In this post I mentioned that the first part of getting through a time of social distancing was to be ok with being in your own company. I didn’t elaborate because that is a topic that could take years to fully unload and dissect, and it really is different for each individual. For me, social distancing comes rather easy. It is my natural state to turn toward solitude. Being alone has never been frightening or bothersome – I’ve welcomed it at every turn. Most humans are more sociable than that, however, so suddenly going without regular human interaction may be uncomfortable and scary. The only piece of advice I can offer is to move through it. Experience it. Feel it. Sit in silence, alone and without your phone or other distractions, and feel the fear. Lean into the discomfort. Face it and honor what you’re feeling. Take a deep breath slowly in and let it slowly out. Focus on that breath. Take another. See if you can slow down enough to take ten deep breaths, thinking only of that breath and counting each one off as you inhale and exhale.
I don’t pretend this will be easy. Even for someone who enjoys solitude, it took some getting used to. We’ve spent the last decade or so surrounding ourselves with noise and alerts and text whistles and a hurried pace of life that is clearly not sustainable if we are all to survive. We don’t know how to stop and sit still. We don’t know how to exist in silence. We don’t know how to survive without distraction. And so it will be difficult the first few times you find yourself alone with only your breathing. You will likely feel antsy, like you should be doing something else – anything else – but just sit with that for a while. Sit with yourself. At the most difficult times in life, at the easiest times in life, at the happiest and the most sorrowful, you’ve had one constant companion, even if you’ve always looked to or been surrounded by others. The one single person who’s been through it all, right by your side, and will be until the end – the sole person who will never desert you.
This realization can be upsetting and jarring for some people. We want so badly to think that life only matters when there is love, and love always seems to involve another person, but that’s not really the case. There’s self-love, which gets more of a bad rap these days than it deserves, and I’ll admit there are all sorts of self-love that aren’t genuine and aren’t what I’m talking about here. See, this branches off into so many other areas it’s impossible to make sense in a post or two, but it’s a start. And it’s worth the effort. Because if you can be happy with being alone with yourself, you will always have the best company no matter what happens.
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