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We Cannot Heal Alone with Rabbi Sharon Brous | A Bit of Optimism Podcast

Loneliness is now an epidemic, with devastating impacts on our health. How can we rekindle the deep human connection we need now more than ever?

Simon SinekhostGreat Minds Sharon Brousguest

Apr 10, 202435mWatch on YouTube

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CHAPTERS

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Chapter summaries

Loneliness as a spiritual, physical, and societal crisis
Simon Sinek asks whether we’re in an “epidemic of loneliness” and whether there’s an antidote. Rabbi Sharon Brous agrees and frames loneliness as a spiritual malady that also harms the body and threatens the health of society itself.
- •Sharon Brous says loneliness attacks both spirit and body, based on what she has seen while pastoring a community
- •She references research describing physiological harms associated with acute loneliness
- •She adds a third dimension: loneliness and social isolation as a precondition for tyranny, drawing on Hannah Arendt
- •Statistics are cited to illustrate widespread disconnection, including not knowing neighbors and lacking a single confidant
- •Sharon Brous warns that COVID exacerbated existing trends and increased vulnerability to “nefarious forces”
How isolation makes conspiracy thinking feel meaningful
Simon explores how conspiracy communities can provide meaning and belonging during disconnection. Sharon Brous agrees that purpose and connection are essential needs and asks whether those needs can be harnessed toward a more loving society.
- •Simon connects disconnection to a search for meaning and community, using a personal example from COVID
- •A conspiratorial community is described as offering purpose and social bonds, regardless of the specific belief
- •Sharon Brous emphasizes two human needs: purpose and belonging
- •She describes conspiracy thinking as more likely to take hold when people don’t know one another
- •She poses a central question: whether we can channel these needs toward justice and love rather than harm
Why lonely people both seek and flee community
Prompted by Simon, Sharon Brous explains the paradox that people come to faith communities for connection but may also retreat when lonely. She describes loneliness as a kind of pain that often drives people away from the very relationships that could help.
- •Simon asks about her observation that loneliness brings people to community and also pushes them away
- •Sharon Brous says showing up while lonely requires vulnerability and can feel counter-instinctual
- •She contrasts physical pain (which prompts seeking safety/help) with loneliness (which can prompt withdrawal)
- •She ties this to John Cacioppo’s framing of loneliness as a signal that misdirects behavior
- •She sets up her book’s organizing idea: an ancient ritual designed to counteract that retreat
An ancient ritual for the brokenhearted: turning left when everyone turns right
Sharon Brous describes a 2,000-year-old pilgrimage ritual in which those who are brokenhearted deliberately walk against the crowd. The community stops to ask what happened and offers a blessing—creating a structured way for pain to be seen and held.
- •She recounts the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the collective circling of the Temple Mount courtyard
- •Those who are “brokenhearted” turn left while everyone else turns right
- •The community asks simple, direct questions about what happened and how the person is doing
- •The brokenhearted share their loss or fear, and the community responds with blessings
- •Sharon Brous explains why this ritual became her “North Star” and the heart of her book
The hardest part for both sides: choosing to incline toward one another
Sharon Brous emphasizes that no one naturally wants to play their part in the ritual: the brokenhearted don’t want exposure, and the “okay” people don’t want interruption. She argues the urgent question of our time is what it takes to resist retreat and instead move toward one another.
- •She explains why the brokenhearted may not want to get out of bed, let alone be publicly vulnerable
- •She explains why those having a spiritual high point may resist peeling away to engage a stranger’s pain
- •She asks what it means, culturally, to request honesty about pain and grief
- •She frames the modern challenge as choosing to see one another’s humanity when we’re disinclined
- •She suggests reconnection, purpose, and healing emerge through choosing to incline toward each other
Being seen and the basic service of showing up
Simon reframes the ritual as a metaphor about who gets seen, noting that the only faces visible are those walking the opposite direction. Sharon Brous agrees and deepens it: seeing others also allows us to be seen, connecting service with meaning.
- •Simon highlights the visual logic of the metaphor: you mostly see the faces of those walking toward you
- •He describes a responsibility to check on friends who aren’t showing up and ask if they’re okay
- •Sharon Brous affirms the core message: communicating “I see you”
- •She tells a story of an educator named Beth who chose to engage a grieving stranger in a pottery studio
- •The story illustrates how acknowledging pain breaks isolation and helps both people feel meaning and connection
Why we avoid grief—and how ‘not fixing’ changes everything
The conversation turns to why people avoid those in pain: fear of saying the wrong thing and a mistaken belief that we must fix suffering. Sharon Brous argues presence—not repair—is the calling, and that misunderstanding leads to withdrawal and deeper isolation.
- •Sharon Brous describes how the grieving father felt abandoned because friends didn’t know how to engage after a suicide
- •She introduces the idea that care is “democratized”: strangers can offer blessings and presence without special training
- •Simon links avoidance to feeling ill-equipped to fix someone’s pain, leading people to choose disengagement
- •Sharon Brous shares another grief story in which a parent wanted space to talk about his son and weep, not be distracted
- •She emphasizes: the job is to be present to grief, not to “pull someone out” of it
‘Sitting in the mud’: asking what someone needs and staying with them
Simon offers a metaphor for supportive presence: sitting with someone in the mud rather than pulling them out. Both he and Sharon Brous emphasize asking what’s needed, accepting you may not be able to make things better, and ensuring nobody suffers alone.
- •Simon defines service as choosing to be with someone in pain even when it’s uncomfortable
- •He distinguishes advice/fixing from presence, and says help comes when the person is ready
- •He emphasizes asking for direction: whether someone wants advice or simply company
- •Sharon Brous agrees that people in pain often know what they need, and that presence communicates ‘not alone’
- •They connect this to a broader vision of navigating ‘the dark night of the soul’ together
Texts and stories about fear, darkness, and companionship
Sharon Brous draws on Genesis and rabbinic storytelling to highlight that being alone is described as “not good,” and that comfort can come without certainty. The example of Eve sitting with Adam through the first night models companionship without promises or solutions.
- •Sharon Brous notes the first ‘not good’ in Genesis is a person being alone
- •She recounts a rabbinic story: Adam’s terror at the first darkness and Eve’s presence through the night
- •She frames a key question: who will weep with us through the night?
- •She emphasizes that Eve can’t guarantee things will improve—she simply stays present
- •Simon relates this to his own experience of conflict caused by trying to solve a friend’s problems
Learning to ask, learning to show up: turning left takes trust
They discuss the risks of vulnerability: turning left requires trust that someone will meet you with care, and turning toward others requires facing your own fear. Sharon Brous explains why people avert their eyes and why love and grace are needed on both sides.
- •Simon shares how he learned to ask for instruction: ‘What can I do to make this better?’ and ‘Are you okay?’
- •Sharon Brous emphasizes being okay with not being able to make things better
- •They note the person in pain must choose to ‘turn left’ even when it’s hard or begrudging
- •Sharon Brous explains fear of being unmet—walking left and finding nobody is profoundly painful
- •She explains avoidance: another’s vulnerability makes us feel vulnerable, especially in tragic or traumatic loss
Grief alongside grief: mutual support even when everyone is hurting
Simon notes the paradox that if everyone turned left, no one would be there to see them—yet courage can be contagious. Sharon Brous responds with a personal story about her father’s illness and death and how connection can form among people moving through similar grief.
- •Simon describes how seeing others’ courage to turn left can inspire someone to do it later
- •Sharon Brous recounts being in the ER with her father and connecting with another family facing a similar timeline
- •She describes feeling that the bereaved could become ‘a sister in grief’ and walk together
- •She reflects on shiva: how community helps keep a mourner in the world during acute grief
- •She argues people can still hold one another even while grieving, including those also ‘coming from the left’
The ‘Amen Effect’: building muscle memory for vulnerability and care
Simon concludes that true service includes teaching people how to turn left—how to admit pain and ask to be seen. Sharon Brous explains why her book focuses on creating environments where broken hearts can be named and met with repeated, communal ‘amen’—a sustained promise not to run away.
- •Simon reframes service as teaching people to reveal their pain and ask for help, not only helping those already asking
- •Sharon Brous describes enacting the ancient ritual in her community and how leadership vulnerability made others willing to participate
- •They distinguish being told from being shown, emphasizing leaders who themselves ‘turn left’
- •Sharon Brous explains the Mourner’s Kaddish as creating a safe structure where grief is met by communal response
- •She describes repeated ‘amen’ as relentless presence over time, not a single condolence message, echoing the image of weeping through the night

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