Holly and Tessa – a journey through season two of the podcast

Written by Sophie Jackson
January 2024

Holly spent her late teens and early twenties bed-ridden with illness. After recovering, she found herself feeling lonely and isolated.

Tessa Blencowe is a counsellor and author who has worked with loneliness in Australia and the UK,  and the founder of the international exhibition, Lonely Together.

They were paired up as mentor and mentee as part of the We Are Lonely podcast. They shared what they learned and what they loved about their journey together.

Holly

I wanted to do the podcast because I liked the idea of being able to understand loneliness better, and I wanted some skills to make it less prevalent in my life.  I also liked the idea of being able to use my experience to help normalise it a bit for other people.

When it started, I sort of saw loneliness as an external thing, and something I didn't really have control over because it relied on other people wanting to hang out with me. That actually wasn't what was going on for me. Yes, it had played a role in it, but I was really lonely because I didn't know myself.

It's like putting on your oxygen mask first. You sort of have to do that before you can even look to interact with other people.

The first time I met Tessa, it was like I'd known her for ages. I just felt so comfortable with her.

For a while, I feel like I was still showing more palatable parts of myself. I think you become conditioned to do that in general with people, especially when you're lonely. I realised that the more I became comfortable in being the most authentic version of myself, the stronger our connection got. I was showing up as that true version of me, flaws and all.

I’ve learnt that there are people in my life who see strength in me. I can take that and then interact with other people and be OK if it doesn't turn into a friendship.

Knowing myself and actually being ok with who I am has been huge. If I can accept myself, then I think that I can allow other people to do the same.

As I say in the podcast, I went to a yoga retreat and I didn’t make any friends. And that’s ok. That’s actually great!

Tessa

I wanted to do the podcast because loneliness is such a universal experience. I think we all can speak to, or know the feeling in some way, shape or form. And yet there's just so much shame surrounding it. For me the goal is to raise awareness and shift that stigma.

The first time I met Holly, I think our connection was pretty instant. But it just got stronger.

I just think that she's an incredible human. I think she's got a lot of compassion and wisdom to give to the world, and it's so cool to have been able to witness and be part of that.

It wasn’t surprising, but it was a reminder of how much shared vulnerability actually fuels connection. Even though we were talking about times in our lives where we both felt really alone, I always left each and every interaction with Holly feeling deeply connected. I actually think that's where the magic is and something that I definitely take away with me.

Loneliness is inevitable in lots of ways. There are lots of bad or sad things that happen in our lives – it's just part of life. But what we can do is work on how we can equip ourselves for them. And that's what we need to do to look after ourselves when we experience something like loneliness.

It's really about helping people to feel like they have everything inside them already to be able to navigate it, which they do. I believe fundamentally, we all do.

Follow Holly and Tessa’s journey on the We Are Lonely podcast. Brought to you by Medibank as part of our 10-year commitment to address loneliness, the podcast follows four 20-somethings in their search for connection. It aims to shine a light on loneliness, while presenting practical strategies to reconnect.