​We live a great deal of our lives in our mind.  It’s memories and language are the core of our relationships with ourselves and with others.  Unfortunately, when we find ourselves alone, our mind can experience a deep and debilitating loneliness.  Aloneness can taint our normal perceptions and understanding of our situation.  It can alter how we feel in “normal” situations.  Imagine waiting for a bus at a dark street corner in a big city.  If you are with friends you may be relaxed and even laughing.  How differently would that moment feel if you were alone?
 
The Lonely Mind aches for someone to share their experiences.  It needs someone to engage in conversation.  It wants someone to share in the exploration of ideas and experiences.  It looks for someone to help confirm its beliefs and world view.  When the loneliness extends over time, the mind yearns for someone to share and build memories.  When that extended time becomes a lifetime, the mind may simply go to sleep, losing interest in life, and falling back into the mental laziness of clichés and yielding to popular opinion.
 
It is imperative that the mind find ways to transform loneliness into solitude.
 
The Mind in Solitude is able to listen to voices from books, past relationships, imagined folks, and folks far away in time or distance.  It is able to engage these voices.  The Mind in Solitude is able to relive and renew very old memories.  This remembering confirms and supports our beliefs and world view. The Mind in Solitude is able to listen to our deeper selves and experience insights and new ways of seeing ourselves and the world around us.  The Mind in Solitude has the room to grow, expand, and develop as long as it does not fall back into itself and become lonely and lost.  Solitude enables us to maintain our place in our inner world as well as world of relationships beyond ourselves.
 
And so, the question is, “How can we transform the Lonely Mind to a Mind in Solitude?”

​Fortunately, transforming loneliness of mind can be very easy if we will simply take the time to do it.
 
Reading is the first line of defense against loneliness of mind.  Whether it is fiction or non-fiction, books or blogs, graphic novels or history books; reading helps us to engage the author in an internal dialogue.  We can get lost in a story and come to know and care about the characters and story line.  We can dance with new ideas and wrestle with challenging perspectives beyond our normal view.  Reading introduces us to and helps us to expand the world of ideas and our relationships while being alone.
 
A powerful way to re-enter the realm of memory is by spending time looking through old pictures and remembering stories about people and places.  When you are alone and beginning to feel lonely, take out your phone and start looking at the photos.  Or you can pull down that box of old family photos in your closet and start going through them.  The places and people in those pictures will evoke memories and bring alive relationships that have become buried in time.  The memories that are reawakened will confirm that these people are still very much a part of our lives.  Because they lived, we are alive!
 
A third way to transform the loneliness of mind into solitude is to spend time listening to the monkeys swinging from the many branches of our mind.  “Monkey Mind” is an old idea that says each of us have chattering voices in our heads.  These voices are like monkeys swinging from one branch to another while engaging other moneys swinging on other branches.  Don’t worry, everyone experiences this far more often than they will admit.  Listening in can actually be quite entertaining and informative.  Sit quietly and listen as our monkey mind swings from branch to branch.  What is the monkey talking about?  How often does the conversation change?  What does this chatter suggest about what is important to you?  What is preoccupying your mind at the moment?  Do not take this too seriously, but doing so does enable us to get in touch with our inner selves in a refreshing way.
 
Finally, as I alluded to earlier, being alone offers us the opportunity to explore the foolish and strange ideas that come to us from time to time.  We may encounter an intriguing thought or perception in a book or a snippet of remembered conversation.  You can transform your loneliness of mind by seizing upon this bit of mental flotsam by playing “What if….” with the idea.  Or “Why do they believe that…?”  Solitude offers us the chance to explore beyond what others believe and expect of us.  It allows us the freedom to test ideas beyond the boundaries of our own “sensible” and firmly held values.  This may confirm what we already believe or offer us a glimpse of a new path.  Regardless, it will allow the lemon of loneliness to become the sweet lemonade of solitude.
 
Transform your loneliness of mind and experience the joy who you are!

The Effects of Loneliness
 
Why Read?
 
The Gift of Solitude to the Mind

​Enter any Nursing Home in the US and you will see the results of physical loneliness.  Residents will be sitting in wheelchairs staring out the window, backed against a wall with head bent over, or wandering the hallways as if they have lost their last friend.  These people are lonely.  They may be depressed and withdrawn.  Many are widows or widowers whose children have busy lives to live.  These folks are lonely.  They are seldom touched except by healthcare professionals.  There are few hands to hold or arms to embrace them.  They are not simply alone, they are lonely.
 
Have you ever been so physically lonely that you wander around your house?  Have you every yearned for someone to just hold your hand or hold you in a friendly embrace?  Have you ever sat and stared out at the world not feeling part of it any longer and aching for someone to pull up a chair and just sit close by for a while?  If so, you have experienced physical loneliness.
 
By contrast, such moments can be transformed into life-giving solitude.  Solitude develops when we get InTouch with ourselves.  InTouch means becoming present to our physical selves.  Being InTouch may include physically touching yourself, but it can also include engaging the world by yourself.   InTouch simply means using your body to affirm and celebrate who you are.  It allows our loneliness to fade as we begin to enjoy ourselves in our aloneness.  In other words, solitude.
 
I encourage you to look at the Tips below and find a way to be InTouch once again.  Touch is our first language and reminds us that we are living, breathing human beings.  Good Touch lowers the stress hormone cortisol and stimulates oxytocin, the pleasure hormone.  Touching the world in a meaningful way promotes a sense of well-being and self-worth.  Being InTouch with ourselves in times of aloneness allows us to relax into our being and celebrate the gift of life.
 
Transform your loneliness into solitude by becoming InTouch with your physical body.

​Here are a few ideas that can help you discover ways to transform you loneliness into solitude by becoming more InTouch with your body.
 

• Find a hobby or activity that you enjoy for your alone time
• Take a walk or enjoy some quiet time outside
• Take a nap
• People watch
• Take a long bath
• Progressive Relaxation Exercise -- Progressive Relaxation Script
• Light Workout

 
Discover yourself during your solitude and befriend the body that is your closest ally in life.

The Lethality of Loneliness
 
Solitude
 
Getting to Know Your Body

Being alone is part of the human experience.  At times, it brings us a brief respite from the crush of people and relationships.  At other times, it brings a cold isolation that chills the soul.  Being alone is understood by some to be the essential human fact.  From it flows all that can be called human.  It allows us to know ourselves as separate from others.  It lets us get in touch with our inner life.  It requires that we admit that we are social creatures.  To be alive is to be alone within our own body, mind, and soul.
 
However, we experience aloneness in two ways, loneliness and solitude.  Loneliness develops when we yearn for companionship but are unable to receive it.  It may or may not be the result of physical aloneness.  We can be very lonely in a crowd.  Loneliness is an experience of the inner self struggling with a sense of isolation, barrenness, scarcity, or remoteness.  It can result from excluding ourselves or being excluded by others.  It may flow from a long period of aloneness or occur when our world is suddenly changed.  It can be a companion of grief, fear, anxiety, pride, arrogance, or anger.  Loneliness can be a joy crushing, love destroying fact of life.
 
Solitude develops when we are okay with being alone.  We may be yearning for a little quiet amid the noise of life.  We may simply want to turn down the emotional drama that swirls around and through us.  Like loneliness, solitude can happen in the crowd and in isolation.  Solitude is usually accompanied by a strong sense of self, being present to our inner life or a healing environment, or the stillness of self that comes through meditation.  Solitude may be described as “the zone” where we are completely present to a beloved hobby or activity.  It is usually a rather short-term experience but, for some, it can become a lifeline to health.  Solitude can foster a greater sense of self, peace, acceptance, and wholeness.  Solitude can enhance our capacity for love and trust, joy and hope.  Solitude is an essential element in our self-care.
 
Aloneness happens!  When that aloneness occurs as loneliness, self-care must acknowledge and respond to it.  We can either simply not be alone, or take a better path.  Over the next few weeks we will explore ways to transform our loneliness into life-giving solitude.

​How do I know I am lonely?

• Are you unhappy about a lack of connection to people who are important to you?
• Are you uncharacteristically negative about your close relationships?
• Are you feeling unwanted or pushed aside by your friends or family?
• Are you grieving the loss of a significant relationship?
• Does your aloneness leave you exhausted and drained?

 
How do I know I am experiencing solitude?

• Are you comfortable being alone with yourself?
• Does your aloneness bring you time to relax into your body, mind, and soul?
• Can you feel your spirit being lifted in your aloneness?
• Did you look forward to this time of aloneness?  Did you intend to be alone?
• Does your aloneness replenish your energy and renew your spirit?

 
Over the next few weeks I will discuss ways to transform loneliness into solitude.  However, even when you are experiencing loneliness there is much to learn and experience.  Listen carefully to your aloneness and heed it’s teaching.

Loneliness
 
Solitude
 
Surviving Loneliness

​In the world of business, it is relatively easy to measure success.  There is a bottom line that calculates all the plusses and minuses until you end up with a number that is either positive or negative.  If you have more money at the end of the month you succeeded.  If not, then you failed.  It would be very helpful if our lives had a bottom line.  It would tell us when we are making progress and when we have fallen behind.  There is one.  And, it can be applied to having a good vacation.  What is the bottom line?  How do we know we have had a good vacation?
 
Life is good when we feel ourselves being drawn into a deeper and more meaningful relationship with the people around us, as well as with ourselves.  It is also good when we find that we can move through difficult situations with enough bounce or resilience to learn and grow.  I believe we are healthiest in body, mind, and soul when we feel ourselves growing in a greater capacity for love and trust in relationships.  We are also healthiest in body, mind, and soul when we have a greater capacity for joy and trust in our daily situations.  Love and trust, joy and hope are the bottom line for our lives, and thus for our vacations. 
 
A relationship that is growing in the ability to put the other people first (love) and trust that the other person will look out for our needs, is a stronger, more satisfying relationship.  A vacation that ends with the two people barely speaking to one another or with the old wounds remaining sealed away beyond healing has not been very successful.  When our capacity to bounce comes up short, we become more angry or disappointed in our lives.  We lose our ability to trust that things will work out and our hope wanes.  When we return from vacation just as frustrated and angry and despairing as when we left, it has not been a very successful vacation.
 
The bottom line is “How has this vacation changed you?”  Are you better for the journey?  More loving and trustful?  More joyful and hopeful? By accepting responsibility for the bottom line, we are better prepared to temporarily vacate our old life and return ready and willing to engage our daily work and personal lives once again. We are each responsible for our vacations.  

​When the vacation is over and all the unpacking is complete, are you able to say that you have grown closer to yourself and those around you? 
 

1. The “Me” Test – Are you more aware of the other person’s presence and desires than you were before your vacation?  Or is it “all still about me”?
2. Are you more likely to trust your companions to take your needs into account now, than before your vacation?
3. Are you better able to laugh off the little “bumps in the road” than you were before your vacation?
4. Are you better able to look down the long road into the future with less anxiety than before your vacation?

 
In short, do you have a greater capacity for love and trust, joy and hope as you resume your life in the everyday world?  If so, then you have vacated your everyday life very well.  If not, what might you do next time to better care for yourself on your next vacation?

What Type of Traveler are You?
 
Meyers-Briggs Type and your Vacation
 
Vacations and your Closest Relationships

​It is from within the soul that we create the energy to live our lives.  This soul-energy is called the human will.  Our body can sense a need to act.  Our mind can decide upon the action to be taken.  But until the soul generates the will to act, generally nothing will happen.  I say generally because there is an exception. We do go on autopilot from time to time and act out of shear repetition.  These automatic responses are soul-less.  We just do them. There is no real engagement or feeling involved.  In fact, we do our best to numb ourselves to any feeling so that our responses are unhindered by our emotions.  This is a necessary skill for life in a complex world.
 
However, this autopilot comes at a cost. When we begin to apply this skill too broadly in our lives, we become increasingly soul-less.  We lose touch with our innermost life.  We eliminate the complications that emotions bring to our relationships and life situations.  As we allow autopilot to control more and more of our lives, we begin to feel less and less.  We may feel that we are just “going through the motions.”  We experience no joy or hope in our everyday lives.  Love and trust begin to ebb and we begin to feel very alone.  Ultimately, we become a machine.  The other word for this is “Burnout.”
 
A vacation, meaning to temporarily vacate our day-to-day life, gives us the opportunity to feel once again.  The change in scenery and/or routine forces us off autopilot.  We refocus on the people and situations that surround us.  We engage the world afresh and reap the benefits of feeling and choosing and doing with joy and hope.  Life seeps back into the soul-less corners of our lives and be renew our acquaintance with our inner self.  We feel the energy that comes from laughter and joy warming the cold limbs of our lives.  We rediscover awe and wonder filling the void that has taken over our mind.  The stories come alive again.  The energy to live, laugh, and love returns.  Life becomes good again.
 
And, if we are attentive, we will be able to reassess just how much autopilot we need when we return to our day-to-day lives and keep it to a minimum.  But just in case, there will be another vacation when we need it to remind ourselves about what is truly important in life.

​My tip today is to Rage Against the Machine that you have become.
 
Break the routine in your life.  Force yourself off autopilot.  You may fear that you have forgotten how to fly that plane, but it will come back to you.  Allow the life-giving feelings to begin to course through your soul.  Fear, exhilaration, awe, and relief will fill the void that you did not even know you had.
 
Do and think differently.  Challenge your most cherished ways of doing things and your most deeply held convictions.  Shine the light of today on the routines and beliefs of yesterday.  Let in the fresh air of a new morning so that the stale air of an autopiloted doing and understanding can be refreshed or replaced.  If new ways or beliefs emerge, take them with you back into the day-to-day world.
 
Feel! Most importantly, let yourself feel.  Emotions cannot harm you.  You do not have to act on them.  Just let them course through your soul.  Let them fill the reservoirs of vitality from which you draw your energy.  Let go of those that drain you.  Hold on to those that fill you.  Celebrate the symphony of life that is now playing in your soul.

5 Signs you are on Autopilot
 
Stop Living on Autopilot
 
How Vacation Affected My Soul