Finding The Meaning In Being Alone

This episode will get you thinking about the value of meaningful time spent alone while bringing in a ton of practical guidance about how to actually do it. Ranging from developing the skill of how to be with your thoughts without needing to hide from or avoid the difficult ones, to learning how to use intention, curiosity, and commitment as tools for developing meaningful time spent alone that doesn't just enhance your relationship to yourself but that also enhances your relationships with others, this episode will move you in the direction of a life that feels worth living by focusing on this foundational subject. 

In addition to today's episode, check out these helpful resources to support you along the way:

My Instagram! Every post is full of valuable information about how to live better, feel better, and be a better version of yourself: https://www.instagram.com/kristina.furia

The Anxiety Masterclass, it's free and will teach you everything you need to know about nervous system regulation, whether you struggle with anxiety or not (we've all got a nervous system and most people's end up dysregulated by adulthood): https://www.kristinafuria.com/anxietymasterclass

The Emotional Mastery Playbook, my e-book on how to healthily process your emotions which can come in very handy as it relates to creating meaningful moments spent alone: https://kristinafuria.thrivecart.com/emotionalmasteryplaybook/

The Heal Anxiety Course, my upcoming 30-day program that will guide you through a transformative process for healing your nervous system and upgrading your anxiety-driven thoughts. It's currently available on pre-sale: https://www.kristinafuria.com/anxietycourse

Limited availability, Book a Coaching Session with Me: If you'd like more support on these subjects or any related subject, schedule a private, 1:1 coaching session with me here: https://www.kristinafuria.com/booknow

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Worth Living for Podcast. This podcast is about what makes life worth living and how to remove everything that stands in the way. And it'll be a perfect fit for you if you're currently in process with how to find more meaning in your life, if you're trying to make meaning out of struggle, or if you know there are certain things standing in the way of life feeling more meaningful, and you're looking for a new perspective or some practical guidance on how to get beyond them. Let's begin. As you know by now, this podcast is about what makes life worth living, which for me is really a reflection on what makes life meaningful and how to tap into that meaning with intention and consciousness. This podcast is also, in a sense, about the less obvious aspects of what makes a life rich in meaning. Because, of course, a lot of what makes life feel meaningful or valuable is already unfolding in your life naturally. Like through your relationships and the people you love and who make you feel loved, and through experiences that make life feel rich, like laughing so hard you could cry, or going on an amazing adventure, or traveling, or a moment where you reach a goal you've been working towards for a really long time. You already understand, though, how to experience the value in all of those things without really having to try. So while I also love all of those moments so, so much, here we talk more about the parts of life that maybe you forget to find meaning in, or that you just don't know how to find the meaning in. And that brings me to the subject of today's episode, which is how to find meaning in solitude. Let's start by talking about why being alone matters. I feel like this is an interesting topic for a podcast that is about what makes life worth living, because obviously, so much of life is about being in connection to others. But something I think a lot of people never find and never think to look for is the feeling of aliveness that can come from intentional moments spent alone. And that is why I am choosing to have this as the subject of an earlier-on episode, because there really is so much value that can be found through really truly learning how to be alone successfully. And it actually ends up being foundational to a lot of other things too. Because when you learn how to find the meaning in being alone, you also come into a new experience of how to be in connection with others. You come into a different experience of how to be in relationship with other people. Now let's talk about what stands in the way of making being alone meaningful for most of us. Obviously, for lots of people, being alone is no trouble at all. We can be alone for long periods of time, doing our thing. We're not uncomfortable, we're not lonely, we are okay. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's meaningful. Then there's a category of people where, and no shame at all, if this is you, by the way, you might find it difficult to be alone. Being alone makes you feel uncomfortable or anxiety-inducing, or it just makes you feel restless. So you reach for distractions, whether it be burying your head in your cell phone or watching too much TV, or really anything else to keep you from noticing the full extent of what it feels like to be alone with you. So if you fall into the first category of people and you're comfortable being alone, but you're not actively connected to the meaning that can be derived from it, this is probably due to a lack of awareness and intention. And we'll talk about that a little bit more later in this episode. If you fall into the second category where being alone is kind of just uncomfortable or not really preferred, this is usually due to three main reasons. The first one is difficulty being alone with your thoughts. The second one is a dysregulated nervous system. And the third one is a lack of practice. Now, let's get into each of these reasons a little more deeply so you understand how they might be playing a role in your own life. Difficulty being alone with your thoughts is a huge barrier to both being alone and to finding the meaning in being alone. For many of us, it's very difficult to tolerate what goes on in our minds all day, because our minds are full of thoughts that are connected to the thought patterns that we've never explored the roots of before. And the way I see it is that because we've never explored those roots, it's like we've never given those thoughts room to breathe before. It's like a closet that you haven't opened for too long. And when you finally do, and hopefully you don't have a closet like this in your house, but you understand what I mean. When you finally open that closet door, it smells like dust and like mothballs, and you're kind of just overwhelmed by it and you're grossed out, and you don't really know what to do. How do you handle it? In order for your thoughts to not feel that way, you have to be willing to air out the closet and to clean the dust out of those back corners that haven't seen the light of day in a decade or however long. And you have to figure out what to do with the old stuff in it that you don't really need anymore. And when you don't know how, when you don't know how to do those things, it actually does feel really hard and uncomfortable and easier to avoid. If not by literally being around others all the time, because obviously for some of us, it's just simply not possible to always be around someone, but then by being distracted and therefore alone, but not truly alone with ourselves. Now let's talk about why a dysregulated nervous system would relate to how to be alone and how it stands in the way of comfortably being able to do it. I think if you know enough about the nervous system, this reason can be quite obvious, but for most of us, it may not be particularly obvious at all. The reason why, if your nervous system is not regulated, it can feel challenging to feel comfortable being alone, let alone to find the meaning or value in being alone, is because when you're too dysregulated, which really means, just for those of you who are not versed in nervous system terminology, if your nervous system is dysregulated, it's kind of like it doesn't know how to oscillate back and forth based on how life is happening. So, in other words, when you're stressed out, your nervous system should become more activated. But then when you are, for instance, at home unwinding after work, it should very easily, in ideal terms, become less activated, meaning your nervous system should always be meeting the moment that you're in. So when you do find yourself alone, it's probably more about your body just simply trying to regulate and recover from life happening, and much less about experiencing what we're talking about here, which is creating experiences of intentional aloneness that lead to something valuable. The subject of nervous system regulation is something that you will actually hear me talk about quite a lot. Because for those of you who already know my work well, this is actually a main part of what I do, what I teach, and how I help people. So if you are kind of still getting familiarized with the importance of nervous system work, with what it all means, definitely just kind of stay tuned and bear with me because it really is something that is so life-changing. And while nervous system work in and of itself doesn't add meaning to life, not directly, I wouldn't say, what it does do is provide you with the ability to be someone who can add more meaning to life, who can add more value to life. The third main reason why it can be difficult to be comfortable being alone and to find the value in being alone is usually just due to a lack of practice doing it. Like with anything else, we need to practice in order to become good at something. And as it comes to finding the value in aloneness, this is certainly no exception. And I think possibly, this is even an area where, in particular, practice is required. Because as you're starting to reflect on, so much of being alone can either feel just very, very ordinary, or depending on who you are and where you are in life, it can feel rather uncomfortable. So getting to the point where aloneness can feel rich, where it can feel like an opportunity to connect with yourself differently, where it can feel like an opportunity even to connect with the world around you differently, it takes a lot of practice and it takes intention and it takes desire. So, how do you get comfortable being alone in ways that add value to life and that create that sense of aliveness within your experience? Because for me, I think it's always about that feeling, that feeling of more aliveness that we're really always looking for, whether we realize it or not. As always, if you've been listening to the podcast for these first few episodes, we're going to start by choosing to be curious. We're going to look at ways that we can be curious. We're going to create intention around curiosity. And this means curiosity around what it would look like and feel like to experience aloneness as something that has a quality of richness to it. And curiosity around what's happening within your experience in those moments of aloneness. Starting to look at what is it like for me to be alone in this moment and to be calm in it or not calm in it, to be restless in it or not restless in it, to notice yourself looking for distractions, or to notice how you are choosing to stay present and not do that, or choosing to notice your thoughts, or noticing the stories that you are telling yourself, noticing how uncomfortable it is to notice those stories or to notice those thoughts. And then with that curiosity to create some intention, because intention is so very powerful. I'm sure many of us know the term, the power of intention. And there certainly is such a great deal of truth to those words, because as we set an intention and continue to hold that intention and pursue it and align with it, what starts to happen is we start to walk a specific path based off of it. We start to walk a specific path based off of that intention. And that means that our choices start to look different and our willingness to try new things starts to be greater. And what's cool is as you follow an intentional path for longer and longer and longer, your desire around whatever your intention is starts to grow. And the combination of intention and desire, it's actually an even more powerful journey. And it leads to a kind of momentum that really just allows life to change and it allows you to change. And then there's the knowledge piece. Because obviously, intention is incredible and curiosity is incredible. But if you don't know practically how to do something, at some point you're still just going to end up spinning your wheels. And obviously, that is not a very good feeling. And if you're just spinning your wheels, obviously you're not getting anywhere. And our goal here is to create a specific shift in our experience that allows us to tap into more of the richness of life. So when we think about the practical knowledge needed to create more meaning in aloneness, what comes to mind? As we already talked about, a regulated nervous system is such a big piece of this because if you have a dysregulated nervous system, it is just simply so challenging to drop into an experience of aloneness that one isn't just for recovery purposes, and two, that you actually enjoy. So practical knowledge around the nervous system and practical application around nervous system health, really. And then there is the practical knowledge that is required around how to navigate your thoughts that you maybe don't love that much. Or how to deal with emotions. A lot of times when you start spending meaningful time alone, difficult emotions come up that are either outside of the realm of what you know how to handle, or that you just simply need some guidance in order to be able to handle. And then depending on your specific pursuit of meaningful alone time, you might also need guidance around things like how to meditate or how to do breath work or how to engage in specific movement or somatic practices. Knowledge is the bridge between your desire and your goal. Without having the right knowledge, regardless of what the goal is, you will simply not find your way there because there's no path to it. There's no bridge that you can walk across or drive across to get you there. And that reminds me that I want to share with you that in the episode notes for today's show, there are all kinds of resources that are either free or low cost that will support you in finding the knowledge that you need to do all of the different things that I'm talking about here today. And then finally, we have to talk about commitment. Because I think for lots of us, we want something for a little while. Or you're listening to this podcast and you're like, yeah, this is a good idea. I would like to, you know, get better at being alone and find more value in being alone. And then after a couple of weeks or a few weeks, that desire, or even remembering that it was something that you were wanting to pursue, it starts to trail off. And it just kind of stops being a thing. So becoming committed to something, to the pursuit of something, it leads you where you want to go. Finding that level of commitment, being willing to even just assess how committed am I to this? And for something like this, it might be a high level of commitment, or it might be a lower level of commitment for you right now. But there is value in that honesty. And then from there, you just kind of get to see what happens as you continue onward, being honest with yourself about your level of commitment and just going forward little by little by little, seeing where your intentions take you, seeing where your commitment takes you, where your knowledge takes you. And let's not forget where your curiosity takes you. And then just watching it all unfold. So as we get to the end of this episode, I hope you're feeling inspired to think about time spent alone a little bit differently and to even approach it a little bit differently. Because it really is so very true that as you learn to find the value and meaning in being alone, it lays the foundation for finding more value and richness in all the rest of life, including your relationships with other people. Until next time.