Make Time to Be Alone

We are about halfway through my daughter’s summer vacation now from school and I’m starting to feel it: the impatience that comes from too much together time.

Nobody is doing anything wrong. I’ve enjoyed my time with her going to the library and and hiking through the nature park, making everything from guacamole to forts – but I am not getting enough solitude. I’m not getting any time alone.

Now I’m particular about my alone time. It does not count if I’m working – which I do in between the time I spend with my daughter. Quiet time with others – while fabulous is not alone time either. Alone time is me with uninterrupted, unplanned time. Time to ponder and think and sometimes journal or read but always time for introspection and expansion.

Time Alone is Active

This isn’t lazy time. It isn’t passive time either. Even if I am not physically active (sometimes I am and will go for a walk or something), even if I’m still — my alone time is a very active experience. I’m contemplating, problem solving, exploring, learning in the midst of the quiet.

Quiet alone time is a time to unwind, de-stress, and explore my inner landscape. It’s a time of growth.

Alone Time is Peaceful Not Lonely

This is not lonely time. It is only in the quiet that I have the freedom to think without external influence, without needing to making instant decisions. It is the only time I can think fully and completely about myself and how I am moving through this life. I don’t have to plan, coordinate, clean, order, organize I can just be with my thoughts.

This helps me stay centered, less reactive and even a few minutes a day is a difference maker.

Take a time out, for 10 or 15 minutes a day. Put your family on alert. Tell them that you are not to be disturbed because you need some me time. Put your phone on the counter and go to the back bedroom and close the door or head out to the garden or drive to the nature park and sit at the picnic table looking over the view. Just be quiet. And alone. And centered.

Use the time to contemplate. To settle into your body, and your day. To reflect and daydream. To connect with your inner self – the feelings and dreams that reside there.

This action is restorative and stress relieving. A regular habit of alone time will catapult you to greater awareness and clarity.

And, as research now indicates, being on our own isn’t so bad. I’ll tell you why in Wednesday’s post.