Wellness Wednesday – “Overcoming The Epidemic Of Loneliness: The Fast Friends Challenge”

For this week’s Wellness Wednesday, we will continue exploring the importance of having positive relationships in our lives, as highlighted in the PERMA-V (PERMA+) model of well-being. But first, before diving in, I have an important note to share with you. Starting next week, these Wellness Wednesday communications will be part of a new weekly SED Newsletter you will receive via email, along with news and notes of important events happening within the district. In this weekly e-newsletter, there will be a link that will take you to a Wellness Wednesday blog connected to our new SED website, where you can check out my latest weekly blog as well as all my previous Wellness Wednesdays in one spot. This change is part of our new district’s efforts to streamline our email communication.

Now, back to our focus on our need for positive relationships to improve our overall wellness and well-being. On May 3rd of this year, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called for action to address what he termed a serious new health crisis in the U.S.: the crisis of loneliness, isolation, and lack of connection in our country. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness, which can fundamentally affect our mental, physical, and societal health. The impact of loneliness is so severe that it is comparable to the increased risk of premature death that comes from smoking daily. Since the pandemic, this health crisis of loneliness has only gotten worse.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been feeling this isolation myself. Even now that the pandemic has been behind us for some time, the after-effects of the habits I formed from living so disconnected from others still linger. It takes intentionality to break out of our patterns and isolation to make a real connection with another human being. It may mean making time in your schedule, putting some pants on, and getting out of your house to have a coffee or lunch with a flesh and blood person. While online tools like Zoom were a God-send during COVID, it is no replacement for face-to-face interaction with another person.

Another reason so many of us struggle to make authentic connections with others is that it takes vulnerability. To connect with others and develop a sense of closeness, we need to be willing to be open and be vulnerable. Vulnerability is the key to authentic connection because it is the courage to be open to another human. However, being vulnerable isn’t always easy because either 1) we fear they will reject us if they find out who we truly are, and 2) we may have to let people know that we actually don’t have it all together. The reality is we are drawn to genuine and down-to-earth people. However, we sometimes find it hard to make authentic connections with others when we are not willing to risk being vulnerable and genuine ourselves.

So, how do we begin to overcome this growing sense of loneliness and isolation many of us may be experiencing? Consider engaging in what I am calling “The Fast Friends Challenge” this month. Call someone up this week, and within the next month, get together and spend some in-person time together. Grab a bite to eat, sit down for a coffee or beer, and have some fun hanging out. However, as you do, take a risk and open up to how you are really doing in life – the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s okay not to be okay and to let others know that we are not okay. Even Moses needed Aaron and Hur to hold up his hands during the battle against the Amalekites. (Exodus 17:12) Perhaps you, too, need another in your life to hold up your hands metaphorically amid the struggles you are experiencing in your life and ministry as well.

Overcoming isolation and building intimacy takes time. However, as you take up “The Fast Friends Challenge” this next month and go connect with someone else, consider using this “Fast Friends Exercise,” which has been empirically tested and found to be effective in helping “fast-forward” in building a connection with another person – Fast Friends Exercise. The goal of these 36 questions is to facilitate the formation of a connection and closeness between people that leads to a friendship.

My prayer is by taking up this Fast Friends Challenge, being intentional in setting up a time to connect with someone else and being vulnerable, that you would experience what I like to call the “Power of Two” that we hear about in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”