Finding Comfort in Your Own Company
Hello Coromind readers! Another month, and here I am. How has mind fitness been going for you? Well, I hope. This month, I have a health and wellness topic people either love or hate: How comfortable do you feel being alone? Yes, with yourself.
Now, before proceeding, I want to add this caveat: Sometimes, when we practise being alone with ourselves and our thoughts, we need support from someone trained to help, like a therapist, counsellor, or health care professional. Because the truth is, sometimes the demons in your mind are dark, and to be alone with them could be really scary and triggering. Unfortunately, such is life.
But this won’t be the case for everyone. Some of you who are cringing while reading this will just need to lean into the discomfort of being alone.
If you are someone who likes to spend time with themselves, you still might get something from this article, so read on. And if you belong to the camp that hates the idea of being alone, there will be lots to reflect on. Maybe you don’t think you mind being alone; however, I am hoping this article gives you some food for thought.
Ideally, being alone, spending time in our own company, is based on liking who we are, otherwise it can be a nasty spiral downwards. We have to believe that we are good people and what we are doing in the world is good (‘good’ being a loaded word which is specific to each individual perspective).
To be alone with yourself, you have to enjoy your own company.
Sometimes we can be alone but turn to drinking or smoking or drugs – something to do with the time we have for ourselves or something that helps to numb the discomfort we feel from being alone.
I personally find a heap of other factors that come into play when being alone. “Will people think I don’t have friends or have been rejected from ‘the group’?’’ is the biggest one – the act of how I will be perceived for spending time alone. I also find that more intense in my hometown (here). Absolutely fine to travel the world alone and sit in cafes and restaurants alone, go to festivals alone – but as soon as I am back in the place where people know me, there is a lot more fear.
It’s important to learn to be alone because this whole world is filled with noise, from social media, the news, the people we spend time with. It’s easy to just be a part of it all and not ever really know who we are and what we stand for. Yet these are two of the most important questions we can answer. When we spend time alone, we learn these things without the outside noise of everyone else, and we also learn to trust ourselves more. We have to make our own decisions and we have to live with our own consequences. We stop having excuses to blame others and we learn to take radical responsibility.
Not to confuse loneliness with being alone. Loneliness is being alone and feeling like something is missing. We can go here when we first start to spend time alone if we have spent most of our lives with or around other people. In these moments, it helps to show yourself kindness and gentleness.
If being alone is challenging for you, then I offer this advice: Lean into the discomfort. Start to be aware of when you are filling your time and days with other people. Being by yourself and on your phone doesn’t count as being alone — your phone is distracting you. Try observing the thoughts and feelings coming up, without judging them. Get curious about them. See if there are pockets of your day, or even whole days, that you can spend by yourself. And have fun with it.
I’d love to know your thoughts on being alone. Do you love the idea, or hate it?
You can find me over on Instagram, check out my website or listen to my podcast on Spotify, ‘Curious & Curiouser with Kaitlyn Gooch’.
Words by Kaitlyn Gooch
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