The Power of Solitude

Spending time by ourselves is the key to digging deep to uncover who we really are and what makes us tick. The most beautiful relationship anyone can ever have is the relationship you have with yourself.

There’s a secret, and the secret is that solitude has power in it – when we choose it.

Loneliness is the poverty of self.  While solitude is the richness of self.

“To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul. To do this, you need to experience solitude, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence, you hear the truth and know the solutions.”

Deepak Chopra

If there is one thing I know, it is that many people cannot truly be alone.  There are people, young and old, that remain in less than settling situations – whether with family, or loved ones, because they are afraid of being alone. Some of those people may justify being in those toxic situations simply out of fear of being alone:

“I have to be around people… I can’t be by myself.”

“I’m not a people person but I have to be with someone. Anyone.”

In reality, the truth is clear – it is not better to be in a toxic relationship than it is to be single.  Loneliness is a conditional state. it is not the same as being alone. Being alone is the only truth in existence and there is actually great power in it.

Fear of being alone is a reason that many people don’t leave their bad relationship – mostly because the toxic person tells you that you will be alone forever if you leave. The idea of being alone is not easy, especially when you feel like you don’t have the support system of close friends.

In a toxic relationship, you are ALONE emotionally.

The power of solitude

Most people hate being alone – that’s pretty much a human trait. If you look at the layout of the cubicles at work, or the desks in any school – whether elementary, secondary or college, you’ll see that everything is fashioned into groups. In our personal lives, we are connected to the world via every social media platform imaginable – Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, Snapchat, and more.

We can’t possibly separate from each other. To not be “in” the social media circle is awkward – right? Humans are social creatures, and our brains crave deep relationships and socialization. This is not part of our psychology – it is a feature. We live in a time when we’re looked insincere for not wanting to post our lives on every social media platform in exchange for a life of introspect, privacy, and inward thought.

What we don’t realize, however, is that loneliness is an experience – a personal feeling, and it can appear either when we are alone or when we are surrounded by people. When I was married, I was lonely. Certainly, I was married, on paper, to someone. But that is where it ended. I felt alone, lonely, unseen, invalidated, unheard. 

Fast forward – several years later. I am now in solitude. I am alone, but I don’t feel lonely. It’s empowering and positive. My own company is everything I need. My mind is fully engaged with thoughts and activities.

Even better, nobody is there to grab my attention, and my mind is free from the constant barrage of society and culture. As a result, I feel a massive amount of productivity, my creativity has soared, and the quality of my life has risen – for the first time in years, I feel like I can actually connect with myself on a deep level. I don’t need external validators to run my life show, or tell me how I should feel about myself at any point in time.

Mindfulness cultivates beneficial solitude

Solitude has its psychological and physiological perks. If you can cultivate your ability to be OK with being alone, you may come to appreciate that you can create all the conditions you need to be content with yourself and also with your life.

When you zero your attention on a single focus – your breath, for example, the body and nervous system winds down from operating in a ridiculously high state. Without that cortisol and adrenaline pumping us into high alert, our body has much better conditions to help us relax. We are now in a more peaceful state – we can live in the moment. We can experience life, as it is, at that particular time. We can let go – of all the fears that are associated with being alone.

It is only then, when we realize that we can be OK with being alone.

We can create all the conditions we need to be content with ourselves and our life.

Under the right circumstances, choosing solitude can have a huge psychological boom to our lives. By taking the time to explore our solitude, we are forced to confront who we really are. We might just learn a little bit about how to out-maneuver the toxicity that surrounds us.

In other words, when we move ourselves from the social context of our lives, we can better see how our lives are shaped by that context. We cannot see things in perspective until we shed that which surrounds us and truly focus inward.