do you ever get lonely yeah I think everyone gets lonely loneliness all the time uh that's almost like a daily struggle I often feel very lonely in the city what does it feel like feels like being lost like in a maze with no hand reaching out to you and you just don't really feel like climbing back out or you just can't climb back out it feels like that feeling of like you're about to cry but you just don't need to everyone is struggling with loneliness in some kind of a way and that is a realization
that I would not have expected as a therapist and a lot of research actually shows that we're in a loneliness epidemic like I can wake up and be fine and I'll open my phone I'll just see like even like a word will like bring that feeling on I'll be out now right now I'm just by myself walking around and I'll see groups of people and I'm like that'd be kind of nice you know even if it's just simple things like some couple being like randomly PDA in those moments it definitely does make me feel a
lot more lonely cuz it's like oh I've had those experiences before part of it that is from demands of school and then the demands of my job I live in a studio apartment so often times it's sort of trying to be comfortable with myself I think loneliness for me is not feeling understood and I definitely don't feel understood if I can't understand myself so when we don't feel connected to our values we don't feel connected to essentially what we wake up to do every day loneliness is not feeling like you have a place where you
belong and it's hard to where you belong if you don't know what you want in the world there always feels like this greater looming thing in me that brings on sadness I feel like there's something more than just like oh I'm new here and I don't have enough friends what's what's one of the hardest things you've gone through uh was the passing of my godmother I feel like that was the big Catalyst I still haven't recovered from that still very sad loneliness can stem from two things right one can be like this loss of our
why and our purpose but it also can be really deep and mental because when we're struggling Ling with trauma loss of mental illness it's a really isolating experience when I lost my parents I was struggling a lot I was doing a lot of drinking what would you have told yourself back then I would have told myself it was okay to her cuz my last relationship I was cheated on and so it made me feel very alone cuz I didn't feel like I was enough for anyone but I think I just tried to get myself as
distracted as possible to try and cope with it which never really worked and I think a lot of the healing came from like personal confrontation about it I remember being so upset and I finally said to myself look this is who you are you live in this nasty disgusting house all you do is drink you got nothing to show for it you either accept that that's you right now or you do something about it this is your life now this is how things are going to be forever unless you do one thing about it I
was just like writing a bunch like how I'm feeling in those moments trying to yell it out as like a way of like venting out my anger and just being like I I'm really pissed off and I'm not going to filter myself I do not care I always knew I wanted to be an actor but I was like what are you going to do go to Highwood be the one% of people that succeed how many of those 1% of people are Asians but got to the point in my life where I said enough was enough
and I was going to go for it so I'm here in New York and I'm trying to make it and I'm happy I'm happy even if I don't make it coming out of the moments where I was venting I felt super light I felt like a lot of those moments where I felt like I wasn't worth it where I was like I'm not worth it for anyone I'm not enough those thoughts were finally able to be battled against first takes some moments to just slow down with yourself for yourself find out what brings you any
ounce of Happiness even if it is in your routines in your daily life I'm really intentional to not use my phone when I wake up and go on a walk and breathe fresh air and try to meditate it's my gym progress is going really well so that increased my confidence as well because honestly I just think it's fun and I like to look at myself a lot so there always that so you Subway all the way to Union Square and you're just walking around yeah on a Friday night yep exactly I figured it beats sitting
at home so I don't get like caught up in that like wave of like self-pity and loneliness it's pretty self-aware you I try I mean if I got nothing at least I'm self-aware why do you wake up every day what brings you Joy what has you want to go on in your job what has you feel connected in your friendships and having people understand their why and start doing that why more I prioritize things that are meaningful to me because my world flips over very quickly when I'm overrunning myself with things that are not essential
to how I want to live there's a lot of distractions now I think it's just constant we wake up we look at our phones we see the news we see what's going on all around us it's so easy to be overloaded with information that we can start to feel disconnected and almost numb at times how do you process your emotions it sounds so weird but it feels like whenever I'm doing it like I'm actually like thinking like I'm actually talking to someone I'm in bed and I'm yelling out to like someone who's like lying down
next to me it gives you a recipient to receive the things that you're trying to put out is that what yeah basically if it makes me feel like oh I'm like actually pulling all of this stuff out of my own gut I had to surrender so much to the process allowing all the uncertainty to exist and the pain to exist and to surrender to uncertainty and pain is like one of the hardest things to do [Music] like I think that we are both our best Advocate but also one of our worst we can see really
good things about oursel but at the same time we can be overly critical and overly mean I think sometimes it's hard to be nice to yourself when a lot of stuff is happening around you that you don't have control part of the process of living is going through these emotions and feeling empty and feeling lost and feeling lonely sometimes and the only thing to do is like be present and experience every emotion and eventually like you'll find where you you want to be headed I have faith that I'm going to come home to myself at
the end of all of this and I'm going to be stronger than ever and I'm going to be more me than ever what does that Faith come from it's this knowing and connection to like my soul and and also this faith in um I'll say God but I'll also say like this Universal like force of love what would you say for if someone's watching this video and like they're really on the break would say that you're not alone and I know that sounds like a really cliche answer but in the way that experiencing human suffering
is not something that is just you but it doesn't mean that you have to stay in that suffering I guess I'm I'm just really trying to say just like stay light don't take everything too seriously and um feel whatever you need to feel and or if you're having a hard time even feeling to begin with that's okay too how about this there's nothing wrong with you like there's absolutely nothing wrong with you as long as you're like on this Earth and you're just like trying to be a good person that's all you can really do
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