Live proud podcast Ep.5: Making room -loneliness, connection, and what it costs us all

• Defining loneliness: Loneliness is not simply about being physically alone; it is the subjective feeling of distress that occurs when our relationships fail to meet our emotional needs.
• A major health challenge: Loneliness is a significant public health issue, costing Australia an estimated $2.7 billion annually in direct healthcare costs alone.
• The most vulnerable cohorts: The 18-to-25 age group (transitioning to independence) and the 45-to-54 "sandwich generation" (juggling careers, children, and ageing parents) are Australia's most socially disconnected demographics.
• The hybrid working advantage: Fully remote workers face the highest risk of chronic isolation, whereas hybrid working models support the lowest levels of loneliness by balancing flexibility with face-to-face connection.
• The barrier of "phubbing": Phone snubbing ("phubbing") sends a silent, damaging message that we are closed to interaction, which inadvertently blocks spontaneous connection in our daily lives.
• Exercising the social muscle: Social interaction behaves like a muscle that can easily atrophy. Rebuilding social confidence starts with small, daily exercises like saying hello to a neighbour or a local barista.
• Making room for connection: Combating isolation does not require grand or expensive social events; it is built on tiny daily adjustments, such as inviting one more person into an existing routine.
• A shared community responsibility: Ending loneliness is not just an individual task. It requires developers, policy-makers, and organisations to partner together to design neighbourhoods and physical environments that naturally foster connection.

Brent: Welcome to the Live proud podcast. I'm Brent Hill. If you've ever sat in a room full of people and still felt completely alone, you already know that loneliness isn't simply about being by yourself. It's one of the most significant and most misunderstood challenges in Australian life today, and it costs this country an estimated $2.7 billion a year in direct health costs — before we even start counting what it costs us in productivity, in community, and in the quality of our lives. My guest today has spent her career building the evidence base to tackle this problem head-on. She's the CEO and scientific chair of Ending Loneliness Together, a national network of universities and industry partners working to reduce chronic loneliness in Australia by half by 2030. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Michelle Lim.

Michelle, thanks very much for joining us. Such an interesting topic, and something so important. We'll go into a little bit more about what you've been doing in really pioneering the loneliness discussion. It's not just a state or national discussion, it's a global issue. First of all, I'd like to get down to really defining what loneliness is. I think some of us have a misconception — we may not have a friend or a partner, and feel lonely. If you could just define for our listeners what loneliness actually is.

Michelle: I'm glad you started there, Brent, because this is an issue that has so many misconceptions, and people tend to throw terms around and get them confused. So loneliness is typically defined as the subjective feeling of distress that comes up for you when you feel your relationships are not meeting your needs.

Brent: Do you feel anxious? Is that a sign?

Michelle: Yeah, you feel uneasy, and for some people, they call it almost a social pain.

Brent: Right.

Michelle: Yeah. So they feel like somehow or other, despite being with people, despite having a family or being in a marriage, having children, in the workplace, they feel like no one understands them, or no one has their back. You might be speaking the same language, but not really quite getting each other. So that's kind of what loneliness is. It's something that's not so obvious. It's something that perhaps even some people who feel lonely might deny. And in fact, we often hear people who say, “Oh, in retrospect, I was incredibly lonely, but I just didn't quite recognise it in that moment.”

Brent: Yeah.

Michelle: So it is much more an almost silent, unconscious thing that does happen, and often people tend to ignore loneliness because of huge stigma and misconceptions of what it is and what it's not.

Brent: Yeah, it is quite broad when you talk about it. But the effects that it has on people — what are some of those signs and cues that might make you think, well, I'm feeling a bit lonely or anxious? And let's not misconstrue that with depression, because it can be zoned in that space. Can you clarify that for us as well?

Michelle: That is a great point, because I don't want people, when they feel lonely, to also think that they might be depressed. Depression — just putting on my clinical psychologist hat — is very pervasive and impairing, and there's a lot more going on physiologically there. Loneliness is very specific to your relationships. It's very specific to how you feel about other people. We do know that loneliness does precede the onset of depression and other kinds of mental health problems. That's why we often say loneliness is much more of a signal for us to do something before future health problems set in.

Brent: Are you saying we could be in relationships and still be lonely?

Michelle: Absolutely. And I think this is again about being heard, being understood, feeling like someone's got your back. We hear that a lot in workplaces, where someone might be going through some relationship issue, perhaps with a colleague, and they feel other people around them are not really understanding them.

Brent: You've been, as I said, pioneering Ending Loneliness Together for some time. The State of the Nation research — since 2023 is when it started. What's the data saying in 2026, and what are the insights we're getting?

Michelle: Well, this is a really interesting question. When we read the 2023 report, there were two possibilities that I envisaged: that loneliness has increased, or that it's largely remained unchanged. Noting that difference —

Brent: Not improving.

Michelle: Yes, not improving.

Brent: We've got a bigger population, more people around, but we're still lonely.

Michelle: Well, keeping in mind that while it's a demographically represented sample, they're not the same people, we would roughly estimate that things actually have largely been unchanged. And now, when we look at the data, we don't just look at loneliness, but also the other concept, which is social isolation — being physically alone. Almost one in two of us are experiencing some level of social disconnection, either loneliness or social isolation, and some people both. So at least one in two Australians are experiencing that, which is quite a huge proportion, and it means that we perhaps need to do something about how we relate to each other, and how often we relate to each other.

Brent: Yeah. Noting it's becoming a monetary issue for the government, somewhat — up to $2.7 billion per year it's costing the Australian government.

Michelle: Yes.

Brent: That's a monetary thing. But what does it actually mean for the individuals and their partners and their friendship groups? It's life-impacting for them.

Michelle: Yes, and I think people don't know this. For a long time it's been seen as a soft issue, and what we do know in science is that there's actually a lot of physiological pain to process loneliness. In fact, your brain structures, your cortisol levels, which are your stress hormones — there are even genetic studies in loneliness. Loneliness research was very much underpinned by what we call social neuroscience approaches, where we look at how people who feel lonely process the environment, or process information when they interact with other people. Their brain is processing interactions as stressful, and when they withdraw as a process because they're trying to keep themselves safe, they get stuck in a bit of a loop. They push people away without realising it. So this is not something that's consciously done, but they get stuck in the loop, because other people then respond accordingly. They respond to, oh, this person's not really open to connecting.

Brent: What do you think is causing this? It's going through my head at the moment that I often see my son and other people — myself — staring at a phone for hours on end, doom-scrolling on Instagram, into a laptop, going through work for hours and hours, and you're not talking, not engaging with people. And then there's also this dynamic of working from home and being disconnected somewhat from your peers from a work sense. Just interested to —

Michelle: You've highlighted one which is a much more individual, internal process, but it's also affected by more macro systems happening in our environment, where we're starting to live in an environment where making and maintaining healthy social connection is increasingly more difficult.

Brent: Why is that?

Michelle: So I don't know about you, but I wasn't brought up in the age of the iPhone. I mean —

Brent: I was brought up in the age of the fax machine.

Michelle: Yes, absolutely. I actually know the fax machine, so —

Brent: We'll explain that to some listeners.

Michelle: Yeah, exactly. They might not know that. Those are distractions, and there are new terms coming up about how that impacts our relationships. Things like 'phubbing' — that's 'phone snubbing', where you might use your phone while in the presence of others, and that actually conveys a very different —

Brent: I think I'm caught out on phubbing or snubbing. I didn't know it was a thing, but I'm absolutely guilty of that.

Michelle: And I have done quite a bit of research in this area, and it's very much the message you send to the other person as to whether you are open to connection. So that has become the norm — that's now much more normal — or actually something that we have to be intentionally managing. And it's mean when people do that, but I do it myself. So how do we break that cycle?

Brent: Yeah, and we'll go into some of the cues as to how to break that cycle, because I think it's really interesting just looking at the spectrum of people that it can affect. And if you could just really define it — it sounds like there's this sandwich. I think it was the 18-to-25-year-olds and the 45-to-54-year-olds. Now, I'm in that bracket — I'm 23, so, just kidding — so I'm in that 45-to-54-year-old bracket. I look at myself and my peers and my friendship groups, and we always say we're too busy to catch up. We always say we've got too much on with work. You've got to run around after kids. You feel like you're a taxi service. You're always trying to find some time, but you can never seem to articulate that in your diary, and it's always a bit too hard. And then you're too tired to actually connect. If you can just talk about those two age categories —

Michelle: Yes.

Brent: We'll start with the 18-to-25-year-olds. What's the impact there, and what's causing it, and potentially how can we break that cycle?

Michelle: And to also be clear to many of the listeners today: that cohort is even more vulnerable than the 12-to-17-year-olds, which — against my hypothesis — I always thought the younger might be worse off.

Brent: Yeah.

Michelle: But when you hit 18 to 25, there's a couple of things that are happening. You're moving into a different social landscape. When you think about your 12-year-olds all the way to 17, they've probably had the same friends for a very, very long time, and that friendship was quite stable. And then you mark that with the transition to university or employment, or —

Brent: Well, it's the independence, I feel. You've been in a mould of preschool, kindergarten, primary school, secondary school. So you're really defining a lot of those —

Michelle: Well, there's also structures and —

Brent: Time structures, yeah, and routines.

Michelle: Routines that you've been doing for a long, long time. And then all of a sudden you go into this different phase where everything's independent. Everything is — you have to take the initiative to make that happen, and the need for fitting in, the need to make lots of friends, those are particularly high at that age group. People trying to find themselves with how they are within the wider community, often without the safety net of parents as well. And parents actually become almost ignored after the age of 18 to 25. So they're trying to navigate themselves with new peers, but maintaining the old ones — perhaps even people in the workforce that are not the same age. How do they relate to those guys?

Brent: Yeah, I'm reflecting. I grew up in country Victoria, and I moved down when I was 18. Left home and moved down to Melbourne, into the city. I remember within the first two months going back home and crying to my parents, going, “Oh, I'm just lost in the city.” And I remember Dad — it's something that stuck in my mind — saying Melbourne can be a really lonely city. Yes, it's big as far as population compared to a small country town. But at that time, I can remember I was going through a new tertiary course. I didn't have any friends from where I was brought up. There was only a handful of people I knew in the city that were going to university, but they were off doing their own things and setting up their own friendship groups. That was a really difficult time, I can remember, for myself. So it does bring back memories of that 18, early 20s, particularly coming from a small country background, and then into a bigger city where you think you'd have opportunity to meet people.

Michelle: Yes.

Brent: And I remember back then, we ended up setting up a cohort. We didn't have mobile phones back then, but what we did have was a regular meeting spot. We'd go to the pub on a Tuesday and have a parmigiana, which we did every second Tuesday, and then we also played mixed netball, which was every second Thursday. So we had these meeting places for our school friends who would catch up, and a lot of us were feeling the same thing — that they were going to university at different campuses, they couldn't find the right setting to meet people, and felt quite isolated and lonely. So —

Michelle: Absolutely. And if you think about the generation now, they have additional barriers, because there's a lot of online learning, and if they do see people face to face, their schedules don't always meet.

Brent: What would your recommendation be there? We have a business that has flexibility of working from home and in the office. Would you be saying, if you are having those signs of loneliness and disconnection, to make an effort to go in? Or —

Michelle: I would say the research is really pointing only to fully remote workers. Fully remote — that is where you are actually vulnerable. But if you're in any form of hybrid, or face to face, it's not really too much difference. In fact, I think hybrid was the group that were the least lonely. Yes. It's really the fully remote where you don't get that chance.

Brent: So fully remote workers are the most at risk.

Michelle: Most at risk. And hybrid models, if anything, I think support this — the flexibility of life. I think employees are far happier with a hybrid model.

Brent: Yeah. Okay. We're speaking about that 18-to-25-year-old cohort. Now let's talk about where I'm sitting: 45 to 54.

Michelle: It's also where I'm sitting, so I understand my fears. Yes.

Brent: I was surprised with this. I was very surprised. I thought we're at a stage where the kids, our children, might be in different — some people are single, and some have different children. But —

Michelle: Yes.

Brent: You're starting to understand a bit more awareness about yourselves. You might have a bit more financial independence, and you might have the ability to have old work, university cohorts and friendship groups, possibly from schools or kindergartens or universities. I thought it might have been more the boomers who were the most lonely. They've got all this money, they're sitting at home, they don't know what to do with it.

Michelle: Well, let's go back and just be clear about how I see the trend. In this 2026 report, that 45 to 54 — you are absolutely right. They are what we call the most socially disconnected. So they are not just socially isolated, having fewer interactions, but they are also feeling lonely. But the social isolation is very closely followed — very, very closely, by 0.3% or something ridiculously small — by the 65-to-74-year-olds. So that group, the just-recently-retired group, is still incredibly socially isolated. But that 45 to 54, which I'm also in, scares me, because in many ways you're the most resourced. But you're also taking care of young children, and probably some people are caring for older, ageing parents. And if you're taking care of young children, like myself, your financial resources are very limited — you have childcare and all that sort of stuff, and you're time poor. You're so time poor, because you're caring so much for everyone else, but not for yourself. So it's the sandwich generation, and it's also the generation where there's so much expectation. Most of us are in the peak of our careers, and we think that by keeping going, we'll be happier. But we're also investing less and less time for family, for friends, for people who fill their social cup, if you want to put it that way.

Brent: I think that's a good way to put it. I talk to my cohort, and I say, “How's your cup today? Is it full or empty? Does it need filling up?” So that's a phrase that I often use with our friendship groups. We're here on a Friday, and it probably needs filling up. But you're right — we get distracted and we get busy, whether it's work, children, the taxi service, our extended family, and obligations that we have. The energy that you spend on just day-to-day things, you need to get that energy from somewhere else. Where do you get it from? Because the research is actually saying if you have these connections, it's actually going to increase your energy levels.

Michelle: Yeah, it's interesting, because we looked at the number of close friends you have, the number of extended friends you have, and we found that just having one — just the one, either close friends or extended friendships — really dramatically reduces your risk. And it's not just having these friendships, but having good quality, positive relationships. I want to stress that you can have friendships, but if they're not positive, and you have a lot of conflict, or you're ambivalent about them, it can cause loneliness.

Brent: Don't hang around negative people. Are you saying that, or not?

Michelle: I would say to nurture friendships that give back. And you give, too — there's always two ways.

Brent: What are some of those quick cues or quick suggestions to increase those connections? [Very good question.] We're time poor. Are you saying that we should diarise time to go out and have a meal, or catch up for a coffee with somebody? What are some of those?

Michelle: You know what's really interesting — and this comes up for us, because we co-design our campaigns, we often ask people what's going to make the most sense for them. We don't want to be making recommendations where people go, I know this, but I have absolutely no resources to do it. And if I put my psychologist hat on and add to the information on what people tell me on the ground: if they're time poor, it's about the little things that count. If you think about how you've made friends over the years, they're often not one big huge event. It's often things that we do over time, and they just build over time. I almost call it building blocks — you're taking little moments and small actions, things that perhaps you're already doing in your routine. Say, for example, if you're already having regular catch-ups with family and friends, inviting one more person into that. So it's those little things and little adjustments that we make that can help, rather than adding something huge, because that seems really overwhelming for a lot of people.

Brent: Noting simple things like saying hello. You might be walking out of your apartment or your home, and you're walking past neighbours, or you're going for your daily exercise, or at the gym, or yoga, pilates. Actually acknowledging people, having a smile and saying hello, can really introduce those relationships and connections, and physiologically give you the endorphins that can hopefully trigger you out of this rut of disconnection.

Michelle: And I'll pause there, because my psychologist brain — and the research — also tells us that a simple hello is great, in that it's a small enough action for most people. But of course, for some people, simple hellos are quite terrifying as well. But you build from there. You think about what people can do: saying hello would be extended, the next time, to “How are you going?”, and then the next time is “How are you going? My name is Brent.” It just builds from there. We want to empower people and make things so that they feel success.

Brent: I might exercise this with my son, because he just grunts at me at the moment. So, maybe.

Michelle: How old is your son?

Brent: He's 13.

Michelle: That's normal language for an adolescent boy.

Brent: I sort of hark my time back to the dreaded word COVID, and that era of lockdown. Did that trigger more people with loneliness, do you feel, or disconnection?

Michelle: So what we know is it's been relatively stable. And I don't want to make things complicated, but loneliness can be — sometimes some researchers measure it with what we call state or trait. State basically means it fluctuates. So there was a fluctuation when the world's biggest social experiment happened to us — a fluctuation of loneliness. But what I found really interesting with COVID, and we did a study during COVID, is that when social restrictions lifted, what we actually found was that social anxiety increased. And why that is the case is because it's telling me that social interaction, especially with other people, is a bit like a social muscle. People were actually really nervous going back out, and their social anxiety went up significantly. And this is across three countries. It's a big study, and we also accounted for social restrictions severity across those countries. People were almost being told to bunker down, and then having to go out there and interact — it's leading to more social anxiety. It's almost like the brain's a social muscle. So things like saying hello, it sounds simple, but we're exercising that social muscle.

Brent: I say hello a lot, so I must be like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the brain.

Michelle: Well, you need to build that up.

Brent: My social muscle. If I can't go to the gym, I'll use my social muscle there. Hopefully no more lockdowns for us, which will be great. The theme of Loneliness Awareness Week this year is 'Make Room for Connection'. Can you talk to us about what it means, and some of the practices that our listeners could do?

Michelle: So this campaign was co-designed by people who've been presented very different themes, across all ages, and 'make room' was a very consistent winner. I think it's because it's got some flexibility in how people would make room — and this is not just a physical space, but an emotional space as well. So 'make room' is really about allowing people to think. It was focused on people who can connect, who feel like they can make a difference. It's about making room to bake in those more quality connections, or getting to know more people.

Brent: So quality connections doesn't necessarily mean quantity?

Michelle: It doesn't always mean quantity — though we do know quantity does matter — but quality as well. So it could be making room for people you already know.

Brent: Yeah.

Michelle: Right. So that's just focusing on deepening that relationship. Or it could be making room for people you don't know, and inviting someone new into what you do.

Brent: So you can do it within your own routine then, Michelle.

Michelle: Absolutely, it has to be. When we think about behavioural change, first of all, people are still at this stage where they don't even know the difference between loneliness and social isolation. They don't realise that loneliness is bad for us. So we need to really start to shift and empower people, and show them the benefits of social connection and what those benefits bring. So, starting small — little steps, nothing big at the moment.

Brent: So it might be as simple as, if people are going to university or schooling, walking with a walking group rather than by themselves. If you're on public transport, starting to engage with some of the regular passengers. At work, having those opportunities to actually have time for meaningful conversations.

Michelle: Stopping an extra few minutes to say hi to your neighbour, or to the people who make your coffee in the morning.

Brent: It's not just a lavish dinner that you're going out for, and that's the connection. It's those small interactions that make a difference.

Michelle: And people are financially strained, right? Most of us are living in this cost-of-living crisis.

Brent: It costs us nothing to be nice.

Michelle: Absolutely — costs us nothing to be nice. Yeah, that's a good point.

Brent: Yes, I was thinking about that great show 'Neighbours', that neighbours can become good friends. There's also that aspect of reaching out to your neighbours, whether you're in apartment living, townhouse living, or in rural areas. Having connections with your neighbours would also be something that could assist, and that would be part of a daily routine.

Michelle: Yeah, absolutely.

Brent: Partnerships — not one person can solve this issue. And I know that you've really been the pioneer, soldiering through with this. Frasers Property has had a partnership since 2023 to really define and put more of a focus around ending loneliness together. How important is it, having those partnerships?

Michelle: Yeah, the word together really is important. Loneliness is, first of all, now identified by the World Health Organisation as the next global public health priority. So it's been recognised again.

Brent: Can you say that again? It's now the number one —

Michelle: The next global public health priority. And in their massive 300-page report, which I was privileged to be part of — it's not one thing that can resolve loneliness. It's certainly not just the individual themselves. It's not just the people around them. It's the environment we live in, the policies that we adhere to, the things that affect the way we interact with each other. So we have to partner. This is not a 'you' issue. This is an 'us' issue. And partnering makes it more possible to really address these more systemic issues.

Brent: Yeah. As a developer, and a business like Frasers Property, we build homes — but to us, we're building connection with people, particularly within our masterplanned communities. That has become a really key focus for us since that 2023 timeframe, when we became aware of the issue and got in contact with yourself about Ending Loneliness Together. We're now doing surveys across our neighbourhoods to see how they are connected, and how we can improve those connections. So it's something we're really proud of being a part of. We know it's not just an Australian issue, but a global issue, and it affects people. Yes, there's that financial bill of circa $3 billion per year, but I think the social impact it has, and the lifelong impact it has on us as humans — they can be solved. I think they can be solved by some of these simple steps that you're talking about, Michelle. First of all, acknowledgement — acknowledgement that you're feeling lonely. And probably there's another element: you just don't go up to somebody and say, “Hey, you look lonely.”

Michelle: Yes.

Brent: So some advice there — how do you approach that conversation?

Michelle: Again, because loneliness is still, as of right now, kind of seen as a soft issue, a stigmatised issue — in our 2023 report, one in three Australians that we surveyed actually said they feel ashamed or too embarrassed to talk about loneliness, and another one in two actively conceal their loneliness. So it's really hard.

Brent: So half of us are concealing our loneliness?

Michelle: Exactly. So right now — of course, we have an awareness campaign, but it takes years to shift people's thinking. I want people to think of the word loneliness as very similar to feeling hungry and thirsty, because that's what the science is telling us. If you are hungry, you eat. If you are thirsty, you drink. If you are lonely, you connect. But for some reason, we're reluctant to connect. There's this idea that we have to be independent, we have to be okay, we can't rely on others, we shouldn't be a burden. But if all of us thought like that, then we just become a lonelier place.

Brent: It's just going to snowball.

Michelle: Yes, absolutely. And this is where we're trying to get people to talk about it. First of all, we probably have to meet the community where they're at. If loneliness is still seen as a strange word, then can we use the word connection, and build that over time? We shift that language over time. Asking someone, “Do you want to connect?” might have a different reaction to “Are you lonely?”

The next global public health priority. And in their massive 300-page report, which I was privileged to be part of — it's not one thing that can resolve loneliness. It's certainly not just the individual themselves. It's not just the people around them. It's the environment we live in, the policies that we adhere to, the things that affect the way we interact with each other. So we have to partner. This is not a 'you' issue. This is an 'us' issue. And partnering makes it more possible to really address these more systemic issues.

Brent: Yeah. As a developer, and a business like Frasers Property, we build homes — but to us, we're building connection with people, particularly within our masterplanned communities. That has become a really key focus for us since that 2023 timeframe, when we became aware of the issue and got in contact with yourself about Ending Loneliness Together. We're now doing surveys across our neighbourhoods to see how they are connected, and how we can improve those connections. So it's something we're really proud of being a part of. We know it's not just an Australian issue, but a global issue, and it affects people. Yes, there's that financial bill of circa $3 billion per year, but I think the social impact it has, and the lifelong impact it has on us as humans — they can be solved. I think they can be solved by some of these simple steps that you're talking about, Michelle. First of all, acknowledgement — acknowledgement that you're feeling lonely. And probably there's another element: you just don't go up to somebody and say, “Hey, you look lonely.”

Michelle: Yes.

Brent: So some advice there — how do you approach that conversation?

Michelle: Again, because loneliness is still, as of right now, kind of seen as a soft issue, a stigmatised issue — in our 2023 report, one in three Australians that we surveyed actually said they feel ashamed or too embarrassed to talk about loneliness, and another one in two actively conceal their loneliness. So it's really hard.

Brent: So half of us are concealing our loneliness?

Michelle: Exactly. So right now — of course, we have an awareness campaign, but it takes years to shift people's thinking. I want people to think of the word loneliness as very similar to feeling hungry and thirsty, because that's what the science is telling us. If you are hungry, you eat. If you are thirsty, you drink. If you are lonely, you connect. But for some reason, we're reluctant to connect. There's this idea that we have to be independent, we have to be okay, we can't rely on others, we shouldn't be a burden. But if all of us thought like that, then we just become a lonelier place.

Brent: It's just going to snowball.

Michelle: Yes, absolutely. And this is where we're trying to get people to talk about it. First of all, we probably have to meet the community where they're at. If loneliness is still seen as a strange word, then can we use the word connection, and build that over time? We shift that language over time. Asking someone, “Do you want to connect?” might have a different reaction to “Are you lonely?”

Brent: We ran a 'Say hello' campaign across our communities, and we definitely saw an uptick in the interactions — it really spiked during that period, and hopefully we see that continue organically, and not just be a campaign like RU OK? Day, but a 'Say hello' every day, with all interactions. Just to wrap things up — and I know this has been a really big topic, and there's a lot more we could go through — but just for our listeners, as a summary: for somebody listening today who may recognise themselves as feeling lonely, what's one simple, useful step that you would suggest?

Michelle: I think if someone is listening at the moment and they feel lonely, first of all, remember that they're not alone, and what they're experiencing is just a normal human emotion. But it's also telling you to do something different. So really reflect on what you can do, or what you need — because everyone's different, and has different contexts — and whether they can take very small steps. Break those things down. People often say, “Oh, I'm lonely, so I need a best friend.” No, you don't. Maybe you just need to increase your opportunities to meet someone different. Or it could be an opportunity to focus on one relationship and improve the quality of that relationship. So think about the context in which you sit, because everyone is different, and know that there are little active steps that you can take. There's lots of help, and tips and things like that, that we provide at Ending Loneliness Together. So that's a useful way of learning those little skills.

Brent: I think that's brilliant, Dr. Michelle. I think what you're saying is, you're not alone.

Michelle: No, absolutely.

Brent: You're saying that 50% of us feel this at some point in time. There are some great cues that you can go to Ending Loneliness Together to find out. And some great advice there — but say hello to somebody, reach out to somebody, put your hand up. Don't be afraid to do it.

Michelle: Well, make room for them.

Brent: Make room for them. Yeah, make room for them. I think that's a great way to end our conversation. Thank you for making room for me today. I wish you well with this huge journey beyond our podcasting room today — it's something so important, not just for all Australians, but for society in general. So thank you so much for joining us today, Michelle.

Michelle: Thanks, Brent.

Brent: Thanks for listening to the Live proud podcast, brought to you by Frasers Property Australia, creating stronger, smarter, happier neighbourhoods since 1924. Because pride starts with where you call home, but it grows through community spirit and a sense of belonging that makes life richer every day. Subscribe to hear more conversations that celebrate what it means to live proud.