shopping, talking about your physicality was never in the vernacular in the household. It was always about your education. How clever someone is, how independent and capable a girl was were held up as role models. And I loved that because now that my entertainment career is over, I can see how those tools have allowed me to have a second wind to provide for.
Till the day I die that does not require marrying a rich man or doing a lot of things that I see a lot of people from the entertainment industry or the, that the, not even that, how relying on your looks would just be finite and how it would cripple your options. And so those are the two things that, oh God, I love about my parents so much.
They were so maybe different in that way, because they were little baby supermodel, so good looking. And they were like, we don't want this. We don't want this for our children to have to immigrate, to do a step up. We want them to thrive regardless of what context they live in and a great way for them to do that is to be clever.
And so I really look back now as an adult and there's so much love because my mother's biggest issue was that she cared too much. And that's where if you are fiercely independent a bit wild, like I was, I found that suffocating, but as I've gone through the world and I've lived in Australia, Switzerland, Dubai, Singapore, and I meet people who have.
From every country, who've had parents that it was the opposite. They were apathetic. They didn't care at all. So as Asians, our issue is, oh my God, our parents are so controlling, but how does it hurt? What is the trauma of the parent that is absent or doesn't care? And so I think seeing that has allowed me to be much more balanced and even more forgiving of my parents because at least they cared to the point.
Kept them up at night and probably led to their illness foods,
Sharad: care. Wow, Simone, that is, that shows so much of love for your mom. The way you've talked about her. What struck out to me was you started seeing her as a human being, as a human being who has her fault, who has so many strengths.
And once you started seeing how this pretty lady moved to Australia, Settle for a life that she didn't really want and the decisions that she took and how that impacted you and seeing that bigger picture helped you understand her better. See some of the strengths that she's given you and move to a place of love and forgiveness.
I I love that. That's so beautiful. And I think that itself can be a topic of your next book because that's another very important conversation that people have their relationship with their parents. And how does it evolve, especially in the Asian context from compulsion to love.
Simone: Yes. Yes. And I think also it just because you've highlighted for me there, if we look at my mom's story and you say, because of the decisions that she took, so we all now live in a world that our parents didn't, we have. So much information to inform our decisions yet. I see so many people that I love around me choosing not to access that information.
And for 10 years, when I was in the entertainment industry, I chose where to put my attention. I chose to put my attention on my appearance on trying to stay as young to. To maintain my currency in that industry. I chose to put my attention into gossiping about other people. And then when I changed where my attention went, started to read a book a day, started to use the internet to search.
Search for courses and resources so that I could make better decisions. And I think if we look at certain things that my parents did and my, the choices, my mom made, the decisions she took, if she had the resources we had, I don't think she would've made some of those same decisions.
And so let's look at her as like a cautionary tale about please use all the resources we have. If there's one thing. And the people listening to your podcast are radio quite awake, which is why they're listening to your podcast. But I would love for more people to follow accounts that brighten them up to search for courses that improve them to read books, that they might not want to read, that they might find boring, but they know.
We'll challenge them, that's how you live a better life. Really informs your, the information informs your decisions.
Sharad: Absolutely Simone, Now on loneliness, a lot of people often don't know their lonely. In your book, you mentioned some early signs of loneliness, oversharing is a sign of loneliness, which I didn't realize what are some of the early signs of loneliness which are important to pay attention to?
Simone: Sure. One of the first signs you'll see. And we would've seen this during the pandemic is micro awakenings in your sleep. So if you've got less than good sleep it goes back to our days evolving as early man in tribes. So we had safety in numbers in those tribes. So with that tribe, we would have food to eat.
We would have safety from saber tooth tigers and resources to help us fight foreign tribes. But one of the other things we had was a different member of the tribe that would take turns to watch over us as we slept every night. Now, if we, for some reason were cast out of that tribe, we would have to wake up many times in the evening to look out for ourselves
So even to this day, our brain, when it perceives, we are cast out of that tribe, socially isolated, or socially distanced as we've seen, or even lonely within our own relationships, you can absolutely be lying next to your partner and not have good sleep because you don't feel connected.
And so Dr. Louise ley who I'm actually really excited to be speaking at a conference. Out of Washington in October where she's a board member. So you can imagine me the fangirl moment having quoted this study in my book and now getting to be one degree away from her. Dr. Louis ley actually uses Groups of highly connected like the Amish, for example it's a community similar to that. She uses them as a control group. They are very closely connected in the way they live work, eat. They have very good sleep of reduction of micro awakenings. So micro awakenings are now used as a measure of loneliness in people.
Sharad: That's a big thing. Sleep being affected by loneliness. And of course loneliness also has an impact on your health, like immunity. So many other things,
almost every part of
Simone: Cognitive decline. You get, you get dumber when you're lonely, you get more suspicious of people. So you often find we've all had a friend like this. and I used to be like this in Dubai, and I write about it. If somebody canceled, even if they were sick and had a good reason, I wouldn't be like, oh, I hope you get better.
I'd be like in my head, I'd be like they canceled. They're not getting another chance to be friends with me. If you have someone in your life where you see a little bit of that vibe or that kind of I always invite you to my house. Why don't you invite me to yours?
That kind of thing. That could be a lonely.
Sharad: Understand. It's like a vicious cycle because once you start thinking that you isolate more people, and then you think further and then, it just
Simone: Yes, you hold people to a higher standard.
And this is why the worst thing you can say to someone you suspect is lonely is oh, go out and connect with people. It's up to the rest of us in the tribe to be reaching out. In a constructive way, not demanding and telling, but being there for people and letting them know that they have access to you when they're ready and to drop in time to time.
Maybe it's a meal at the door, a message here or there, but to journey with them and not force them into what you perceive, they should be doing
Sharad: That's such a powerful, but very difficult thing to do. Very often we can't stand their loneliness. We'd want them to go out or take them
out partying
Simone: interfering.
Sharad: not ready to meet them. Yes.
Simone: We grew up with aunties. That would be like, ah, that person there just got, I think that she got a divorce. I'm not sure, but I suspect let's go over, let you know this kind of thing. And we grew up with that and I think that's one of the big things that I've had to really unwire.
So I'll do things like I'll send a bunch of flowers via delivery to the house to let them know I'm thinking about them, but then. They can then message me back saying, oh, thank you so much. I got the flowers and then we can start a dialogue versus physically showing up at the house. Then they feel obligated.
So there are nuance connection nuances, which are all explained in the book.
Sharad: Right now, what does an authentic human connection look like? What does it feel like?
Simone: Firstly, there's reciprocity. You don't have to chase the person. They're just as excited to catch up with you as you, you are with them, which is wonderful. And we see that in something called social penetration theory that I love. It basically says that the longer you. You are in someone's company.
The longer, emotional information will be disclosed and that it will be disclosed from both sides. So I think you can really check for that. If you're spending a lot of time with someone you're going on dates with someone and you are sharing and they're sharing nothing that's something to be mindful about and look at the communication there.
Sharad: I think we've covered a fair bit here. There's one bit, which we touched upon, but if you can go deeper about where you talked about vulnerability as a key element of connection, that's a very interesting area. If you could talk a little bit more about that.
Simone: Yeah, so we know. Vulnerability is a form of, it's emotional disclosure and there is a risk it's like pulling your heart out and putting it on a plate between you and that person. And hoping that they'll respond with their own story of vulnerability that they won't judge you, but there is something magical in that risk.
You see when we're openhearted like that. And it's so difficult for us as Asians because we show face. When we do that, we allow the other person to perceive us with a lack of suspicion. We're no longer a social threat. You see some work in my book. I talk about Dr. John Casio. He He's sadly passed away, but he did a lot of work about the fact that when we first meet people, we don't know.
Obviously we are skeptical of them. And vulnerability used at the right point, allows people to not be skeptical of us. So therefore, Trust is established. And trust is the cornerstone of connection, but there's a very fine line in this. If you are vulnerable with someone upon first meeting them this comes across as oversharing and I have a very troubled relationship with that because when I was in media, That was expected of you as a DJ or a public person that you would share about your life because audiences loved it.
And I got wired in my brain to feel rewarded when I did that. And I realized then when I would take that into my social circumstances and sit around a table at a dinner party and be vulnerable. It would be total oversharing and it would repel the exact kind of connection I craved. And so using vulnerability only after there is some rapport is very important.
Once rapport is established, which there's a whole chapter in the book, we can then move to vulnerability and then hopefully that's reciprocated. And from there we get authentic connection connections in your life. If you look around at collect connections in your life, that you can only have superficial conversations with.
Very likely as you get older, those people probably might not be there. And women tend to have deeper, more vulnerable relationships than men, which is why everywhere in the world, except for the blue zones. Women will outlive men by it's about seven to 10 years. Men go shallow and wide. So I would love to see more men being able to be vulnerable with their guy friends and to.
Tell at least a little bit of behavior from their life or what's going on beyond the sporting scores and see the absolute rewards that, that reaps for them in terms of how less lonely and more socially connected they would feel.
Sharad: Yeah, thank you for that message Simone. And I think more and more men are getting there and, and like your example, we may be a little messy and we get, when we get there, we may not know exactly how to do it. So we sometimes overshare sometimes unders share, but. The intent is there. And many of us are on that journey to slowly get there and we've seen some reward and that's what helps.
We've seen some reward. We've seen the kind of deeper bond we can build which is a positive reinforcement of doing it. More so I think many of us on the journey and hopefully we'll see more and more reward and build deeper relationships because of that.
Simone: Great. Good.
Sharad: Great. Is there anything else we should talk about in relation to
Simone: Yeah, I wanted to bring up something interesting. That happened to me on the weekend that I, that got me really thinking, don't perceive that you only are lonely. If you don't have people around you or you perceive that you don't have people around you. I went out for the first time to a night club in probably almost four years.
On the weekend and I never felt lonelier. And this is because there are certain environments where people are not behaving at the best of themselves, cuz they're inebriated. And you tend to see the worst of people's behaviors because when you're inebriated, your prefrontal cortex is not doing its work to make you rational.
And. Seeing the ugliness of people's behaviors made me feel more lonely than I had in years. And I only went cuz I've got a girlfriend in town and I love her to death. And we were reliving our youth of when we used to be together in Dubai. But it taught me a really interesting lesson. I started thinking about a video that I made about what are other contexts where people can be there.
It makes you feel more lonely. So things like casual sex, dating apps, transactional relationships. So this is where people only want to be friends with you, cuz you can do something with them. But yet for some reason you continue to hang out with the people. There are other contexts where other people can be in your presence, but they can actually make you feel more lonely.
So if you are in a fragile state, try and avoid those things. Yeah,
Sharad: That's great to hear. Thank you for so much work you've done on loneliness. Before I end, I have a personal question for you. You've done so much in life. You've clamed up and done very well in that. You've
used
Simone: have you and Sharon
Sharad: you've used your intelligence and cleverness to, to go deeper in life.
Written a book, number one in the us, number one in Singapore. You've done so well at the
end of your life. How would you know you've lived a good. Hmm. Oh, I look at it like when I was with my mom at the nursing home for those one and a half years, it's about the number of visitors that are coming to see me. It's who at who in those winter years is going to be there. And I think that's how, you sew the seeds of connection. I'm not a materialistic person at all.
Simone: So a lot of the projects I do are heart driven, right? They're not being money makers. And so when I and I, and that. I was raised, but it's also, I've become more so now, because I spent so much time in my late twenties, early thirties, hanging around in a nursing home when no one else my age was hanging around in a nursing home because my mom had become paralyzed.
And so I can tell you for sure, not one of those people. is talking about the job. They had the car, they owned the money. They made. Every one of those elderly people is praying and wishing from the moment they get up in the morning that somebody they loved and invested in is gonna visit. And I wanna know when it comes to my time that there's a line waiting to come and see me.
Sharad: I'm sure. Simone, with all the good work you're doing with the deep, authentic bonds you're making there'll be a huge line outside
Simone: All done.
Sharad: when whenever the time comes.
Simone: Thank you. Thank you.
Sharad: Thank you Simone for such a deep, authentic, and moving conversation by talking so openly and bravely you're doing a huge service to society. I would highly recommend Simone's book secret pandemic, the search for connection in a lonely world. The link to this book will be in the show notes.
I will also provide links to Simone's social media accounts for everyone. If you enjoyed this episode, you could consider listening to episode 15, where we talk about saying no, this is relevant to many of our nations episode 17 is also relevant. We speak with Singapore's leading therapist, Dr.
Orden Marti on intimate relationships from today's episode. Here's one action step we could all consider let's reflect on an important connection in our life. Maybe a parent or sibling or close friend. How much of our relationship is based on duty, societal expectations or compulsion. As we think about various interactions, what emotions show up, let's note these emotions without judgment.
Now let's step back and consider this important person as a human being, not as a father or a sister or a friend, but just as a human being, how does he, or she as a human being show up in our life, how does this affect our relationship with this knowledge? Is there an area of the relationship we understand better?
Just this knowledge could be a good starting point in deepening our connection. Best of luck. That's it. For today's episode. I hope it was useful. We will be back with another episode two weeks from now on August 30th. I hope you join me for that till next time. Have a wonderful day ahead. Bye-bye.