Spend Time With Yourself
Being by yourself isn’t lonely if you chose to spend time with YOU
Find yourself — spend time alone
Being alone isn’t the same thing as being lonely - in fact, we can be lonely surrounded by a crowd of people. Heck, there are times I’ve even felt lonely (unheard, unseen, unloved) in a group of friends or with my family.
Being alone means that you have chosen to spend quality time with the most important person in the world - YOU.
Interestingly, I find that when I choose to spend time with myself on a regular basis, I no longer feel lonely. Instead, I become in-tune to the beauty of nature, I reconnect with my creativity, am less judgmental of my body, I bubble with confidence and feel more ready to take on the world.
Maybe you’re an introvert and already spend lots of quality time with yourself. However, most of us - especially extroverts and especially in the Western World - are afraid of being alone. We’re afraid of boredom, embarrassed of what being by-ourself might look like to other people, we hold guilt about lack of productivity and fear we are wasting time.
These fears are common and are somewhat based in our deep desire to belong and to make sense of how we fit into our society. But somewhere along the line, we developed a skewed view - that we have to be in the midst of a group in order to belong to a group. That we have to be busy in order to be productive. That we have to consume information, and other people’s ideas, in order to be informed. That sitting by-ourself and staring into space is somehow odd, antisocial, or like a huge sign saying ‘I’m lonely’.
And so we fill any chance we have of being by-ourself with social media, news, videos, TV, plugged in to music or our devices - and rely on these external props to tell us what to think and believe. We hope they’ll make us feel less lonely. But all too often we end up feeling even more isolated - because we’ve become observers, rather than participators.
Words matter
Instead of thinking of solitude as being BY yourself, think about solitude as spending time WITH yourself.
The beauty of spending time with yourself is that you get to go where you want, not just physically but also in your mind. And solitude has so many joyful benefits! Taking time to live in your own head will not only help you relax, and recharge, it will also help you recalibrate your emotions, boost your creativity, and open your eyes to the beauty in the world around you.
Seek Beauty • Create Joy™ - an on-line Workshop coming soon!
Want more Joy in your life?
(Who doesn’t?!)
Look for lessons and powerful, joy-filled exercises in my upcoming on-line workshop: Seek Beauty • Create Joy! I’m SO excited to share this class with you and will be sending out registration details in April.