When was the last time you had the opportunity to be alone, enjoying only your company and the universe around you?
Many people find that being alone is depressing or sad, but quite the opposite. The secret to being happier may be to isolate ourselves a little.
Check out a few motives that will make you understand the reason why so many people seek out a “real world” escape and find their answers in silence.
1. Listening to your thoughts and knowing yourself
You are the protagonist of your life and, more than anyone else, you must understand the “gears” of yourself.
But in the day-to-day running of business and family obligations, we are unable to focus on ourselves. The whirlwind of “voices” that surround our thoughts prevents us from being able to hear the most important “cry” of all: ours.
Allow yourself to be alone, even for a few hours a week, and think, reflect, and listen to what YOUR heart is telling you about how you should go about YOUR life. Find out what makes you happy and what makes you sad, and try to find what is essential to your peace.
Man has many skins in himself that cover the depths of his heart. Man knows so many things, but he does not know himself. Now thirty or forty hides or leathers, entirely like an ox or a bear, which are equally thick and hard, cover the soul. Enter your own foundation and learn to know yourself there.
Meister Eckhart
2. Learn to be alone without feeling lonely
We are social beings and we would not be able to survive if it were not in a community, that’s for sure. But by spending so much time with others we end up forgetting one very important detail about life: we are all alone together.
But, it does not mean that by being alone we should feel lonely. It’s two different things and you need to understand that.
We must enjoy the company of the one person who will never abandon us: ourselves. Learn to enjoy the important moments and live life with joy even when your friends and family, for whatever reason, are not around.
3. Learn to accept and love the person you are.
The more time you spend with yourself, the more you discover who you are and therefore (believe it or not) by learning to accept your imperfections and mistakes.
No one is perfect, so why should you punish yourself for faults? Reflect on it and know how to recognize it better than anyone else.
The first step to change is acceptance. Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That’s all you have to do. Change is not something you do, it is something that you allow.
Will Garcia
4. You are greater than all your problems
It’s great to have friends and family who are by your side to face the heavy bars of life with you. But every once in a while a barrier arises that can only be overthrown by you and no one else.
When we are alone with ourselves and reflect on who we are, we open some doors that we did not even know we kept inside ourselves, like the one that leads us to courage, wisdom, power, and determination.
When we find the paths that lead us to these forces (which are “hidden” within us all) there will be no problem that will make you want to give up, because from now on you know that you can overcome any challenge that life proposes!
5. Discovering the Power and Value of Silence
Have you ever experienced being in complete silence? In a place where the only sound you can hear is your breath and the beating of your heart?
If not yet, then come on, make this experience! Focus only on the air entering your lungs and clear your mind of all the “mental noises” that may disturb your deep relaxation.
You will find that silence is a wonderful teacher. In the intervals of each breath, he will “sigh” to your ear the answers to many questions that you, in the rush of your day-to-day, cannot find.
6. Learning to have self-respect
Many of us are stuck with the labels and validations that other people give us. And so, in many cases, we end up suppressing who we really are, leaving aside our own abilities and personality, just because it does not please a particular person.
If you identify with the above description, then another important lesson that silence and “solitude” can teach you is to create and value self-respect.
For starters, who said you need to beg for someone’s approval to do what makes you happy?
If you are living a toxic relationship, then be aware of all the consequences that this type of relationship can cause. Remember: we live only once, are you enjoying your life?
7. Learn to let go
One of the hardest things is knowing how to say goodbye to what we love. This is why we are accustomed to relate love to “possession”, that is, we always want to have at our side what we love.
But, as we reflect on life, we learn that “love” is the antonym of “possessing.” Love is in freedom, and when it is true, no matter if it is near you or on the other side of the world, the force of feeling will remain the same.