Learning to Live with Ourselves

 "The joyful one smiles when he is with his friends. The fortunate one smiles even when he is alone."

This, according to the Harenkalender, is a quote from Asiatic wisdom.

It is something I have rediscovered over the past few years - it didn't come naturally. Or at least, it did when I was a child, but was forgotten as I grew up and became the kind of person who needed the validation or approval of others to be happy. So I spent much of my teens, twenties and thirties and even forties doing what Brené Brown calls "acclimating" - learning to be a social chameleon, so that I fitted in with other people. And using alcohol to lubricate the journey. I now feel sad for that young woman, who believed that she had to suppress her own beliefs, her own opinions, in order to fit in, wasting her time chasing the elusive goal of popularity.

As I have written before, my spiritual journey began in the mid-noughties and has continued ever since. I now hope that I will never stop learning, never stop growing, never stop striving to be the best Sue Woolley I can be. And if that means that I am not popular, so be it.

I used to be terrified of solitude. I suffered from FOMO - the fear of missing out - and would drop everything to spend time with my friends. These days, I have rediscovered my natural ambiversion, and am just as happy to curl up with a book or sit in front of my laptop writing, as I am to be socialising. In fact, since I quit drinking in 2013, I have learned that I am happiest in my own company, or with one or two close friends or with my husband and children.

Of course, there is a difference betwen choosing to be alone and being forced into it. The recent pandemic has had many negative consequences, one of which was enforced solitude, which I blogged about here. It is only when we choose to be on our own that it can bring a smile. Because loneliness can be a terrible thing - it makes us feel unloved, unwanted, as though the world has passed us by. Whereas solitude, the ability to spend time alone, by our own choice, with the Spirit, can be wonderful. 

I have also come to appreciate silence and no longer feel the need to fill all the spaces in my life with words. I have found that sometimes, to sit in silence, either meditating or placidly crocheting, is to be at peace. I have learned to be at peace with myself and that is good.