Embrace Your Time Alone

Do you sometimes struggle when you're alone? This talk explains how and why we avoid being alone and what we can do to savor this precious time. Time in solitude allows us to reconnect with our authenticity and empower us to live lives of purpose.

Transcript

So it's actually a culmination of some of the research that I'm doing on solitude.

And it's interesting because I've read a lot about,

And I've even written a lot,

And people will maintain that we are social beings,

And certainly we are.

I mean,

If you've seen the movie Nell,

You'll see the,

You know,

How important social it is to be social.

But there is some importance in solitude.

And so,

Particularly in the age of COVID,

There's so much has been written about,

Okay,

These are the things that you can help alleviate loneliness.

But,

You know,

I talked with some of my friends and they were like,

Yeah,

I'm actually kind of liking being alone because my life is so hectic,

It gave me an opportunity to slow down.

And of course,

This could have to do with my age.

So we'll talk a little bit about some of these things.

And so I'm going to kind of review some of the research that I found,

And then some of the practices as well.

And I'm hoping that my mother isn't going to call me again because my father is lost.

They're in a retirement community and he's wandered off to dinner and my mother doesn't know where he is.

So hopefully we won't get any disturbances there.

So,

Yes,

If you have any questions along the way or any comments,

I welcome them.

So I wanted to start with a quote from James Allen.

He's a British philosopher.

And he writes that,

Man's essential being is inward,

Invisible,

Spiritual,

And as such,

It derives life strength from within,

Not from without.

Outward things are channels through which its energies are expended.

But for renewal,

It must fall back on the inward silence.

And it is interesting because we look for these ways to distract ourselves from this inward silence.

It became intolerable.

So we binged on podcasts and TV shows and even food to replace these social activities or these outward things as James Allen was talking about.

And then,

Of course,

We connected via Zoom and other platforms to kind of forge the sense of community.

And in some cases they were good.

But how much time do we really embrace alone to kind of get to the time that we really embrace alone to experience this renewal that James Allen was talking about?

And so I mentioned before that it's true that we're social beings and we learn and grow from one another.

But sometimes,

You know,

It's important for us to step back and take a solid look and ask ourselves,

How are we changing?

How are we growing?

And is what we're doing working to foster that growth?

And our friends might actually support us and validate us in our current state,

Our current behaviors.

But what if your behaviors are destructive and perhaps you might know they're destructive?

And then what if you are engaged in a community that is might not necessarily destructive but through the competitiveness it kind of drives you to burn out.

So even though you motivate one another,

Maybe you might have this sense of,

I have to keep going in order to maintain this sense of community.

As a runner and a triathlete,

I know these endurance communities are great for motivation but sometimes they push you a little bit further when you're not ready and you feel bad,

You feel like you need to compete in order to stay within that belonging group.

And of course,

If you look back to Leon Festinger who came up with social comparison theory and cognitive dissonance,

He kind of made those same connections that sometimes in order to adhere to a group we actually disengage from our sense of independence.

And also we can experience the opposite.

So even though our friends might be really wonderful,

Sometimes they might be too limiting.

So think about some of your families and maybe some of your friends,

Maybe some of the friends,

Your frenemies,

And some of the communities that might be too demanding and too conforming and we're not recognizing what growth is possible because we're limited by that sense of conformity and conforming to expectations of our groups.

So just as important as it is for us to engage socially,

It's equally important for us to recognize times where we must,

As James Allen writes,

Fall back on that inward silence.

So it's a place we can remind ourselves who we are when nobody's looking.

And so tonight I'm going to talk about what solitude really is and how this false self can interfere and then some barriers to solitude such as loneliness and distraction and then some ways that we can cultivate some time and solitude.

So first of all I wanted to talk about some concepts for clarification.

So first of all we think about loneliness and there are some subtle distinctions.

When you talk about aloneness or just the word alone,

It's actually just described mostly as a physical state.

So that's the physical state of being separated from others.

And then we have alone with technology and so you're physically still alone but using technology you're still connecting with other people.

So even though you might be physically alone you're still texting one another like perhaps what you might be doing right now.

So this is technically alone with technology of course unless you have a bunch of people with you.

So right now you're probably alone with technology so you're still connecting with one another.

And then we have the concept of loneliness which is actually a perceived state,

A psychological state and it's usually negative and it might not have anything to do with physical loneliness.

You could be alone in a relationship.

You could be sitting at a table at a restaurant where you've got a ton of people.

Hold on for a second.

I've got to just like I'm getting these phone calls about my father I'm sure.

So we have this state of feeling disconnected to others.

So imagine people at a restaurant and so imagine being in a restaurant you've got all these people who are connecting with one another through their technology but then you're just sitting there like okay here I'm with a bunch of my friends and everyone else is on their phone and I want to be with them but they want to be with other people.

So you can feel lonely in the presence of others.

So and then we have this state of solitude and so solitude has been defined in different traditions,

Psychology,

Philosophy and spirituality.

But I define loneliness as this sense of connection to others even if you're not with them physically,

Mentally or emotionally.

It's a state of centeredness in yourself alone and you're unaffected.

So this is the important part.

You're unaffected or unattached by the external environment.

So you might be engaging with it but your emotional state isn't affected by whether there's a change in the environment.

And this also includes the opinions and attitudes of others.

And if you're familiar with the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh he writes that solitude means living to have sovereignty over ourselves,

To have freedom that comes not from being dragged away by the past,

Not living in fear of the future and not being pulled around by strong emotions caused by circumstances of the present.

So yeah families yeah so we have this these disconnection with our families lots of times because of our of our connection to our phones.

So ultimately solitude is about living in harmony with your authentic self without reacting from our conditioned patterns.

Okay so let's talk about the self.

So we that seems to be a big buzzword right now particularly like on insight timer.

So we hear about concepts of the self,

The authentic self,

The false self.

In a nutshell the authentic self is the you who you are when you're alone.

It's beyond the labels and so you know whether it's what your community calls you or what you call yourself to the community it's beyond the job and the culture any sort of created labels about you that you put on yourself or that the culture puts on you.

Okay so this is the self that you sit alone with without any devices defining you.

So this authentic self knows all of your secrets that you hide.

So even with technology we know that some people might have might be connecting through their authentic self with other people and it's something that they're hiding from their actual world.

So that's that can be problematic as well.

And obviously what causes suffering is when we our authentic self isn't compatible with a false self and this is the person who we are to others.

Okay and so when we talk about the false self we have these various roles and we adapt to certain attributes or characteristics that adhere to these roles.

So for an example I'm a college professor and I tend to be a lot more commanding and demanding in the classroom and so I have a lot of experience in the classroom.

And so I have to kind of adhere to the expectations of being a college professor in the classroom.

The students expect me to be a certain way and I have to restrain my thoughts and emotions and about particular things.

But obviously I'm a little bit different when I'm outside of the classroom.

So how you behave in your job it's a mask that you put on.

It's not necessarily bad it's just a way that you connect to the to the environment.

But the problem is is when we believe that we're these roles we overly identify with these characters so we basically become these method actors.

So we might have these an authentic self that's kind of like scared inside and afraid to show our true self to society.

So then we believe that this dominant person is ourselves and sometimes what happens is these roles shift.

So for instance we might be overly identified with being a spouse and or in a relationship and so lots of times we don't know who we are if the relationship dissolves.

And so I know I remember talking with this woman and she likes the idea of being married so she stayed in the relationship even though he was emotionally abusive.

But in also in case we might be overly identified with our job and so we have so what happens when our job changes and so we might be a leader at a particular company and if the job changes or something then we lose that feeling of power and identity.

And of course sometimes we believe that we are what we own and so our lives become this big game or we keep score.

So we have to own more and more to keep up with others and this pleasure can be really temporary.

So again I mentioned just briefly this is what we call the false self and we see these various concepts of the false self in psychological,

Philosophical,

Religious,

And spiritual traditions.

And the Upanishads describe this self as this entity clouded in illusion.

You'll hear a lot of that in Buddhists discussions as well the idea that any concept of self is an illusion.

Eckhart Tolle has described this as this pain body that erupts in a moment of conflict.

Debbie Ford she was a psychologist and wrote a book with Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson.

She calls it the shadow and it's so it's a part of yourself that needs healing.

So it's a little different perspective and then Catholic priest Richard Rohr and Thomas Keating use the term false self and how it describes these emotional programs for happiness.

And he says Richard Rohr says that this false self is often a product or an environment and that's similar to what the psychological perspective is.

So it's important that it's not something that you get rid of but more as something you get that you make yourself aware of.

And so because this false self is reactive to our environment it looks to the environment for pleasure and it seizes our senses sometimes and looks for that sensory pleasure.

And ultimately as the Bhagavad Gita says to renounce these selfish desires and sense cravings because they actually torment our heart.

So it's up to us to kind of recognize being aware of how these identities,

How we negotiate with one another and the only way we can really look at that is if we kind of become aware of how we act with others and then we can eventually become a little bit more aware of who our authentic self is.

And it's important for us to remember that our authentic self isn't an ideal self,

It's not your hopes and dreams.

It's just simply just the self and nothing more.

It's basically the person we are when we're not on stage.

So once we become comfortable with our authentic self we can embrace this idea of solitude.

So what are the barriers?

And these are just two barriers that we can take into account.

And these are just two barriers that I've identified even in my own life and I'm sure a lot of people can resonate with these.

Two of the barriers that I'm identifying tonight are loneliness and distraction and they go hand in hand because sometimes we use distraction to cope with our loneliness and we're afraid to give up our distractions because we fear being alone.

Hi Shubhan.

Yeah so let's talk about loneliness and so depending upon what type of study you're looking at loneliness is something that we all feel one time or another and some people say that we're in an epidemic of loneliness and it actually has some visceral quality to it and even some physiological damage to us.

And lots of times people think that loneliness is something that you experience or people feel sorry for people who are older because they tend to be living alone.

But actually if you look at some of these studies there's a British study that came out recently that was saying that people who are older actually have learned to adapt to be alone being alone so they actually experience less loneliness than people in their 20s and actually the sense of loneliness peaks when you're in your 20s.

Actually the age of 20 loneliness does.

And so we all know what loneliness feels like and we find ways to negotiate those moments.

But most of us,

So this is the deep depressing loneliness,

These are those feelings that we are afraid to be alone.

So we cling to relationships because we're afraid to be that way.

I guess Sarah I've always been told to get married.

Yeah I was thankfully yeah yeah.

Yeah so Jax we'll talk about that in a minute as well.

But of course you know we hear a lot of this today we say okay we just want to be heard and so lots of times we feel lonely because we feel like we're the only ones feeling this way but we're actually in great company.

So this is very normal.

But I mentioned before so lots of times if we experience trauma sometimes it's best to see community because loneliness that sudden burn after a sense of loss is very detrimental.

So those aren't the best times for you to try to embrace solitude.

So there's a time when you do seek support groups and such.

But this is just those moments where you it's those pivotal moments where you're feeling lonely that it might be signaling a change.

So that's really where I'm pointing to here.

And of course sometimes we feel lonely because we feel we're missing out on something.

This is what social media tends to exemplify.

But how why we experience loneliness might be unique to you but it's important to just look at why.

And Buddhist nun Pema Chodron talks about this idea of cool loneliness and so she calls it cool because it's detached from emotion.

And so lots of times what happens is we experience loneliness and then we just freeze and so our emotional responses just start taking over.

They start escalating and then you start ruminating on that and that's the default.

Oh my gosh it's gonna and you think oh my gosh it's gonna be like this forever.

But through our practices we step away and we say wait a minute.

And so we allow the logical brain to settle the emotions and kind of say wait a minute here.

So as you know we always have this kind of seesaw of emotional responses and then the logical responses that bring things down and makes you think more logically.

But the certainly during loneliness it induces these panic responses,

This anxiety.

So Pema Chodron says okay it's we try to detach it from emotion,

Really look at these the quality of this and how it fluctuates.

Well welcome,

Welcome for you.

And she writes we can gradually drop our ideas of who we think we ought to be or who we think we want to be or who we think other people think we ought we want to be or ought to be.

So it's all of these these fluctuations of okay I'm alone and I shouldn't be alone because I'm single and I'm going to be single for like this forever and so we just ruminate over this and she's like no just drop those.

So we recognize in those moments of loneliness where false self is is telling you that the current state you're in is wrong.

And it takes a little courage and we'll talk about some of those remedies in a moment.

So we've already mentioned social media and technology already and the devil of destruction.

So lots of times what we do when we don't want to be alone we are afraid to be alone we're afraid to feel lonely is we escape through the senses and so lots of times what we'll do is we will come home and rather than just letting our minds and bodies rest for a moment we just start engaging in social media.

Oh my gosh I got to connect with somebody.

You know just like your body needs a little bit of rest after heavy training so does your mind and so does your spirit.

But lots of times what we do is we we don't take the time to process our emotions and all that all what happens in our day.

So it's important for us to realize how habitual our digital devices are and so lots of times and this is this is something I've struggled with I pick up the phone just before I'm walking the dog so check it out.

So I'm going to be doing a little bit of I pick up the phone just before I'm walking the dog so check the weather what's how warm is it outside and then it becomes okay oh well let me check my mail only check my stocks let me check this and then all of a sudden I'm like why did I pick up my phone oh that's right I wanted to check the weather because my dogs need to go out.

So these are some of the things that I struggle with but I'm sure you struggle in a different way.

Hello Derek.

So we think about how much our digital devices really pull us away and they give us this temptation that you'll never need to be alone because you just have me your friend and but then our digital devices can sometimes hook us into being there longer.

Can someone tell me about about here please.

So we're talking about how we right now we're talking about our digital devices and how we can spend a little bit more time in solitude.

Okay so when you consider so Adam Alter talks about he's a psychologist he talks about in his book Irresistible and he says we easily become addicted to our digital devices and when you and and and when you think about it television years ago you had to wait a week for your next show to come on right so it's like oh I can't wait for the next episode and you had to wait so we learned to wait several years ago but now with streaming we get one episode and oh wow isn't that convenient I don't have to do anything it just kind of lets me watch the next one automatically so it's easy to binge watch.

So technology very rarely as Adam Alter says very rarely has a game over right.

So I don't know how many people you follow on your social media but have you ever reached the end like you're all caught up you know it just keeps going on and on and on and so it doesn't give us a sense of closure even video games you know I used to put my quarter in the pac-man machine and play the game and okay all right so I earned a free game but these days the games can go on for days and Alter actually writes about this guy who is so addicted to a video game he played for 42 days straight and he gained a ton of weight he paid this guy to bring food up to his house yeah a lot of people have some sort of technology addiction and so what happens is these actually disrupt our capacity for solitude because it always gives us an instant fix right so it doesn't let us focus on what's going on in here so instead it's giving us more stimuli to attend to so it's like okay we get bored oh there's something here oh let me check this oh this makes little cool bells and whistles and when you consider you know we never really get addicted to a book right I mean yes you there's one where you can put it down but it's it's very different because the books only really engage in our ability to in our imagination okay versus technology where it's always feeding several senses is usually our ears and our eyes which tend to be very dominant these days so again so the digital distractions really pull us away from processing a lot of our environment mentally but also giving our brains a rest so we can process some of the emotions that we might be overwhelmed with on a daily basis so what do we do to experience solitude and so with distraction we just become aware of our digital habits so for a long time I know that they weren't I know the phone phones were a little reluctant to letting us know how long we've been on our phones and how much screen time we have and now of course you can find out you can get a log or reading each week of how much screen time and of course the screen time really is different so obviously I'm using my screen right now to talk with you all and you are using it as well so honestly if you have a third of your screen time per day on insight timer or some sort of device that's going to help calm you then that's fine so this is uses and gratifications of media that's which is my field of communication but it's really how you use it and how so when you think about some of the videos that you see through TikTok so those overly like and then you're like oh my gosh I've been on this for a long time versus something that might be a puzzle or something that really engages your mind and gets you to be intellectually stimulated most really yeah so I think that's a good so Tia I think that's that's a good thing that's a good thing and even just music so so it's really how you use their devices and this is just just making yourself aware of how often your devices how often you use your device and how often your device uses you that's really important but also being aware of how you respond yeah if yeah if you've ever written there's attention what's his name Tim Wu wrote something attention merchants yeah so yeah so so mainly making sure that that you know when your brain needs to rest so if you know Cal Newport's deep work you know he you know when you have attention for something that's cognitively complex you engage for a certain amount of time and then you do something that's a little bit softer so it's like that work rest sort of thing detach from it a bit yeah so but also be just aware of once you maybe put your phone down like how did that make you feel my niece was telling me she said she had to give up Facebook because it was making her depressed and that took a lot of awareness for someone who's 22.

But you know when you I had to take a break from cable news because it was making me angry so and it's it's a matter of just knowing what presses your buttons and take a moment saying I know this is going to press my buttons so I have to be aware of what presses my buttons and and I think Thich Nhat Hanh said if you have the flu don't take a cold shower you know so if you know that this is something that's going to make you emotionally reactive then just be aware that maybe that's something that you need to maybe takes take a step back not a total detox but maybe just aim for like a 10 percent per day.

Yeah I went on high I even got rid of my New York Times and I said I'm just pausing it I'm not giving it up all together.

And then so the moment you reach for your phone or reach for some sort of idea of distraction like okay I need to stop this just take a moment for 30 seconds just take 30 seconds and say I'm going to separate just 30 seconds so I'm not impulsively grabbing for my digital device so just take a moment of 30 seconds and say okay do I really need this.

And then I don't know I this is something that I had to practice similar to what Kate went through.

I mean I can't remember who else was talking about this but my radio was broken in my car and so I used to have to drive from Alabama to Baltimore with no radio and that gives you a lot of time.

And of course I was processing a very terrible relationship at the time so it you know got my mind to be going but so maybe that's not for you but maybe just during during a drive you know maybe take just a couple of moments at the stoplight turn down the radio and give your mind a little bit of a break.

I see so many people still in this day and age reaching for their cell phone I mean I literally saw somebody driving 70 miles an hour on the interstate with her phone like up here texting I was like okay well.

But just be aware of how you're using your digital devices.

So you train your mind the same way that you train your body and it can be trained to take a pause but it's a matter of catching yourself in that moment so it's not impulsive it's a choice.

So it makes you a lot more aware of how your sensory environment can pull you in different directions because your senses ultimately are supposed to guide you in turn and makes you much more alert and if you're overly stimulated you're not noticing the subtleties of your environment that you should be paying attention to.

So it's allowing you to giving a break for your senses so they serve you rather than you pulling you out of control.

Of course I didn't bring my quote from the Upanishads but the Upanishads talk about the senses being like horses and the horses will steer you in different directions and the mind is like the reins.

And so it's just a matter of just taking the reins over your senses and letting them drive you in the direction that you should be going.

So those are just some techniques and just trying to find those pauses in distractions.

And with loneliness again we can train in being alone.

So I found one study that was talking about when we're alone so it has to do with our agency.

So if we choose to be alone then we don't experience as much loneliness.

So there's this concept of choice and this sense of agency does moderate these feelings.

So this just is taking those short opportunities to be alone where you normally might say okay I can't go here without somebody.

And if it's safe for you then by all means try.

You know I know people who hate to go to the food store alone but maybe just give that a shot,

See what you notice.

And obviously as restrictions begin to lift try going to a restaurant or a gallery alone.

Julia Cameron called this the artist date and it's to get you having your own choice,

Your own agency to be alone.

So you practice what it's like to be in the presence of others but also maintaining your own sense of solitude.

So you have this dialogue with yourself without needing to perform this identity or a role.

And then when you're alone you monitor these fluctuations in your loneliness.

And so you recognize okay well you know what are some of these feelings that I'm feeling?

Why do I feel this subtle anxiety when I'm alone?

So this is when you choose to be alone.

So for people who struggle with loneliness and distraction so yeah it's I'm sure it's hard when you leave your family.

Of course my family is two hours away and they're still calling me.

So for people who kind of experience both loneliness,

Periodic loneliness and this temptation to alleviate that loneliness through a digital distraction,

The research is really really overwhelming about practicing mindfulness because mindfulness and obviously that's part of the umbrella term there's mindfulness and meditation all these different practices.

But any practice that gets you to control your attention control your attention so focus,

Regulate your emotions so be aware of your emotions but don't so accept accepting of the emotion so not practicing this okay I have to feel this way to say I feel this way and I have felt this way before.

And then this idea of self-awareness what is it I'm feeling?

And so I was just reading in this article about how the idea of acceptance of loneliness really does help in in terms of the acceptance and the monitoring of these feelings really help in alleviating the sense of loneliness.

So yeah and I think that's a healthy thing Steffi finding that balance between knowing when you need to be alone and when is a time to be with community.

So yeah Michelle that's so that is moving on to my next help in terms of finding some solitude and alleviating these feelings of loneliness is taking those mindfulness walks so this is a little different from the attention control emotional regulation so we do pay attention but sometimes what happens when you are alone is your emotions hijack you and then you go and running as well so I was reading this this thing on running and walking meditations but it's a matter of just noticing what the environment is giving you so it's either recognize so you either do the body awareness so recognize with your feet or doing your legs your hips your shoulders and your breath or it's noticing the nature because we know that nature is very very healing so so that's why you see a lot of people engaged in forest breathing forest breathing forest bathing because there is this there's the smells the sights the feelings and everything that connect you with nature that recognize that you aren't alone so so that connection to nature but some people you know might not have that available but in some cases mindfulness is a matter of just recognizing this is a tree and so if you're really upset over something you can process but but if you know that you're going to hijack it or that's going to hijack you sometimes it's a matter of you recognizing okay that's a tree and don't say well that tree is bigger than that tree just say this is a tree and then you see the bird and you say okay this is a bird and you don't say well that looks like the bird that i saw last week is that the same bird and then we re let the thoughts go so you practice in just noticing what's your environment and notice how much you your mind will run off and begin to label and categorize everything so if you can catch yourself so if you notice okay dog snoring and oh she's snoring last and then you start ruminating over that so overly processing things you just say dog snoring what am i noticing now i'm noticing my foot falling asleep so just noticing those different change in the environment notice that the passing the coming and the going of things and then eventually you become much more aware of your emotions and then you say okay what is this feeling right now and you kind of say okay this this feels a little bit like loneliness and well where am i feeling that loneliness and you maybe feel it here maybe feel it here and then you recognize the different fluctuations in that so so those are the parts of the self-awareness and the recognition and the the acceptance and then finally so lots of times so so we talked about distractions we talked about loneliness so how do we fold all this together and really look at those patterns those conditioned patterns of the false self that sometimes so yeah so if depression depression is is similar to loneliness and they're they're kind of they kind of come together and sometimes with with a little bit of therapy that that helps as well so so depression is not something that you take trifle you know it's not something you trifle with that that can be something very very a symptom of something much deeper that needs healing from a professional but sometimes rachel and sometimes for other people sometimes just these patterns of awareness and recognition and noticing and accepting can arrive if we just write write things down and so i know natalie goldberg and julia cameron they they're writing instructors and they will advocate writing 30 minutes of day three notebook pages and that allows you to kind of let your emotions go let you feel emotions for what they are and but it gives you that 30 minutes of emotional release and then eventually you go to the next level of loneliness and then you go how do i so so some people experience loneliness out of an attachment so it's an attachment to the false self yeah so sometimes what happens with loneliness is people are attached to a particular idea that they're trying to do and they're trying to do it in a way that they feel like they should be doing rather than this is who i am so that's where those those subtleties where they're different so so yeah so writing can be really really helpful and this is because lots of times what happens is you have this person who says this is how you should be versus when you write everything down and you and it doesn't have to be good writing it doesn't have to start with well today i did this it can start with i hate him um or i'm so frustrated so you just write everything down but you don't share it you make sure that no one can have the access to this um so make sure that it's protected so no one um yeah so so if i currently only if someone i currently only if someone else reads it which is not yeah so um so so so writing things down in a journal really allows you to have that emotional release in a safe place um and also because you're focusing so i mean it actually takes a process to write something down you are practicing in a sense some concentration which helps the logical brain so the emotions are just kind of running rampant but then the logical brain kind of comes down and says wait a minute um and so it's so it's hard to be this false self when you know when else no one else is reading it um and then sometimes what happens is you take these pages you know a few weeks later or even after the eruption is dissipated um you've had times your emotion got you more emotionally upset okay um so sometimes it's a matter of so sometimes what happens is so if it gets you more emotionally upsets um you so this is this is where you might be directed to another another means if you know that that makes you more emotionally upset than you find yeah but it but it's important to really be aware of your feelings know what those feelings are and and validate them so lots of times we we feel that they're not validated um and and and that's that's when it's really good to have a professional to kind of so you get everything out and then and then you're able to when you meet with a professional you can talk about some of these things so you don't want maybe not share everything but just so at least you you you're able to capture everything in its rawness um and and then eventually there's some clarity um so yeah um so yeah we can drown a lot and and and those those feelings are pretty heavy um and like i said and i'm not saying that um for someone who's depressed that mindfulness and meditation and and all these different things are your only remedy um lots of times um for for depression it it comes in conjunction with other things so this is something so this is not someone who is clinically depressed these are people who are um feeling um there's pangs of loneliness due to some attachments whether it's through distraction but it but distraction might work but it but you have to be careful that it's not that you're not escaping what's what's deep down inside because deep down there's a wound and a rawness that needs to be healed um so that's where that's the that's sometimes what happens when you're not healed um so that's where that's the that's sometimes what happens when when you push those things under the rug um they might not exposing the wound sometimes allows it to heal but um so that can because then because then you become closed off and then it erupts much more um pronounced a little bit later um yeah so yeah so it's validating the feelings um and recognizing that yes you do have them and but but uh but then know that these feelings will they actually have um amplitude there's there's different there's there's escalations and and recognizing being aware yeah yeah so just being aware of when those patterns start to escalate and when they tend to dissipate so um so um so again so solitude is something that so tip not han was saying that solitude is basically having sovereignty over yourself and so kind of recognizing those emotions and harness not harnessing them but just recognizing them and knowing yourself knowing those patterns and it's having those cur that courage to face your fears and these attachments and really being aware um and and just being aware of these identities and so you know where there's where there's patterns of discomfort that i'm feeling and those discomforts those little icks or might be a pattern or might be a a path that that needs to be investigated because that might be where that needs to be investigated because that might be where you're called to grow um and so so so recognizing those patterns and um recognizing why we fear being alone so again if it's depression then then it's something that we can investigate with a with a professional but sometimes um it's a matter of okay what is it that i'm attached to or what is it that that i feel i ought to be doing that my false self is saying that this is not right so your false self wants to say that this what you're feeling is not um supposed to so it gets you not to accept the present moment to what it is thank you racquel um and so i'll end this with the same way that i started um so he who courts solitude in order to search for the truth of things who subdues his senses and makes quiet his desires such a man is daily attaining knowledge and wisdom he becomes filled with the spirit of truth he can aid the world for his spiritual store is full and is kept kept well replenished

Reviews

Interesting, thank you.