Me, Myself, and I ~Enjoying Being Alone~

When asked what is the biggest health crisis facing America today, Dr. Mehmet Oz answered in a surprising way. He didn’t say obesity (a big one), heart disease (a deadly one), or addiction (a crucial one) he replied, “Loneliness.” It’s something that we don’t often think about as a problem per se, although most of us experience it either directly or more indirectly as a symptom. Since we are social creatures meant to be a together in close relationships, when those fall apart and we’re left alone, we find ourselves in a very uncomfortable and unnatural state. In trying to deal with these feelings, the familiar addictive strategies of trying to fill or anesthetize ourselves kick in and we risk ending up with some of the above related health conditions/diseases.

Loneliness is multi-faceted and is more prevalent than ever before in our modern era. The strong sense of local community that helped to build this nation no longer exists in the same way, so the place that we could count on for most of our relationship needs is less present, solid, and available. In its place are vast arrays of pseudo connective mechanisms that make it seem like we’re connecting, such as Facebook, internet chatting, texting/sexting, and online dating. All of these attempts to connect give us momentary feelings of gratification but eventually leave us feeling even more alone, isolated, and unfulfilled. It’s then that we’re prone to reach out for ways to fill this real emptiness inside, through food, shopping, sex, drugs, and other stimulants meant to distract us from our deeper emotions of anxiety, depression, sadness, or even existential disillusionment.

The solution however doesn’t come from outside us, although a movement toward creating greater community would certainly be healthy and welcome. It must come from within us. And it comes from learning to be alone with ourselves…with our three best friends: me, myself and I. I remember hearing that growing up and chuckling when my mother said it after her divorce. But when I saw her put it into practice I really got to see the measure of its impact. She learned to go out on her own (this was before women’s lib), something many people even today find hard to do, and create a much more fulfilling life for herself, by herself. That stayed with me over the years. I too have learned to enjoy the pleasure of my own company, to be with myself and to savor moments of being alone.

It’s in being able to be with our aloneness that we can then learn to stave off loneliness, as the two are very different. When we’re able to step back from all the activity and settle down for a little while, we’re then able to more truly get to know who we really are (not who we may have been told we are or should be), what we need, and what brings us pleasure. From here we can mobilize our energies which makes it easier to reach out into our environment to get our needs met. So often in our chaotic lives our impatience has us just settling for people who are not in our best interest, or who don’t serve our higher good and our authentic selves. We end up taking the easy way out, giving in to our anxieties and fears of being alone, and going into unproductive or detrimental relationships that offer little except for some immediate gratification or the illusion of connection. And too often many end up staying for far too long, so as not to have to face being alone, again.

What if being alone, with oneself, wasn’t such a terrifying prospect? What if we could actually enjoy “being” with ourselves, with our own thoughts, interests and pursuing our own unique desires so that we wouldn’t need to be with someone and so enjoyed our own company that we could instead choose to be with someone?

I can still recall one instance of this that totally changed my life and had me know that I could be alone and the world wouldn’t end. It was a New Year’s Eve in my mid twenties shortly after I moved to New York City. I was happy to have a date for the all-important evening when she called that afternoon to cancel. I was crushed and wasn’t sure just what to do, whether I should desperately try to find another date somehow (this was way before Craigslist and Match.com) or to go out to some random bar and try to feel festive.

Not liking either option, I came up with another, which was to celebrate the New Year by myself with myself. So I went out and bought some of my favorite food and drink and as the evening unfolded began to have my own little party, dancing and singing along with the Beatles’ first album and ringing in the New Year happily just with me. I’ve had many New Years since, but this is the one that stands out the most after all these years.

Being able to be with one’s Self is a must for real happiness and a major prerequisite for an intimate relationship. Intimacy is about being self-revealing so it’s necessary to have developed a true sense of self in order to achieve it. We need a solid sense of who we are to come back to after we experience the ecstasy of coming in and out of merging with our partners in the wonderful dance of intimacy.

In my work with single clients who come in to work on finding a relationship or with my couples doing the work of self-differentiation to create a healthier one, I often quote an author who I used in writing my dissertation (C. Moustakas, Loneliness and Love). He says that if an individual simply embraces his loneliness and doesn’t defend against it, it creates a bond and a sense of fundamental relatedness to others. “It’s not the loneliness that separates the person from others but the terror of loneliness and the constant efforts to escape it.”

So much of our suffering today comes from this need to escape, thus creating larger, more serious problems. Perhaps we can instead learn to care for our loneliness and suffering so that we can find within the pain and isolation the courage and hope for what is brave and lovely and true in life. By learning to relax into our being alone with ourselves and serve our loneliness as a way to self-identity, we can start to love from a more solid place and begin to have faith in the wonder of living and the courage to fully live all that life has to offer.


Michael Mongno MFT, Ph.D, LP is a licensed psychoanalyst, relationship counselor and holistic practitioner in Manhattan. He is the founder of Present Centered Therapies which synthesizes Gestalt and Cognitive Behavioral therapies, Eastern spirituality, as well as Imago and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. He brings a wealth of successful experience with a wide range of couples issues as well as down-to-earth wisdom and modern sensibility to what it takes to create healthy, loving, and empowered relationships.

Please visit PresentCenteredTherapies.com or call (212) 799-0001 for more information.

Finding Balance in our Lives

When we think about balance the first thing that occurs in our mind is that it’s equilibrium amongst variables. Our lives are multi-dimensional and they require conscientious effort, especially in times of change. Today perhaps more than ever we are faced with the kind of rapid, uncertain change that makes it hard to maintain proper balance. Although we live in chaotic times we have also been developing over the years more consciousness, self awareness, and personal effectiveness that can assist in finding the balance within so as to create a balanced life out in the world.

Just what are we balancing inside ourselves? Firstly we are comprised of a constellation of selves (sub-personalities) each with separate different needs (i.e. our inner child, rebellious teen, the pusher, critic, etc.). They ideally must act in accordance with the others so as to support our whole self and live together in an integrated fashion so that none ends up overly influencing our behavior and taking us places where we’d rather not go. We have very definite emotional needs in any given moment which create our moods and influence how we experience ourselves in the world. Our physical being needs taking care of so that it can supply the energy for our functioning, creativity and vitality. And of course we have intellectual needs for stimulation, depth and meaning as well as our spiritual need to connect to something greater than ourselves. And lastly and perhaps most importantly, we have the very human need for connection, intimacy and love.

To balance all of the above needs within is no small task, and then we must find the balance without, with the world at large of which we are a part. Here is where we must see our interdependence and recognize that whether we realize it or not we do influence (in some way, shape, or form) everything around us. The world, our world in which we are an integral part, would not be the same without us, as shown so poignantly in the classic film, It’s a Wonderful Life. That being said we would be encouraged to try as best we can to bring our best self forward so as to truly create something beautiful, a Beautiful Life, one that we can be proud of and one that leaves behind the memory of goodness, contribution and love.

Obviously with so much going on, this balancing act can be a little daunting at times. So how or where do we begin? So as not to get overwhelmed, let’s start with where we are right here and now: first with our breath to support our life force energy, next our body and its need for fuel, and then the awareness of our emotions and what we might need to feel integrated and at peace, and finally our mindfulness as to what’s appropriate at any given moment. We can then look outside ourselves to see if our basic survival needs are being met and what more may be required there (especially today) and then on to our commitments and obligations in our various relationships. In doing so we will learn for ourselves in our own way how to prioritize so that each area gets the proper attention, time, and nourishment it needs.

Finally we can draw upon the resources of spirituality, of inspiration, and of the perseverance of the great human spirit that can not only move mountains but have us create lives so much bigger than any one part of us is capable of. In balancing all of the above, if we do it with faith, humility and grace we can create an empowered life capable of contributing to the greater whole and leaving behind a personal legacy of love, having touched those in our lives by demonstrating a life well lived.


Michael Mongno MFT, Ph.D, LP is a licensed psychoanalyst, relationship counselor and holistic practitioner in Manhattan. He is the founder of Present Centered Therapies which synthesizes Gestalt and Cognitive Behavioral therapies, Eastern spirituality, as well as Imago and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. He brings a wealth of successful experience with a wide range of couples issues as well as down-to-earth wisdom and modern sensibility to what it takes to create healthy, loving, and empowered relationships.

Please visit PresentCenteredTherapies.com or call (212) 799-0001 for more information.

Returning to our own Vibrancy: Part of a Series on Authentic Relating

When a child comes into the world it’s an experience of absolute discovery, both within and without. They discover all the pleasures of their own existence… their bodies, their capabilities, their developing sense of power, and the natural aliveness of incarnate being. As they grow, their curiosity takes them on many adventures as they learn to navigate the world. With good parenting this journey is encouraged and shepherded with allowance, enthusiasm, and support so that the child learns to command his/her own ship while experiencing the richness of being human. What this means of course is that the parents allow the child to get messy, make mistakes, take chances or risk being good all the time, so that this primal energy of life is not diminished or suppressed and is instead allowed to fully expand. However, many of us were not allowed such freedom and our childhoods have ended up truncated and limited by at the minimum dysfunction and at the worst by every kind of trauma imaginable. So unfortunately the splendor of childhood, the wild delight of opening to all that life has to offer instead becomes something to endure and that unbridled desire for life gets diluted or contaminated by growing up in a psychologically toxic environment. The once fluid mind so full of potential and creativity becomes regulated into fixed rigidities in the psyche and the rules and regulations of conventional society become the expressed means of existence.

So what do we do to raise vibrant children? Paradoxically the answer is “nothing”. It’s not what we need to do, it’s what we need to not do. It’s all the overdriven, controlled doingness of our modern parenting that ends up squelching this natural vibrancy thus preventing the inherent curiosity of discovering life and simply allowing a child to be a child.

Pause for a moment to try to remember some of the days of your own childhood, where a day seemed to stretch on forever, where honeysuckle was the most delicious fragrance imaginable, and every jumble of bushes was a fort in which to play or have a tea party. If you were lucky enough, you were able to play all day and when you got home were welcomed with love and excitement for all you discovered that day. If that is something that happened rarely, I believe (along with many current psychologists) there is a child inside yearning to have those adventures still. And this child, this inner child of ours needs to be attended to so that we can become whole and live full and fulfilling lives.

So how do we find this place inside where this young version of ourselves lives? We still ourselves, go out for walk in a park, by a meadow or a stream, and simply listen. We quiet our minds and listen inside to our hearts. It’s there that this child lives… and by now, usually has plenty to say. Often in the beginning he/she speaks of the pain, the misunderstanding, and the needs that were never adequately addressed growing up. But over time if we’re able to compassionately comfort and care for our little one, something begins to shift and change. Our own adult needs and the way we express them seem to take on less charge and become less crucial, over-reactive or out-of-control. We become more integrated within ourselves, more at ease, less defensive and softer, and our own natural aliveness returns. We find ourselves wanting to be more playful, delight in simple things, and are more readily available for new experiences and to others in our lives. Indeed, what we came into this world with, our natural vibrancy, returns as we start to experience the pleasure of our humanness, our own unique being, and the joy of living life again…in a fresh new way…as a child would.


Michael Mongno MFT, Ph.D, LP is a licensed psychoanalyst, relationship counselor and holistic practitioner in Manhattan. He is the founder of Present Centered Therapies which synthesizes Gestalt and Cognitive Behavioral therapies, Eastern spirituality, as well as Imago and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. He brings a wealth of successful experience with a wide range of couples issues as well as down-to-earth wisdom and modern sensibility to what it takes to create healthy, loving, and empowered relationships.

Please visit PresentCenteredTherapies.com or call (212) 799-0001 for more information.

Our True Nature as a Path to Awakening: Part of a series on Authentic Relating

Relationships offer a way to find, explore and express our True Nature and in doing so they can serve the highest in our selves. Our True Nature is our authentic being that exists beyond the intellect and time and is connected to all things. So, by serving the beloved in ourselves and in relationship, we in fact serve the entirety of humanity.

As we know, we become attracted to each other for reasons such as chemistry, common goals and values and even as a way of healing childhood traumas and wounds. We find our way to just the right person for these reasons and stay together for a lifetime, for a while, or for just a season. It is this unconscious desire that then has us enter into the dance of intimacy which later becomes the crucible for transformation. In this encounter, both partners have an opportunity to engage together in deep emotional and spiritual alchemy and come through together somehow changed, more healed and whole.

This process is akin to how Nature initiates life, begins to grow and then matures, and finally offers up a fully ripened but unique reproduction of itself-- in the seed exists the vision of the majestic oak and in the cocoon already are tiny wings for flight. And so our own True Nature knows its own depths, the awareness of its purpose and what circumstances are necessary to fully bloom. If we were to simply trust this part of ourselves, we could begin to relax and let go a bit and enjoy the simplicity of life.
The first step is to trust that by simply being aware and present in life is what allows our True Nature to come forth in ways that go far beyond meeting our various needs in the immediate moment. This part of us is in fact a deep knowing that is beyond the mind (and controlling ego) and needs only the space to be and room to unfold.

When we are in a healthy relationship, a trusted Other can mirror back this natural part of who we are so that we can have a deeper, richer experience of our own precious self. Over time this experience becomes a recursive loop for greater depth and being, a fuller and more expansive awareness and richer engaging with life itself. It is this Self that then naturally mirrors back the same to our partner.

This becomes the “greening” of a relationship, in that it allows an organic unfolding of our true selves, our own True Nature, perhaps something even divine. Rather than seek the divine outside of us in a transcendent way, we can begin to have it reflected back right before our very eyes. If this Awareness that exists without judgment, agenda, or control is able to simply be with our Beloved, we then have a chance to grow more fully within ourselves and more organically contribute to the whole, and to every aspect of life. And it can start with where we are right now…by simply taking a breath, being present, letting go of all thought about things and allowing everything to be as it is…in its own True Nature.


Michael Mongno MFT, Ph.D, LP is a licensed psychoanalyst, relationship counselor and holistic practitioner in Manhattan. He is the founder of Present Centered Therapies which synthesizes Gestalt and Cognitive Behavioral therapies, Eastern spirituality, as well as Imago and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. He brings a wealth of successful experience with a wide range of couples issues as well as down-to-earth wisdom and modern sensibility to what it takes to create healthy, loving, and empowered relationships.

Please visit PresentCenteredTherapies.com or call (212) 799-0001 for more information.