Many people are afraid of being alone, maybe even yourself. It feels natural since we are social animals. But it seems to be causing a huge anxiety and FOMO (fear of missing out) problem that leads to people becoming selfish and feeling entitled, would you say? When a person becomes afraid to be alone, anxiety kicks in, they start texting their friends, calling people, trying to satisfy their deceiving need for attention. So what happens when we are happy being alone? What happens when we learn to be at peace with ourselves? The simple answer is in the question itself, we become ok with ourselves, we live in peace, self love, and clarity in our life then appears. We start to also attract everything we are meant to in our life due to the fact we become more whole with ourself with a better understanding of ourself and our qualities and purpose.
Let's go over the art of being alone and what it takes to find peace and happiness with ourselves. It's not easy, it takes will power like anything, but once practiced and mastered, eternity in peace will live with you in every experience.
Here are 5 practices that can make being alone not only enjoyable but very beneficial.
1. Face The Facts
The fact is, that no matter what happens in life and where you go and end up, the only person you will ever have to live with for the rest of your life, is you and yourself. Only you can control your own thoughts, words, actions, feelings, and decisions you make that lead you to where you are. Life is a challenge of aligning you and your full potential. To learn yourself, know yourself, and master yourself. To be the best self you can be, which starts internally. It starts with accepting yourself and where you are now. The lessons you have to learn from your experiences and what got you to where you are. To have faith in new experiences as part of the journey to discovering your strengths and passions. To do any of this, it starts with you and ends with you.
Here is an Exercise:
Find the one place or environment you find the most enjoyment and happiness, and place yourself in it alone. Observe your surroundings and acknowledge it's existence. Think about the facts above and come to peace with it. Be patient as you think and be alone.
2. Accept Yourself From Where You Are
Where you are now, is all you currently have, so to move on and grow from here, you must first find acceptance and lesson in it. Think about what got you to where you are now and seek what you may have learned from your past that created the good in your current life. Acknowledge and accept the losses and failures, and find what you may have taken away from them that will make you a better person today. Make sure your focus is on judging your own thoughts rather than getting emotionally attached to any thoughts others may have of you. Acknowledge that others thoughts are their thoughts, you don't gain anything from fearing it. Instead align it with your own thoughts and values and acknowledge what matters to you and find lesson in it for your own growth.
Here is an Exercise:
Again place yourself in a space you feel comfortable and most yourself. Take your time to process your thoughts, your past experiences, and it's lessons that created the current good in your life. Acknowledge the decisions you made that may have led to any not so good results in your current life, and process what you can take away from it that you can apply the new learnings today toward a better future. And acknowledge you cannot change your past but you can accept where you are now and make better decisions towards a better future. We are here to continue growing as a part of life.
3. Learn Yourself & Understand Yourself
Obviously this is an important one. To truly be at peace with ourself we need to understand what we are trying to be at peace with. Who are we? It takes time to really come to understanding with ourself. We learn something new about ourself everyday as things constantly change and we are constantly growing. But we should at least know the foundation of how we work and build a mindset of constantly analyzing ourselves for the better. Meaning to practice self-awareness and constantly learn about ourselves so we can truly grow and align the outside world with ourself, to find the perfect place where we fit. Life is like a puzzle and we are a piece of it. We need to know our piece to know where we fit with the puzzle. To know our thoughts, our words, our actions, and our feelings and what triggers it.
Here is an Exercise:
Place yourself in an enjoyable and happy space you feel comfortable. Acknowledge your recent thoughts, recent words, actions, and feelings. Pay attention to why you had those thoughts, words, actions, and feelings. What triggered them, how did it affect your decisions, and what was the outcome? Was the outcome good or bad? What could be better? In this exercise, it may even help to write down your thoughts, words, recent experiences, and how you felt in them. We want to identify why we experienced it. If we know why, we can pay more attention to ourself in those situations where we know will trigger the usual way we think, speak, act, and feel, so we can then be more aware of ourself and the ideal person we want to become. Is the way you think, speak, act, and feel in alignment to accomplish your goals? If not, what can you learn and change to accomplish your goals? Be sure to practice this exercise in the next step & exercise as well.
4. Acknowledge/Identify & Remember Your goals in Life
Think about this... If you don't have your own goals in life, you will be chasing to accomplish other people's goals, only causing more pain of feeling alone. If you have your own goals, you take that responsibility to accomplish them and only you can do that. When we have control over our own life and we are aware of it, it's much easier to be at peace with ourself and our goals. Life then becomes a journey between ourselves and reaching our goals.
Here is an Exercise:
Take your time on this one. Again place yourself in a space you feel comfortable whether it's sitting or going on a walk or doing something you enjoy. Let this be a time to ponder this question... If you keep doing what you are currently doing in life, and you do it everyday, where will you end up in 5-10 years? Is that where you want to be? If not, where do you want to be, what do you want to see in your life, what do you want to have in your life, and what do you want to feel in your life? What do you need to do now everyday in order to accomplish that? This will help identify your goals, and be sure to write them down when you are certain of them. When you know your goals, you then need to break them down into daily tasks. What can you do everyday towards accomplishing the goal that is currently most important to you? And do that everyday.
5. Practice Your Passion, Strengths, & Self-awareness and Continue Growing
By practicing our passions and applying our strengths to serve ourselves and the world, we will always have those skills and love with us, where we should have no problem being alone with. Of course many of us don't know our passions or strengths. That is a part of life's experiences. To live momentarily, continue to seek, and apply all that we know continuously towards growth and a better future. Through time we discover what we love, our weaknesses, and we discover our strengths. We learn from our weaknesses and follow our passion and develop our strengths to then serve the world with. So don't worry if you don't know your passions or strengths, be patient and continue experiencing life and practicing these 5 steps & exercises.
Here is an Exercise:
As soon as you can, think of all the things that you have not tried yet that you had in mind. Write them down, and plan a time to do them. The best way to find your passions & strengths is to experience as much as you can that you feel will be something you enjoy. Keep trying new things, get out of your comfort zone, and keep growing. If you know your passions & strengths, practice them. Explore more of your passion, and develop more of your strengths. And most of all, think about how you can serve yourself and others with it.
At the end of practicing all these exercises and following these steps, it should result in much more self-peace, self-love, and self-care where being alone is much more enjoyable and peaceful. And be sure to practice them consistently until it feels ingrained in you where no matter where you go or what you do, you are at peace with yourself. That is the true art of being alone.
Extra Exercises To Practice
These can help ease into these 5 steps & exercises above
- Yoga
- Breathing techniques
- Meditation
- Draw or paint what is on your mind
- Start writing your goals, thoughts, and learnings down
- Record yourself talking about your day, what is on your mind, and what your learning (journaling)
