“Having fun with your alone time then provides a complete new expertise of being within the firm of others. You possibly can get pleasure from people and different dwelling beings for what they’ve to supply, and for the enjoyment of connection, slightly than the concern of loneliness”
Expensive Integral Meditators,
This week’s article explores our relationship to being alone, and how one can transfer from being lonely to having fun with being alone.
This Tuesday & Wednesday is the annual Spring Equinox balancing and renewing meditation , with the Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat on the Saturday. You’re welcome to hitch both or each, dwell or on-line.
Lastly, heads up for the subsequent main weekly meditation collection beginning mid-April: Begins Tues/Weds April 11th/12th , 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course
Within the spirit of alone not lonely,
Toby
Discovering the pleasure of alone
On this article I wish to deal with a number of factors that lie between going from feeling lonely to the pleasure of being alone. It’s an enormous benefit to really feel snug being alone, and is totally complementary to an actual and deep enjoyment of being within the firm of others.
Mammalian and existential loneliness
As people we’re naturally a reasonably lonely lot. On the mammalian degree we crave the safety of the pack, and have a tendency towards a primal nervousness and vulnerability when alone due to this. We even have a pure and comprehensible need to be seen and appreciated by others as an affirmation of our basic worth. On a deeper existential degree there may be additionally the problem of figuring out that we’re on their own in our expertise, nobody can actually know us and what we’re going via. That is one thing that we have a tendency to withstand, making an attempt very exhausting as a substitute to been seen, heard and recognised by others. All of this turns into notably acute if our self-image, and due to this fact or primary sense of our price and functionality is shaky.
Avoiding alone due to loneliness
For all the explanations above we will discover ourselves avoiding being alone to be able to keep away from having to confront our loneliness. This then implies that we miss out on all of the alternatives to expertise what you would possibly consider as the enjoyment of being alone. In spite of everything, individuals could be fairly bothersome, and this may be compounded by our personal neediness of them. These two collectively usually leads to us searching for individuals out, after which on the identical time disliking being of their firm, which is a little bit of a lose-lose state of affairs!
Reframing alone
- Being alone is a option to re-connect to your self, and make your personal internal connection to your self heat, wholesome and secure
- It’s time to meet up with your self, heal your wounds and return to wholeness
- Being alone is freedom to get pleasure from your personal firm and never be obligate to others for that point
- It’s time to get pleasure from your creativity and picture new prospects
- It’s time to get well your vitality
- It’s time to hook up with silence, or at the least much less internal noise
- It’s time so that you can prepare your ideas and considering in a method that units you up for achievement in life
- And naturally, it’s time to meditate and pursue your different pursuits
What different causes are you able to consider that will help you begin trying ahead to the subsequent time you might be alone?
Meditation and the liberty of alone
Meditation after all is, at the least partly the artwork of having fun with being alone. Earlier than you begin to actually get pleasure from being alone, meditation is a superb place to start out studying how one can get pleasure from being alone, to note and make peace together with your loneliness, and the opposite causes that compel you to hunt out firm as a method of avoiding your self. In the event you sat for five-ten minutes every day for the subsequent week, oriented your aware consideration across the ‘reframe checklist’ above you would possibly end up having fun with it sooner than you suppose.
Pleased alone, joyful in firm
Having fun with your alone time then provides a complete new expertise of being within the firm of others. Slightly than being there as a result of it’s essential be, you could be there since you wish to be of their firm. You possibly can get pleasure from people and different dwelling beings for what they’ve to supply, and for the enjoyment of connection, slightly than the avoidance of loneliness.
Associated article: Independent interdependence
© Toby Ouvry 2023, you might be welcome to make use of or share this text, however please cite Toby because the supply and embody reference to his web site www.tobyouvry.com
All upcoming lessons and workshops at IMA:
Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule
Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)
Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (East Coast)
Tues twenty first & Weds twenty second March, 7.30-8.30pm – Spring Equinox balancing and renewing meditation
Saturday March twenty fifth, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat
Sat & Sunday 1st, 2nd April – Two day integral meditation retreat
Begins Tues/Weds April 11th/12th , 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course
Saturday fifteenth April 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop
Tues thirtieth/Weds thirty first Could – Wesak meditation
Integral Meditation Asia
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