Many years ago, I used to not stand spending even a minute alone: I was always hanging out with friends, studying or working in groups, binge watching tv shows, completely immersing myself in a constant stream of stimulus coming from the external world. I even used to judge people who had lunch alone or sit alone by the beach thinking to myself “There must be something wrong with their social lives”.
Today, I often have lunch alone, sit alone by the beach, and choose to spend large chunks of time in solitude. I have embarked on a voyage from extroversion to introversion, and all I can say is this: Spending time with yourself is at least as important and as fulfilling as spending time with other people.
But before we dive into the benefits and value of Solitude, let’s first examine why so many of us do not generally prefer to spend time alone. So why do we avoid Solitude?
Why we don’t want to spend time alone
1. The Need to Connect with Others
There is no doubt that we as humans are social creatures, and connecting and building bonds with each other is built-in into us (partly because it’s how our ancestors were able to survive and thrive in harsh environments).
However, when taking to the extreme, this drive to connect can take hold of our lives and completely prevents us from spending time alone. In fact, if we are consistently rewarded by feeling cheerful when bonding with others, then we will feel less and less inclined to spend time by ourselves.
Because why replace a winning team, right?
2. Social Conditioning
From since we set foot on this planet, we are presented with an infinite amount of information that shape our believes, values, and behaviors.
Unless we become more self-aware, we will be conditioned by this first set of ideas and values we received and never break free from it.
One of these ideas is that fulfillment in life can only come from interpersonal relationships. Whether it is a soul-mate, a partner, a close friend, the only path to our salvation lies in building close and deep relationships.
Obviously, if we think whether consciously or not that the only source of meaning and happiness in one’s lives consists in interpersonal relationships, we will then spend most of our time on Earth seeking and building relationships with other peers and come to see the opposite (spending time alone) as meaningless, boring, or even depressing.
3. Running Away from Ourselves
One final reason why we might be reluctant to spending time alone and a very common one is that we are simply running away from ourselves, and being alone would mean to face ourselves and to stop running.
In other words, if we spend our lives avoiding and ignoring our problems, constantly seeking distractions and pleasures, then we will also avoid solitude at all costs.
Because Solitude would put us on the spot, it would bring back all these thoughts and emotions that we tried so hard to suppress. Solitude would remind us that we are more than we what we have become, that we have ignored ourselves for far too long, the good and the bad stuff.
It would incite us to take a step back and think about ourselves. And of course, when we are running away from ourselves, this is the last thing we want to do.
3 Key Benefits to Solitude
Giving all these reasons, why bother with Solitude then?
After all, avoiding solitude is both in our genes and in our culture – isn’t that already a good indication that we shouldn’t pursue it?
Of course not.
First of all, your genes and your culture shouldn’t tell you what’s right and wrong, you should tell that to yourself after thinking it through.
Second, yes, we should bother with Solitude, because in the same way that connecting with other folks is great, connecting with ourselves is just as important and can be good for us in a variety of ways.
1. Solitude Makes Healthier Relationships
This may sound counterproductive, but Solitude can help you build healthier and stronger relationships with the people you care about.
If you are comfortable being alone, then your motivations for connecting with other people would be more genuine and authentic then if you were avoiding being alone.
Your reasons for seeking to spend time with someone would not include the fact that you don’t like being alone. You would be connecting with them out of pure appreciation for their company, because of something positive you are seeking, and not because of something negative you want to avoid.
You would be acting from a place of abundance, where you are already whole and comfortable on your own, and hence your drive towards others will come from a Desire and not as a result of a Need.
You do not engage in a relationship to fix the negative things you want to avoid in your life – that’s your job and responsibility to deal with at the first place. So for example if you have a problem with being alone, then just deal with it, and don’t let anything outside of you be a solution for a problem inside of you. Not only are you empowering yourself by fixing your own problems, but also such an external solution simply does not exist.
You engage in a relationship instead because you want to bring the best in you to the table and build something meaningful and beautiful out of a common life project with someone.
Because that’s what healthy relationships look like: A strive towards a positive direction while acting from a place of abundance, and not an attempt to cover something negative while coming from a place of lack.
And if you are comfortable in Solitude, then you are less likely to be in a relationship for the wrong reasons.
2. Solitude Improves Your Psychological Health & Resilience
Solitude makes you stronger and more resilient when confronted with life hardships because it gives you a safe and restorative anchor within yourself that you can always return to.
If you get to the point where you are comfortable by yourself, then you have at least one source of meaning in your life that is completely under your control. If you feel in peace when you are alone, everything you are relying on to reach that state is within you, without depending on anything or anyone else outside of you. This makes that anchor unshakable, however strong the winds and the waves are.
Whereas a typical person with loose roots would be more reluctant to navigate the oceans because he’s afraid of the winds destroying his ship, you will feel more inclined to go out there and explore, take risks, get hurt, recover, learn, and try again.
You are more resilient and courageous when facing the world, because you know deep inside of you, that whatever happens, you will always have a strong ally within you along the way.
An ally that you’ve gained through mastering yourself and practicing the art of Solitude.
Nothing can stop you anymore: You go out there, sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you don’t and you get hurt, you return to yourself to heal, and you go out again.
Solitude gives you a strong unshakable base where you can build and fuel your rockets and launch these babies into space.
3. Solitude is the Pathway to Excellence & Self-Realization
How are you going to paint the artwork you always wanted to paint, to write the book you always wanted to write, to create the next Mozart piece, to start that meaningful project of yours you have always dreamed about starting, if you are not going to spend a great deal of time in Solitude?
Obviously, it is not going to happen while you are working on your day job, hanging out with friends, and binge watching TV.
Unless you consciously choose to devote regular periods of time alone at your desk focusing on your personally meaningful projects, your dreams are simply going to stay just that, dreams.
So get good at being alone, because it’s necessary condition to realizing your full potential as a human being and striving towards excellence.
When you are comfortable in Solitude, you can focus all of your energy on working hard on your aspirations. You don’t get bored or look for distractions, you just sit there and do your work. There is no room for anything else.
Striving towards realizing your inner potentialities also means that you will achieve excellence in whatever you choose to do because your vision and dreams are what drives you to become excellent at your work. In fact, your vision and dreams are the only real motivators behind true excellence, because why would you become excellent at something you don’t care about?
Simply put, If you aim to become who you truly are and achieve excellence in what you do, then being in great company when you are alone is a check-mark that you have to tick.
How to Slay the Monsters at the Gateway of Solitude
I know what you are thinking.
“This is all very fancy on paper, and I can see how periods of Solitude could actually be good for me. But from where do I start, and how do I actually not get bored in practice if I want to spend time alone?” you might ask.
Okay, even if you weren’t thinking about this, now you hopefully do. Because Wayne Dyer might have an answer for you:
“You cannot be lonely if you like the person you are alone with”
W. Dyer
Does this ring a bell?
Have you ever wondered, that maybe if you were in peace with yourself, if you were able to love the person that you are, then you wouldn’t mind being alone with that person?
Not just that, but maybe if you loved yourself, then you would actually appreciate and enjoy spending time by yourself? Wouldn’t that be great?
But then, how do you love yourself? Do you just say “I love you” even if you don’t believe it?
Who is the “You” that you are trying to love? Is it the “You” that you are or the “You” that you want to become? And do you even know both these “You” to start with?
So many questions, right?
Obviously, you can’t love something if you don’t know it in the first place. So if you want to get comfortable at being alone, spend some time getting to know yourself first. Find out about what’s at the core of your identity, what your values are and what you do care about.
Maybe at that point you’ll find out that there is a big gap between your current self (who you are right now and what you do) and your authentic self (what you really care about and what you want to become).
And maybe, once you start on the path of aligning your life and what you do with your values, you will finally have at least one reason to be proud of yourself and to love yourself.
At that time, when you have given yourself a legitimate reason to like the person you are alone with, when you are comfortable with the person you are becoming, Solitude will no longer be something that you need to avoid. You don’t really think or care about it anymore. You are totally fine with it, and you even start to appreciate it because of its numerous benefits.
You put yourself on a self-realization track that has always been waiting for you.
You start getting comfortable in your own skin, in peace with your thoughts and emotions. You have mastered your inner world and you no longer feel an urge to fill a void when you are alone, because simply there is no void to fill.
That’s when you will have slayed the monsters at the gateway of Solitude, and the path towards new ways of being becomes wide open.
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Bravo pour cet article, votre travail me plaît beaucoup et je suis très content de l avoir lu.