Flow 02 - The Strength within Solitude

Wellness culture has been thrown right into our faces more and more as social media has become a part of our everyday lives, but what really is wellness? The media has taken the desire for self-improvement and turned it into a trend, and with that comes a vast amount of misinformation, false advertising, and generally useless products. Wellness is not just one thing; it can’t be sold, taken as a class, or found instantaneously. If you’ve ever been interested in figuring out how to connect with and understand your own healing and wellness journey, Flow may be of assistance. Flow is my collection on holistic healing and how it works into my everyday life. In this collection, I will be looking into the psychology of wellness culture, where different practices and habits come from, my own personal outlook and opinions on how things have impacted my life, and other topics related to what wellbeing shows up as in today's world.

Exploring wellness and creating habits that work for you is very obviously a personalized experience, and with that being said, it's important to recognize your own role within it. As I said, it does sound obvious, but understanding how you work into your own journey is just as important as the habits themselves. Finding little things and practices that aid your journey are incredibly rewarding, yet understanding the difference between keeping yourself busy and truly sitting with yourself can be a difficult one to come across. For the second piece in Flow, I will be exploring the concept of sitting with yourself, as this is something that has truly shifted many parts of my own wellness journey. Being alone is uncomfortable for many people, for many reasons—and that’s something worth understanding. Being comfortable with your own company is its own type of fulfillment, and of course I’ll be referencing the science behind the benefits, but I will also be focusing a lot on my own experience with being alone.

“The Capacity to be Alone” is a well-known concept developed by a British psychoanalyst, Donald Winnicott. It explains how being comfortable being alone is a result of emotional strength, as one who is not fearful of being alone is one who has the emotional strength to sit with everything that they are. A very loaded concept, I’m aware. He explained that this ability is one that starts during early childhood, exemplified by how a baby is alright being left alone as long as the baby is aware that a caregiver is present. As time goes on, this idea would be internalized; it would directly correspond to safety, and one would not need to be in the presence of another to be comfortable. This idea is very overtly linked to mental wellbeing, as those who can sit with themselves can reflect on their own emotions and experiences with clarity. So one of the obvious benefits of practicing this is enhancing emotional independence; this then can lead to finding new senses of fulfillment and seeking less external validation. Hand-in-hand with emotional independence comes general self-reflection, truly observing the “why” through introspection. Many have also claimed senses of enhanced creativity; being alone can serve as a blank canvas for inspiration to flow into. Improved relationships are also a common benefit, as many are less likely to be dependent on another for emotional stability and validation. All of these benefits are closely related; they all circle back to sitting with the person you are, not the person you have to become or be perceived as.

Developing this skill in the modern world is more difficult than one might think. We are constantly surrounded by stimuli; there is always something happening. Even when it may seem impossible to find a break to be with yourself, there are small things you can incorporate into your day-to-day life to at least be aware of this skill. The combination of it not being easily accessible in the modern world and the lack of awareness around it makes it all the more daunting, and this raises the question: is it really that important? The short answer is yes. Yes, it is important not to be emotionally reliant on person to person. Yes, it is important to not exhaust yourself with loneliness because you’re struggling to find meaning outside of stimuli. Yes, it is important to understand that you are the most significant part of your life. 

Implementing this skill can look like a myriad of things; after all, everyone finds their own sense of enjoyment in different things. The concept is personal; that's the point. Practicing mindfulness exercises like meditation or other forms of mindful movement can be amazing. Mindful movement is directly linking your internal state to your physical state; it allows one to be present in the moment and explore what that feels like for them. Finding scheduled solitude can also be an amazing approach; this can be any allotted time dedicated to a mindful solo activity, and that activity can even be physically sitting with yourself. Testing dependency is another form of practicing this skill; this doesn’t mean you should isolate yourself from everyone you know, but maybe look into what emotional comforts you associate with certain people and try to find them within yourself. There are so many ways to figure out what solitude looks like for you; breaking the stigma is a long process, yet the more you internalize the concept that all you are and all you ever will be is yourself, the more it can slowly become comforting.

My own journey of discovering what solitude looks like has not always presented itself with the comforting manner I currently associate it with. It has never been linear, and I doubt it ever will be. Being “comfortable” with myself has never been about actively loving every single thing I’ve done and sitting here praising the past versions of myself; it's more so about the act of accepting those parts of myself. I’m not going to sit here and act like everything I’ve ever done was perfect and served a higher purpose, and I’m also not going to sit here and say that I’m an awful person and don’t deserve emotional wellbeing. I am simply the person I am, and that’s something I am okay with. I actually quite like being alone; I like finding ways to fulfill my soul, whether it's through spirituality, movement, writing, music, learning, or even resting. I find that each minute I spend alone can tell me something about myself. It doesn’t always have to be profound; it can be as simple as figuring out why I had a certain reaction to something someone said, or why I liked the color of someone’s hair. No matter what it is, it’s something I only came to realize because I wasn’t distracting myself. Distracting myself was something that used to come far more naturally to me than accepting the fact that I exist; I would take extreme measures just to escape the reality I had created. I would start with switching schools, then I’d switch towns, then states, and a border or two later I’d come to realize that I can’t escape myself. I can shorten my name as much as I want; I can find a new boring hobby to obsess over; I can find new friends to tell my new hobby to. I could do anything cyclically. Reaching rock bottom was the thing it took for me to realize that the versions of myself that had been created out of survival were not trying to surpass my current day self, but align with her. After all, it wouldn’t make sense for seemingly “perfect” traits and pieces of authenticity to spawn out of thin air; they would have had to be built on something. That something was every mistake I’ve ever made, every conversation I’ve had; it was every single thing I had ever experienced. My experiences aren’t meant to be something directly associated with a positive or negative connotation; they are simply just things. What I choose to do with them is what actually plays a significant role in my life. I chose to find meaning; I am still choosing this. I will continue finding meaning in every person who enters my life, even those who exit. I will continue finding meaning in the divine. I will continue finding meaning in movement. I will continue caring for the parts of me that make me feel whole and connected to my being, and I owe it to my own company. I love the people I choose to spend time with; I’d never want to discredit their roles in my life, and I still want to bring awareness to the fact that I am a person outside of them. Gratitude does not even begin to near the way I feel towards being able to slowly understand myself; I truly hope that everyone gets to experience their own company, comfortably.

Writer, S. (2025, April 22). Developing the capacity to be alone: Building Emotional Strength - Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute Treatment Center. https://chicagoanalysis.org/blog/chicago-therapy/capacity-to-be-alone/