Loneliness in Relationships: Why Stress, Busyness, and Disconnection Keep Us Feeling Alone with Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski

Episode Summary of “Loneliness in Relationships: Why Stress, Busyness, and Disconnection Keep Us Feeling Alone with Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski”

Have you ever sat right next to your partner on the couch, completely silent, and realized you felt entirely alone? It is a heartbreaking sensation, but I want you to take a deep breath: you are not alone in this experience, and it doesn’t mean your relationship is broken. This is really common, especially in military families where the pressure to keep everything looking fine is so high.

In this episode, I sit down with the wonderful Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski, a licensed marriage and family therapist and author of Lonely AF: A Therapist’s No BS Guide to Feeling Less Alone. Together, we explore how our fast-paced lives, childhood emotional survival strategies, and systemic pressures keep us trapped in an artificial “busyness” just to avoid the painful ache of loneliness.

Guest Speaker Bio – Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski

Sylvia Kalicinski, PhD, is a therapist, writer, and host of The Dr. Sylvia K Show Podcast. As a former lead behavioral health clinician at Mount Sinai Hospital with nearly 20 years experience as a licensed therapist, Dr. Kalicinski specializes in teaching simple strategies backed by brain science and mindfulness to help clients move past self-limiting beliefs toward healing, purpose, and confidence.

Connect with Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: YouTube | LinkedIn | Instagram | Podcast

Free Relationship Pattern Assessment

Many couples assume they have a communication problem when they’re actually stuck in a relationship pattern that keeps creating the same conflict.

Take the free Relationship Pattern Assessment to discover what pattern may be keeping you stuck and learn what to focus on next.

👉 https://pages.communicateandconnect.com/relationship-quiz

Episode Transcript for “Loneliness in Relationships: Why Stress, Busyness, and Disconnection Keep Us Feeling Alone with Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski”

Hi, I’m Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky, and you’re about to start communicating more clearly and feeling more connected in your relationships with this podcast. As a marriage and family therapist, I help people change relationship patterns that feel automatic, those reactions that just kick in before you even realize that they’re happening.

And for over 10 years, I’ve worked with people who do hard things for a living, and yet they still feel stuck when it comes to connection in their relationships. This podcast isn’t about scripts or formulas or doing relationships the right way. Instead, it’s about slowing down reactive moments, understanding what’s underneath them, and helping relationships feel more like a team again.

So if you want things to feel better, to feel calmer, steadier, and more at ease in your closest relationships, then this podcast is for you. Because here you’ll start to learn how to pause conflict, understand what’s happening emotionally, and then respond instead of react. And when you do that, connection starts to feel more possible.

Quick note though, this podcast is educational only and isn’t a substitute for professional therapy or counseling. If you need individualized support, please consider working with a mental health counselor. Okay, let’s dive in. I’m really glad you’re here.

You’re listening to episode 80, Loneliness in Relationships: Why Stress, Busyness, and Disconnection Keep Us Feeling Alone with Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Hey there. Welcome back to the Communicate and Connect podcast. This is episode 80, ” Loneliness in Relationships: Why Stress, Busyness, and Disconnection Keep Us Feeling Alone” with Dr. Sylvia Kachinsky.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: So Dr. Sylvia, thank you so much for coming and talking to us today about loneliness. I’ve been surprised how common it is in couple relationships, but then it’s especially common in military couples. And so I know we’re gonna talk a bunch about this, but before we get going, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and the work you do with loneliness.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on this podcast, and thank you so much for doing the incredible work that you’re offering for couples, especially military relationships, where I know people can probably feel even a more unique sense of loneliness within their relationship, but just the lifestyle that involves.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: So it’s incredible that you’re offering this service. So my background, I have a license in marriage and family therapy, so I’m as they say, an LMFT. Basically, that means we’re trained to think in systems, which I think is really applicable to looking at military relationships because you’re living within a system, within a system, within a system.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And there are certain rules for that system that are maybe different for other couples, et cetera. Or one spouse that is not in the military, but one is. I think sometimes those systems might clash the expectations. So as an LMFT, you’re trained to think how all these different systems impact our behaviors, our sense of self, our identity, et cetera.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And really, as a therapist, where especially an LMFT, you wanna come in with this ability to broaden the context of the situation, which is basically like, again, understanding all the systems that a person is in and connected to. And that could be like your family system, the education system that you’re connected to, the culture that you’re from. That’s a system. The neighborhood that you live in, where you’re born.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: There’s just so many systems that impact that person. And then we wanna depathologize the behavior because I think we live in a culture where it’s so easy to just slap a label on it. “Oh, he’s narcissistic. Oh, she’s gaslighting you. Oh, she’s bipolar. Oh, he’s oppositional defiant.”

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: We’ve just got a whole list of labels. Labels can be helpful. Now, I’m not saying that they’re not a good thing, but labels can be helpful. But when you start labeling people, you can limit how you see a person by the limitation of that label. As As an LMFT, you’re trying to help the person themselves who might be experiencing symptoms of bipolar, depression, anxiety.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And say, “Okay, here are some symptoms, but let’s look outside the label. Let’s look at the systems that you’re involved with. Let’s start to broaden the context and understand your survival mechanisms, your strategy. Different things have happened in your life that have probably led to you developing these behaviors to ultimately protect yourself, your vulnerability.” So that’s an LMFT.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Then I got a PhD in family therapy ’cause to be quite honest, family has always been my biggest, I would say, vulnerability and pain point. I come from an extremely dysfunctional family, and I’ve always idealized family. Like, “Oh, one day I would love to have my own family,” or, “I wish my family was more normal. I wish my family was like this,” et cetera, et cetera.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Getting my PhD was like, well, maybe I can figure out the secret of how to have a functional family. But I realize every family has its dysfunction in some sort. And we don’t wanna blame families or family members. We wanna really understand, again, these coping mechanisms and strategies that family systems develop to, again, protect themselves.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: So I have a PhD in family therapy, and you’re trained to really think in relationships. And not just relationships between people, but relationships to our body, to the government, to the environment.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: With relationships. Yeah.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And so we’re all in a way connected, and no behavior happens in isolation. It’s in relationship to a lot of different things.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: So master’s in counseling psychology, PhD in family therapy. I’ve been a therapist for over 21 years. I’ve worked with at-risk youth. I’ve worked with migrant farmers and their families. I’ve worked with children, teens. I’ve worked in hospital settings with, severe mental illness, bipolar, depression, suicide, all of that. Had my private practice in several locations, in LA, in Miami, and now Geneva. So I’ve worked in all different, capacities.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: You also wrote a book.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Yes. Yes, yes.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Tell us a little bit about the book.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: So I just finished my first book. It’s called Lonely AF, and yes, the AF stands for what you probably think it means. And it’s basically the subtitle is, A Therapist’s No BS Guide to Feeling Less Alone. So this book is a blend, it’s kind of like self-help blended with psychology, mindfulness, neuroscience, and a little bit of like faith spirituality in there.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: I also offer a five-step HEART method to help people manage and work through loneliness, particularly emotional loneliness. And what does that mean? Emotional loneliness is the experience of not having your needs mirrored. So maybe your need to feel heard, to feel safe, feel a sense of belonging, were not met in a way.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: So you might have felt like overwhelmed by your own emotions. You learn how to stuff them down or hide them. And you might feel this disconnect from yourself or this disconnect from your family. You just can’t connect with them because maybe that emotional mirroring wasn’t present.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: So the book really has that angle is how to manage emotional loneliness. Loneliness is a universal human experience, and the reframe is that it’s an invitation to get to know yourself on a deeper level.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: ‘ Cause let’s go back to system. In all the systems that we are connected to, a lot of them are telling us how to be and how not to be. What’s acceptable, what’s not acceptable. And so you kinda create this kind of persona, which again, is good for survival in certain contexts. But then many of us, we end up becoming a version of ourselves that we think is what others need and want.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And so the book takes a deep dive in your family system. It takes a deep dive into all these other systems that impact us. Takes a deep dive into what is emotional loneliness and how does childhood emotional neglect affect us, et cetera. So these are all big topics, but I think that an easy way to bring the book into like a more organized, digestible version is the five-step HEART method.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: So this method helps you manage emotional loneliness, and H stands for honor your emotion. E stands for explore your family systems. And I offer an exercise to create a genogram to really understand both sides of your mother and father’s side of the family or your adopted family or whatever family you were raised in.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Which is basically like a family tree for those may not have heard that term.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Exactly. And so you’ll unpack the patterns of relationships in those, generations back. A is let’s acknowledge the pain points. We all inherited some kind of pain point from our family system, which is usually a self-limiting belief. “I’m not enough, I’m not good enough, I’m too much.” Variations of that.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Shame. Maybe feeling this indescribable, unnameable shame. So different pain points. Once we identify the pain point, let’s rewrite the narrative that you’ve created around that. My core pain point is, “I’m not wanted. I don’t belong. Or nobody cares.”

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And so learning to rewrite that through looking at my own genogram, look at the patterns of how that existed on my father’s side of the family with my grandmother, et cetera, even on my mother’s side, looking at kind of universality of this pain point. What do I wanna believe? Do I really wanna believe I’m not enough, or do I really wanna believe I don’t belong? No, I’d like to believe I do belong. I belong my body. I belong to myself.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: I think what you’re saying is that, where does loneliness even come from? It sounds like you’re saying loneliness is coming from how we are changing ourselves to fit into all the rules of various systems that we exist in. Whether that’s being on my best behavior in a school environment or a work environment or in my family. And so I develop these ways of acting without being myself. And then I feel really lonely because I’m not being myself.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: 100%, and you just reminded me of another reframe I use in the book. Not only is it an invitation to get to know yourself on a deeper level, it’s a reminder that most likely you are a generational cycle breaker. So either you’re the one trying to fit in and be good, the good girl, the good boy. Or you’re the conformist or the rebel.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: The rebel sometimes also feels lonely, even if they say, “Well, I’m not gonna be this, or I’m not gonna be that because I’m breaking the cycle.” But they’re still scapegoated. They’re outcasted. They’re out there on their own. So whether you’re the conformist or the rebel, you’re breaking or trying, at least aware of some kind of cycle that you’d probably like to break within your system.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: I love how you said that. It’s changing ourselves to fit in, to follow the rules, or to not follow them, but that leads

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: And either way, I’m alone. Yeah, if I’m not then accepted as I become more of myself in these systems. And so the way that you help people with the loneliness when they’re feeling like ,”I can’t be myself or if I am myself, I won’t be accepted,” is you’re helping them know themselves better through your heart method.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: 100%, yes. And I think the step one is where most of us struggle is just to name it. To name loneliness. Because the word lonely or loneliness comes with a lot of shame. Often people see it as some kind of form of failure. ” I’m a loser. I failed. I messed up. Something’s wrong with me.”

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And it’s hard to say, “I’m lonely,” ’cause then it also sometimes not only puts you in a vulnerable position, but it can again come with that feeling of, “Oh, I’m admitting to failure by saying I’m lonely.” Which just only makes you even more lonely.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And I think the irony of writing this book from the very beginning, which I started around the pandemic, I was sitting at birthday table. It was right after we’d come out of the pandemic, and I had asked any of the moms, I’m like, ” Have any of you experienced any loneliness? I’m thinking about writing this book about loneliness, but I don’t think anyone would wanna read it.”

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Everyone would just kinda pause for a second like, ” Can I really talk about this?” And one woman said, ” I felt more lonely in the last year than I ever have in my entire life. And I’m married. I feel lonely within my own relationship with my own marriage.”

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And then another woman started talking, and then they all were confessing their loneliness. And even my husband, he’s been in corporate America for so long, now corporate in Switzerland. And I felt so lonely in the last five years as a new parent.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Also, just in corporate America, as you get promoted

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: more rules to follow

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: yeah, and then you can’t really have the same friendships with your colleagues in the way that you could have without that title.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: it’s the same with the military. As people move up the ranks of military. There’s so much more expectations. And it can happen for the spouses too, protecting the partner’s image as they move up.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Oh, wow. Yeah, I could totally understand that. I could see that.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Yeah, and it’s also making me think a little bit about, how often things look fine. I think that’s part of maintaining that rule, right? Is everything looks fine. I don’t necessarily talk about the loneliness. And you’re saying even noticing it and naming it can be really hard. And I’m thinking about how often we just stay so busy, and distracted to not name it.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Absolutely. my pun is, well, most of us try to stay busy AF so we don’t have to face our lonely AF.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: I like that. Is that in the book?

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: I originally titled it “Addicted to Cortisol”, and then I changed to “Addicted to Stress”. Because once I also go into the nervous system. And if you were raised in some kind of family system that was performative, performance-based, or maybe there was a lot of tension or trauma, your nervous system wired itself to be in that sympathetic, alert, hypervigilant mode, and most likely your brain is used to releasing adrenaline, cortisol.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: So many of us seek either professions or environments where we get that. But what happens is that before close to midlife, adrenal fatigue, it’s too much cortisol. But what happens is that it really does wreak havoc on your nervous system.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And so bringing awareness to our addiction to stress isn’t just because we love stress. It’s a wiring we learned in our earlier environments to be hypervigilant, to be on that sympathetic nervous system. So the T in the HEART method is learning the tools to maybe for the first time, regulate your nervous system, get in touch with what it means to really embody yourself. Because I’m sure you’ve probably seen this in a lot of your military relationships.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: People disassociate to cope with stress.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Yeah.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And I’m a person who learned at a very young age. If I disassociate, I can give myself a break from this conflict that I don’t have any kind of power over. And so I think what happens for many of us who tend to disassociate as an adaptive strategy, we don’t spend a lot of time in our body.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: In our head, we intellectualize, we’re somewhere else. And so the T is our very basic somatic grounding tools to connect to your breath, connect to your body, to work with the vagus nerve. If you’ve done any, reading on polyvagal theory, the vagus nerve is one of the longest nerves that we have that go from the basically the back of your brainstem all the way down to about your ankle area.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: It’s like the main network, the main computer that communicates with other parts of your body. And so those of us who’ve spent most of our life in that hypervigilant, sympathetic nervous system mode, it’s hard to slow down because you’re wired slowing down could be dangerous. So these very basic somatic grounding skills is a wonderful way to interrupt that constant cortisol rush.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Do you have a tool that you give people to help with that?

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Absolutely. So one of my favorite I use for both kids, teens, and adults is the butterfly hug or the butterfly tap. So you can interlock your thumbs like this, and it kinda looks like an eagle or a butterfly, and you just tap. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: This. Okay.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And then you just tap left, right, left, right, and really bring your awareness to the actual tapping, the physical sensation. And then let’s do just two rounds of a controlled breathing exercise. It’s called the six-two-six breath. So as you’re tapping, you’re gonna inhale for the count of six, hold for two, and exhale for six. Let’s do that one more time.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Inhale slowly. Hold. And exhale slowly. And then just pause for a second and just notice your own physical body. And then bring your awareness to the next inhale, and just notice the physical air going in through your nostrils. And on the exhale, notice how the air is slightly warmer as you exhale out. And then very gently open up your eyes.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: I feel more relaxed than I did a minute ago before we did that.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: That was about 30 seconds, maybe 40, 45 seconds. So if you can interrupt this hurried state that most of us are living in with a butterfly tap, you can help your brain chemistry, you can help your digestive system, you can help yourself to just have those interruptions to say, “Okay, wait, hold a minute. Hold on. I don’t have to stay on fifth gear or sixth gear all the time,” so that’s really helpful.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Another of my favorites called the BODY skill. This is great for people who are starting to experience really intense emotions. And maybe they’re starting to get dysregulated. Or maybe something just happened that was really scary. And you’re feeling quite dysregulated.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: BODY stands for breathe, O stands for observe, D stands for describe, and Y stands for yield. So B, you would take a slow inhale through your nose, exhale out. O, you would observe three colors, three sounds, and three objects. When you use language to describe them, the prefrontal cortex of your brain lights up, and that task-oriented activity requires not only of that part of your brain to function, but it then regulates the emotional part.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And then after using language to describe what you see, hear, yes, the colors, the objects, and the sounds, you are interrupting that stress response, and that’s the Y for yield. You’re yielding to that cortisol flush. Because when we get stressed that flight or fight response or even the freeze mode, what happens is the prefrontal cortex goes offline.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Your brain says, “Alert, ready to run away or ready to fight back, or I’m gonna freeze and play dead.” Or a new adaptive quality, I’m sure you know this, right, is fawning. How can I people please and be nice to avoid any conflict, right?

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Yes.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Or rejection or criticism, and so I’ll be whatever you want me to be so that you won’t be mad at me, or you won’t hurt.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Which is also a stress response to be in that mode. So these are tools that would help me calm down stress. It sounds like if I’m calming down my stress, then, I need to do that first to then get to know myself. And then that is what can help me bridge those two together.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: So if we go back to H, honor your emotions. Most of us were taught to suck it up, be strong, right? So I hope this doesn’t offend anyone. But put your big girl pants on, right? Boys don’t cry. Go out there, be tough. Come on, go on, go on. It’s not a big deal. Let’s go on. So in that, we learn to disconnect from our emotions.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: We learn to dismiss them, minimize them. It’s not such a big deal. And so that disconnects us from signals like our body’s giving us. Pain gives you a signal. Sadness gives you a signal. Honestly, before this podcast, I started to get really frustrated. I had a long, long morning, and I haven’t stopped. And I was gonna go right into the podcast, and I forced myself.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: I said, ” Set timer for four minutes.” I literally laid down and I said, “If I don’t lay down and give myself this break, if I don’t listen to this irritability,” ‘ cause my dog started to annoy me. I was like, ” Get away. I gotta focus.” That’s not who I really am. I love my dog.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: I’m not an irritable person. This is my exhaustion. I literally haven’t stopped since 7:30 this morning. It’s 2:00. So I lay down for four minutes, and I just paid attention to my breathing. Now, I know not everyone has that luxury. When I did that, alarm went off, sat at the computer, and I mourned myself.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: What happens is if we learn to disconnect from our emotions and especially our bodies, which many of us have and still do, right? We are not able to listen to cues that our natural body’s giving us.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And so when you start to slow it down and you do a butterfly tapping and you’re like, ” Oh, wow, I feel more relaxed now. I guess I didn’t realize that I was just in that do, do, do, do, do, do mode, and my shoulders were tight this whole morning.” Or not only from the body, but if we’re ignoring a certain emotion, then that emotion just needs 90 seconds to process.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: if you look at the metabolism of, say an emotion. Sadness comes in, it needs 90 seconds to be present, for you to acknowledge it, for your body to process it, let it go. But if we ignore this sadness, this anxiety, this feeling of hurt, if you had 90 seconds times maybe 100 thoughts, I mean, how many minutes is that?

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And then that turns into a mood, and then it turns into a behavior, and then you get in an argument with your husband, or you have a short tone with your child, or then you over-drink, and then you start to do all of these avoidant behaviors, ’cause what are we all trying to do? We wanna avoid those feelings.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Yes.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And we continue to stay checked out of our bodies when our body’s like a little kid. It’s like, “Hey, will you play with me? Hey, Mom, will you take a nap? Will you lay down with me? Can you just pay some attention to me?” The body is really a child in a way that just asking for basic needs: food, rest, comfort, support, safety.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And we often just ignore it because we were taught to ignore it at a very young age.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Yeah. Yeah, to follow the rules.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Follow the rules. Yep. Or stay tough. My father was like, “Be strong, be strong, be strong.” That was our motto.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Okay. As I’m ignoring myself in order to follow the rules, that creates more stress. And so when I’m calming down my stress, I can actually learn to pay attention to myself more, and what’s going on with me, and then that helps me be more connected to myself.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Yeah, correct.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: And then I’m maybe not so lonely because I’m connected to myself. And then I’m hearing that it might also then change outwardly too in my social relationships. Because then I might… Like when you said that the group of women, when you were thinking about writing the book during the pandemic, and then you were able to talk about it, then everyone could say, “Well, I also feel lonely.”

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: So then there’s a way that as I’m more in touch with myself and I can be my real self with other people, there might be opportunities to find acceptance

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Absolutely. Or like what Brene Brown says is that when you become more attuned with yourself and allow yourself to be yourself, there’s a certain vulnerability in that. And when you have the courage to share that vulnerability, vulnerability creates connection.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And if someone’s like, “Oh, okay, your defenses are down. You’re actually sharing how you really feel. No one’s judging you right now. We’re all kind of listening. Well, if she did it, maybe I can do it,” then the other person shares, and then all of a sudden you’re creating connection with a group of women on a deeper level.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Yeah, and then my brain is going like systems, and then you create a whole new, community. A new system with new rules. That are rules of accepting each other maybe more, who knows? I mean, that’s the hope.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Yeah.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Yeah. Yeah. This has been really, really lovely. I’m wondering, if you work with people who are in the United States, Oh, but I know for sure they could get your book. Are there any other ways that people could connect with you if they wanted to?

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Absolutely. So I also have a podcast called The Dr. Sylvia K Show, and K’s just the letter K. I’m doing much better this year by uploading episodes. I’m now creating a series of meditations to help understand how your family roles might have affected certain self-limiting beliefs and is impacting your relationship.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: So the meditations are designed to help you not only gain awareness of those roles, but to release them and get creative of what are some new roles that maybe you would like to adopt and play with in your relationship. So meditations also are available through the podcast, The Dr. Sylvia K Show, and you can find me on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: I have a YouTube channel, but it’s just barely growing, so you can go on YouTube and, follow, it’s Lonely AF. And, I have an Instagram account, drsylviak, so it’s D-R-S-Y-L-V-I-A, the letter K. So I’m always in the stories posting stuff. Lots of information there.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: And then you can, pre-order, or by the time this episode comes out, maybe The official publication date is March 16th, so you can order online, Amazon. Porch Light has a good deal. You can get two books almost for the price of one. Barnes & Noble, whatever, avenue is best for you. And if you are living in Florida, I am licensed in Florida, so I can do virtual telehealth, and I am accepting patients.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: I love couples as well. That’s where you can find me or work with me. And then hopefully by the end of 2026, I’ll have some group programs available.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Okay, wonderful. Thank you so much. Do you have any last things that you’d want to share with anybody who’s listening to the podcast?

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: I just wanna remind you that feeling lonely is one of the most universal human experiences. We are all gonna feel lonely at least once in our life. So instead of looking at it as something is wrong with you, look at it as, “Oh, I’m human too.” Like, this is a human universal experience. And maybe if you could reframe and say, ” What if this is an opportunity for me to challenge and question certain behaviors or ideas of myself?

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Maybe this is an opportunity for me to actually slow down and get in touch with a part of myself that I’ve ignored.” Maybe it’s the artistic part of you, maybe it’s a more faithful or spiritual part, or maybe it’s some kind of dream that you’ve put on the back burner, and this loneliness could actually be an opportunity for you to connect to that part of you that’s just been waiting for you.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Or maybe it’s an opportunity for you to connect to your inner child, that part of you that is still playful or, that need to feel seen and heard. And maybe it’s just an opportunity to remember that little girl or that little boy or whatever pronoun you wanna use that, that energy’s still inside of you. And it’s really important to connect to it to create that connection.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky: Wonderful. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Dr. Sylvia Kalicinski: Thank you so much, Elizabeth. It was a pleasure being here.