Tag: solitude

Intro/Extro

I have an extroverted weekend coming up that I am already starting to dread. People often don’t believe me when I say that I am an introvert. I present like an extrovert when I am out in public, but it takes a lot of energy for me to psych myself up for big parties, events, gatherings, etc. I usually have a wonderful time at these functions. I am usually pleasantly surprised about how nice of time I have had, but typically, I am mostly more pleased to have the function (and the dread leading up to it) completed, and checked off, and no longer on my anticipating mind.

wcraider responded to this tweet with this:

“It’s like a light switch that has to be turned off so I can decompress and recharge.”

Anyone can present like an extrovert. The difference is that an extrovert gets their energy recharged being with people, while an introvert gets their energy recharged in solitude. Even still, I think it is important for both extroverts and introverts to get a mix of both social time and solitude. It’s good to get out of our comfort zones sometimes.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

558. If you could read minds, whose would you read first?

Values

The last three weeks or so, I have been completely off of my normal, regular routine schedule. I’ve had a marvelous, fun and productive time, but I’m feeling pretty fried. I overheard someone say, “I need to catch up with myself.” That words it perfectly. I need to slow down and catch up with myself. If you don’t give yourself these slower, regular scheduled times to assimilate everything that you’ve experienced, you start just going through the motions, and you start behaving like a zombie. At least, this is my experience. I am someone who craves a fair amount of solitude and I’ve been starved of solitude for a while now. This morning I am being nourished by solitude and I feel myself “catching up with myself”. As an extroverted introvert, solitude is what plugs me into my replenishing energy source. I feel myself getting charged back up.

I listened to a podcast the other day, and one of the participants, Jessica Lanyandoo said this: “Happiness comes as a direct result of living in accord with our values. When you are living in a self-appropriate way, you’re happy. I mean, I’m not saying you’re giddy. But (living in accord with our values) is what leads to authentic happiness, inner peace (and) inner balance.”

It’s so true, isn’t it? Often what we say what we value, is not what we are showing the world what we are valuing. We can say that we value family time, but in reality, we are spending most of our time trying to climb the corporate ladder. We can say that we value health, but we get take-out for dinner every night. We can say that we value peace, but we allow ourselves to get caught-up in online drama and arguments. We can say that we value financial security, but we get ourselves into debt in order to “keep up with the Joneses.” A good exercise to get back into alignment with your own values is to quickly, and off-the-cuff, without thinking too much, list 5-10 core values that you deem the most important for yourself, in your own life. (and do this activity privately. Be honest. List your own true values. Do not list what you think that you should value, based on the judgments of others. No one will see this list.) Then, rank these values in order of importance to you. Finally, look at this list of what you believe are the most important elements in your life, and get brutally honest with yourself if you are truly living in accordance to your own values. Is where you spend the majority of your time, energy, attention, and money, truly in line with what you deeply value? If you are not experiencing mostly happiness, inner peace and inner balance, why is this? When you look at where you are spending the preponderance of your time and energy and mindspace, is this in true alignment with your core values? What’s pinging you to change? What area or areas in your own life, are asking you to steer the ship in a different direction, in order to get us back to your own true north?

Our values are what define us. Our values are what give us purpose in living our lives. Our values speak to what we think is most worthy in our life experience. If we are not living up to our own values, we know. We feel the negative emotions that are trying to get us back on track to our core truths. If we live in alignment with our deepest values, we generally feel peace. “Happiness comes as a direct result of living in accord with our values.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1604. What do you think is the most dangerous profession in the whole world?

Farewell, Loves

The last of the mohicans left today. Our eldest son, his girlfriend and our daughter took to the road at 6 a.m. this morning, back to their own adult lives. My husband and I gave them huge hugs goodbye and then went straight back to bed. It’s a miracle that I am still not in bed right now. Our holiday season was really good. My daughter said last night that it was one of the best ones ever. And I agree. But I am pooped. Sometimes I marvel at the fact that we lived, for most of our married lives, in the constant, frenetic activity that comes with raising four kids, because when everyone’s home I find it to be wonderful, joyous and fun, but also exhausting. It’s amazing to me how quickly my husband and I have gotten used to the new normal of our quiet, orderly, empty nest, because for almost 28 years of our marriage, we had always lived with at least one extra kid. (By our tenth anniversary, we had all four kids) The brilliant writer Jane Austen once wrote that she hated tiny parties because they force you to be in “constant exertion”. I think that’s where the tiredness comes from all of the communing that many of us do over the holidays. You are in constant exertion of relating, sensing everyone else’s energy, catching up on each other’s lives, making meals, making plans, making and reliving memories . . . . I tried to really just savor it all. I made it my mission to savor my family’s laugher and expressions and relaying old memories and making new ones. (Our son’s girlfriend found a tree ornament last night on clearance that we bought because it perfectly depicted a crazy, inside, “you had to be there” spontaneous experience we all had around a fire pit one of the nights. These moments are priceless.) Overall, it was sort of a Venn Diagram Christmas experience this year. Some kids came early and left earlier and some kids came later and left later. They brought along friends and stories and new experiences throughout the course of it all. (Our youngest son even bought his first “adult” car in the middle of everything). This Christmas was its own entity, as all holidays end up being. We bring the framework of the aged decorations, standard traditions, and long standing recipes, but there is always room for the new activities and surprises that pop up at Christmas every year. There was a lot of exertion, but it was lovely. Life loved us this Christmas. “Love” was the theme this Christmas, for sure. And I feel that wonderful, satiated, “job well done” feeling that is also screaming at me to kick up my feet and to deeply rest in some quiet and solitude.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1479. What is priceless to you?

I Love Me

I’m sorry that I’m delayed with my post this morning, but I was having a lot of fun with one of my most favorite people in the whole wide world. We spent some time outside with my dogs in the nice, cooler weather. We lit candles all around the house, did some reading, and even attempted a few chores. We contemplated different things that we could do this weekend that sounded interesting and unique, and we did a little meditation on recent happenings. We watered some of my plants and kind of just dibbled-dabbled around. Who is this adored companion I am talking about? Myself.

“The most important relationship in your life is the relationship you have with yourself. Because no matter what happens, you will always be with yourself.” – Diane Von Furstenberg

I love being with myself. I also adore being with my husband, and my kids and my family and my friends. I look forward to a Family FaceTime tonight, and I had a wonderful time socializing in my art class yesterday with our brilliant, inspiring instructor and the other interesting students. But honestly, I couldn’t wait to have this wonderful day to be just with myself.

Now this may seem arrogant to some people. But stop and ponder why this should be. Shouldn’t you love your own companionship? Shouldn’t you be as kind and nurturing and accepting of yourself as you are to anyone else in this world? Shouldn’t you encourage yourself to explore your own unique interests without judgments or interruptions? Shouldn’t you give yourself some rapt attention and be delighted by what you discover? There is no escaping yourself, ever, so shouldn’t you make yourself, the most wonderful, delightful person to be with in your own one life?

If you don’t like being by yourself, ask yourself why. Are you kind to yourself? Are you nurturing to yourself? Or are you just harsh and full of inner criticisms? Are you constantly seeking “to find yourself” in your outside roles, or your appearances, and/or from approval and accolades from others? Why would you give your power away like that, to things that are so fickle and meaningless? Your image is just a reflection, and that reflection changes with whomever is peering at you with their own skewed lenses of perspective. When you are with just yourself, do you try to escape from yourself with food or drink or constant scrolling or endless TV shows or phone calls? We all need some escapism, but if you are always trying to escape from yourself, ask yourself why.

What does a perfect date with yourself look like? What does that include? When we are married people, we are told to keep regular “date nights” in order to keep things fresh, and interesting, and enlivening, and to use these date nights to give undivided attention to each other and to our relationship. Are you scheduling enough date nights with yourself? It is time to make sure that your calendar has some space for the most important person in your life – you. If you still think that this sounds selfish and arrogant, try it as an experiment. For the rest of the year, make sure you have at least one date with just yourself, at least once a week. I am certain that you will find that if you regularly nurture your own relationship with yourself, all of your other relationships will be better and more fulfilling than ever because they won’t be needy, hungry transactions, but instead you will be mutually sharing the beautiful, overwhelming joy and understanding of what it is to be alive, experiencing a miraculous lifetime on this Earth.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Summer Intentions

Are you spending some time this week thinking about (and feeling around) your intentions for this summer? I am. I am thinking about my summer intentions probably more than I ever have done in my life. And it feels so good.

Last summer was an emotional doozy for me. Last summer my mother-in-law became quite ill, so ill, that her illness ultimately ended with her death this past December, after months of suffering. Also last summer, our youngest child and our only daughter decided to start college by going to campus and taking summer classes. And so my husband and I entered the rocky road of the beginning of our empty nest, already feeling rattled, unsettled and stressed. Reading over my journal from last summer, one word seems to come to mind that encapsulates it all: “turbulent.”

Lately, when I am with my family or my friends, I notice that we have already started to kind of “reminisce” about the beginning of the pandemic. The worst part of the pandemic seems far enough in the past that we can actually start to process the experience, and what it did to evolve us individually, and as a whole. We talk about how scary and isolating and disappointing the beginning of the pandemic was in so many ways, but we also surprisingly, have some fond memories, too. Last night at dinner, my daughter and I were both saying how much we loved our weekly family movie nights, especially when my daughter took it up a notch, with themed food and decorations. It seems, for many of us, enough time has passed that we can really start to examine our emotions, and our changes that have come from experiencing such a devastating event in our collective lives. This summer may be a start to some serious healing around this pandemic experience, for many of us.

My intention for this summer is to relax. Relax. Relax. I plan to do everything that I can to keep “my waters” still. I think still, quiet time is needed for me to absorb and to process everything that we have been through (good and bad), over the last few years. Luckily for me, I am a person who loves solitude. I actually crave it. Our youngest son moves to his own apartment and starts his first “real” job out of college this coming weekend. Our daughter is living at home this summer with us, but her schedule is filled with work, a couple of online classes, and catching up with local friends, so I actually see some actual, nice-sized blocks of peaceful solitude forming on my calendar. I am grateful for this fact. I’m fully aware of the old Yiddish platitude, “Man plans, God laughs.” But it is always in my solitude where I find God, so I like to think that God is as excited about my plans for big chunks of peaceful, calm, solitude, as I am.

Spend some time with your own summer intentions this week. If you don’t, your time will become unintentionally filled, and you’ll find yourself in a state in which you have no time to yourself, and for yourself. Intentionally block off some completely unscheduled time that is available for you to spontaneously do whatever you feel like doing in that particular moment. (no have-tos, just “want-tos”) Make an easily accessible, summer bucket list of local haunts where you like to go to: a cozy bookstore, an artsy jewelry store, the best ice cream place in town, a beautiful local park, and when you find yourself wondering what to do with some of your unscheduled time, you’ll have a list to jog your memory. Make these dates with yourself, every bit as important, if not more so, than other plans and commitments you have made, involving other people. Make yourself feel as obligated to yourself, and as embarrassed to cancel on yourself, as you would be for anybody else who you’ve made plans with this summer.

There is no better way to get back to your most steady, centered self than to luxuriate and savor being just with yourself. Summer often feels like the most heady, hazy, luxurious time of the year. It is the perfect time of the year to soak-in yourself, “take yourself in”, in order to revitalize and to restore yourself to your most vital state of being. Spend at least a few minutes meditating on your own summer intentions this week. You will be so grateful that you did this for yourself. Look forward to getting to know your deepest, most peaceful, undistracted self again.

“We need solitude, because when we’re alone, we’re free from obligations, we don’t need to put on a show, and we can hear our own thoughts.” – Tamim Ansary

“Spending time alone in your own company reinforces your self-worth and is often the number-one way to replenish your resilience reserves.” – Sam Owen

“It is hard to love yourself if you never spend time with yourself. ‘Alone Time’ is Necessary.” – Izey Victoria Odiase

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

It’s That Simple

I ripped some pages out of some past issues of Real Simple magazine lately that reminded me of my childhood. One reader, named Anna Polisann, wrote in to the editor, that she now realized that her mom had trained her for 2020, when as a child, her mother told her, “Go find something to do! Learn to enjoy your own company.“

I think that my generation and older generations before mine, often got those same marching orders, many, many times, from our parents. The younger generations seem to have a lot more structured time. Oftentimes, as I was driving my kids from one practice, to another scheduled playdate, to another lesson of some sort, I would question the sanity of what I was doing. It didn’t seem right to keep them, (nor all of us, really) so scheduled up. I remember rationalizing that even though I didn’t necessarily agree with this direction of more structured childhoods, if I didn’t do it, my children would be left in the dust. And unfortunately that was often true. Most of the sports teams in our children’s schools were filled with the kids who had spent their childhoods on travel sports teams, or with intense private instruction. Many kids were taking college level courses, sometimes starting in middle school. I still question if all of the pressures that this way of life brings on to kids is healthy. I really don’t think that over-structuring our children is necessarily good, but at the same time, when comparing generations, we are never comparing apples to apples. I didn’t grow up with a home computer and a cell phone. My parents remember getting their first TVs. Each generation of children experiences a vastly different world, if we really consider how fast things change in technology, and in society.

Still, I am happy that I received the “enjoy your own company” lesson. Frankly, I really enjoy my own company. I’m at my crankiest when I don’t get enough time to just be with myself. Ironically, this pandemic situation, while making many people feel “lonely”, actually robbed me of some my alone time and peaceful solitude. At this time last year, my three youngest children all started studying from home, and my daughter still studies at home. My husband has been working from home, for the first time in his career, since last spring, too. It has been adjustment for me, to share the house during the day. When more people are in any one area, the energy is more aroused. I notice this, even in my dogs’ behavior. Energy feeds off of other energy, keeping things more abuzz. I have learned to take rides in my car, or walks out in nature, to soothe my nerves, when the electric energy around me, is just too much.

Another reader in Real Simple answered the question, “What is your favorite book to give as a gift?” Jennifer Waller answered, “Betty Crocker Cookbook or The Martha Stewart Cookbook. I’ve had both for years and still refer to them. There is something comforting about pages with butter splotches and sugar crumbs in the spine.“

I loved Ms. Waller’s last line. Isn’t that the truth? Getting back to the idea of how quickly life is changing all around us, there is a huge amount of comfort in the things that stay the same. Every cookbook, that is worth its weight in gold, has a few grease stains and crumbs to dust off. And that is true for every generation of people still alive on this Earth. I hope that this “well-worn, classic cookbook fact” remains to be a fact of life that never, ever changes. There is great comfort in the classic things in life, which stand the test of time. These things become the steady rocks that we cling to, as reminders that there is still some stability and constants to carry with us, in an otherwise, sometimes seemingly chaotic, frenetic, quickly changing world.

Awesome Love Stands the Test Of Time Quotes | Love quotes collection within HD images

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

A Lonely Little Bee

“Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.”
– Paul Tillich

I was reading a blog yesterday in which the writer was saying that she always could sense in herself when she wasn’t getting enough solitude. She felt edgy, snappy, frustrated and a little bit of almost crawling out of her skin. I love when I read something that I completely relate to, because I need solitude in the same way that the writer does and I have not been getting much of it lately, with the renovations going on in our home. I am trying to be my own little quiet island in the middle of a beehive, and it isn’t working so well. I wonder if a lot of writers crave solitude?

I have another friend who doesn’t seem to like being alone at all. Her life is the beehive and she is the Queen Bee. This friend seems to be always wanting to expand her beehive in all directions. I love having friends like her because when my self-imposed solitude turns to loneliness, I know that I always have someone to go out with, or to chat with. She is the busy bee in my life who knows all about the fun, public, social happenings going on and she’s usually in the center of it all.

I suppose the key is sensing in yourself when you are in a state of delicious, tranquil, meditative solitude versus despairing, paranoiac, angst-filled loneliness. The cure to my anxiety, when I am overstimulated and distracted, is to get to a place where I can bathe in my secluded, peaceful, solitude and the cure to my loneliness is the nearby buzzing of the beehive which seems always open for more energy and more expression.

“In loneliness I have no one but myself. In solitude I have God.” – anonymous