Table for one, thanks
Tip #17 - go do something alone
This post is part of a series I’m writing from mid-June to mid-November 2024, on things that helped me rebuild my confidence, sense of self, and increased my delight in my life after massive difficulty in multiple areas. For full details and post links to all 110 things, go to this post here.
Tip #17 - go do something alone
Let’s practice some solitude yeah?
Being alone is something I’m used to.
While it’s true being alone and the only person I’m responsible for in the immediate realm of time is something I didn’t know until my kids spent the summers with their dad, the type of solitude I’m talking about is something I did have experience with.
Like internal solitude, spending time with my own brain, etc.
It just has been part of my life since forever that I could remember - knowing that I was going to be and was alone a lot and thus needed to entertain myself and be my own company.
When things are tough this really sucks.
Being alone mentally and alone in my space and home when the kids aren’t here sucks big time. Those first few visits were incredibly challenging.
It still is, but as time has moved along (as it relentlessly does) I have become better company for my own self.
I like myself better since I’ve started healing things and done some of the things to care for myself like a real person ought to (also working on that), and so being alone isn’t something I struggle with much at all anymore.
Where I do struggle sometimes is getting used to the presence of another and then having them leave or them not be there anymore.
Like it takes a minute once my kids go visit their dad for the brain power and mom sense of awareness that’s on 24/7 to realize it can chill a little - there’s just me again.
Being alone, spending time on your own, I feel is incredibly important.
You’re the only one you’ve got 1000% and the only one who’s got you 1000%.
You came into this world just as yourself and you’re the only one that’s going with you to whatever happens next.
Getting to know and cultivate a comfort with your own presence and not a constant anxious feeling to get out of and away from your own company is really important and really helpful.
This is how you have peace to hear yourself and your positive and negative impressions, how you give space to your body responding to boundaries and pleasures, how you can trust yourself to be growing and knowing and to have the gut intuition to improve your situations, to heal your traumas, to forgive yourself, to have the radical intense honesty you need in order to forgive, accept and do better with awareness, it’s all important and can be improved by practice of being alone.
I’m suggesting today that you go do something on your own in order to cultivate this relationship with yourself.
What’s something you usually go do with other people - try that on your own.
Go to a bar alone and try a new drink, listen to the people there, interact with the bartender or the people next to you, be genuine in what you think, give yourself time to form an opinion about what you’re eating, drinking, the vibe of the place, without the impressions and expectations to meet of whoever you usually do things like this with.
I love going to the movies alone - I’m not worried about managing if someone else is having a good time, how much attention I’m paying to the friend vs the movie, and can be fully immersed in the experience I want to have.
Go to the beach and explore a little town on your own.
Wander a farmers marker and look at things.
Browse a bookstore and see what calls to you when you’re not impressed by others to pick something up.
Go find some grass and sit on it.
Starfish yourself out on your floor and just breathe.
Being able to be alone is a strength.
Practice being alone so you can generate discipline, your own dopamine, and see what, when you’re alone, you are able to lose yourself in doing.
That will give you clues about other things that might be helpful for your life, on this healing path.
Be alone so you can feel peace, know it better, and then be determined to keep it.
Take yourself to dinner.
Think about all the things you like about yourself.
Think about all the reasons you’re a sick friend, a dope partner, an attentive and caring lover and a good interesting worker.
You’re a cool person worth spending time with - that goes for you and yourself too.
Ilysm, xx - Marian