The power of solitude
5 Reasons to Embrace Solitude and Enjoy Your Alone Time
Solitude is just as important as socializing
Solitude vs Loneliness
Humans are social beings and the thought of being alone can be scary, but there is power in intentional solitude. Sometimes life separates us from the pack during spiritual awakenings and dark nights of the soul, and sometimes we feel the need for solitude and we do it intentionally. Solitude — no matter why we go into it — can be beneficial for the soul’s evolution.
Being in solitude doesn’t necessarily equal loneliness. Some things in life we need to go through alone, and these are the things that make us stronger, wiser, and smarter. And for a few of us, we are meant to go through the most part of our lives alone in order to focus on the work we came here to do.
Solitude is empowering, and loneliness is disempowering.
Loneliness is the negative feeling we feel when we feel that something is missing, and we crave another human to fill that void. Solitude is being alone without that lonely feeling. Solitude is the place we go to find the missing piece. The missing piece is never external to ourselves. It’s within us. Solitude is isolating yourself to connect with your ‘self’ and having your ‘self’ for company.
When you are lonely, you wish for social interaction. When you are in solitude you are enjoying being alone with yourself and getting to know yourself on a much deeper level with no outside distractions.
The Power of Solitude
1. Solitude enhances your intuition
It’s hard to hear your intuition when there are distractions all around you. When you are alone with nothing but you and your thoughts, you’ll notice that your intuition is becoming stronger. In solitude, you notice these intuitive gut feelings and you learn to hear and trust them. Solitude is an opportunity to re-center yourself, go inward, and view life from a more personal and intuitive perspective. Life and other people can taint your view of reality and weaken your intuition.
When we find ourselves alone, we can think deeply and hear our souls speak, and that's when we come up with brilliant ideas and solutions.
2. Solitude helps us better understand ourselves
Being alone with yourself helps you learn who you really are. It forces you to go deep within yourself to find the true meaning of life. Solitude helps you notice more and more of your own habits and thought patterns, and it helps you identify which of those patterns are destructive. When we are alone with ourselves, our darker thoughts rise to the surface and we are forced to confront them. There are no outside forces to influence what we do, the way we think, and the decisions we make. We get a chance to be ourselves without judgment from others.
Being alone allows you to focus on the self through self-awareness, self-discovery, self-help, self-understanding, self-love, self-care, self-exploration, self-transformation, and self-mastery.
3. Solitude makes you creative and productive
It’s hard to find clarity when you are surrounded by the chaos of everyday life. Solitude brings that clarity back. The mind is sharper and clearer when we are alone with ourselves without distractions, interruptions, and outside influences. Solitude gives you the chance to close the door on the outside and put your focus inside of yourself, which brings to the front your creative powers. We get to be original in solitude, which engages the creative mind. Many successful artists and authors know this and, therefore, go away to secluded places to produce their best work. They know that solitude is the secret to invention and discovery.
The best of ideas are born when we find ourselves alone in our thoughts.
4. Solitude helps you become self-reliant
When you’re in solitude, all you have is yourself, so you learn to trust and rely on yourself. You learn to think for yourself, do things for yourself, and come up with solutions to problems and challenges. You also learn to make important decisions on your own.
The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude― Aldous Huxley
5. Solitude makes your relationships with others better
When we spend time alone with ourselves, we gain a better understanding of ourselves. When we gain a better understanding of ourselves, we also gain a better understanding of others. In solitude, you learn who you are and you understand why you do the things you do, and once you know who you are, you can better appreciate your relationships with others.
You understand others better when you understand yourself.
Final Thoughts
Going away to the woods or a faraway place is not a luxury everyone can afford but we can all afford 10 minutes alone from the world to be with ourselves in meditation, prayer or simply doing nothing and observing the world around us.
When we've always found ourselves surrounded by others, the thought of being alone may seem impossible, but being alone with ourselves is something we can learn to enjoy and look forward to once you experience the benefits and the joy it can bring.