The world can feel like a big and frightening place. Because of this, people often turn to each other for comfort, solidarity, and understanding. Still, there are plenty of times when you may wish to be alone. Interestingly, a large chunk of people experience great difficulty when it comes to spending time without anyone else. If this sounds familiar, then you might be interested in learning more about how to be happy when you are alone. Practice makes perfect, and there are many easy ways to get started.
Understand Your Worth
There are many reasons for being alone. Perhaps you recently got out of a series of bad relationships and are trying to reconnect with yourself. Maybe most of your time is spent putting out fires at work and you just need a minute to focus on the issues in your own life. Whatever the reason, spending time alone can be quite beneficial to your mind, body, and spirit. Above all, understanding how to be happy when you’re alone provides you with great insight into your own worth and how you don’t always need someone around to feel content.
There is a lot of advice circulating on the internet on why you should consider being alone now and again. Often, the information shared is along the lines of “learn to love yourself or you can’t expect anyone else to love you.” While there might be some kernels of truth in there, it is a poor reason to look within. If your goal is to make yourself more desirable to others, then you’re missing the point. Being alone is your opportunity to understand more about yourself so that you feel happy with yourself, not so you can land some romance.
Observe and Analyze
Spending time with other people can often drown out your own thoughts and opinions. Whether humans like to admit it or not, people often fall into “groupthink” when clustered together. This means people will agree or disagree with others in the group regardless of how an individual actually feels about a situation. When you are alone, you are left to observe and analyze the world without the assistance of friends or family members. This can seem scary, but it is actually a fantastic way to get a better idea of what your thoughts and beliefs truly are.
Your own interests tend to shine through more when you spend time alone. For example, you may be someone who absolutely loves listening to show tunes. If you are always hanging around with people who hate tunes from musicals, you may pretend that you actually don’t care for this kind of music either. Instead of pretending or dancing around your interests for the sake of others, being alone grants you the opportunity to connect with what you like and rediscover exactly what you enjoy about it without fear.
Chat With Yourself
For some reason, people tend to think that talking to yourself is “crazy.” This is odd because a vast majority of human beings will talk to pets, plants, and anything else within earshot. Holding a conversation with yourself is actually a wonderful way to analyze your thoughts. Scientific research has stated time and time again that the mind processes information differently when it is heard out loud. Start chatting with yourself when you have alone time; it can help you appreciate your own company in a whole new and enlightening way.
Though the desire to connect with other people is always going to be an important impulse, you also need to remember why being alone matters. Really connect with your soul during moments when you are by yourself, and figure out how to be happy when you’re alone.