I love solitude, don't get me wrong, I love being with my family as much as I love solitude. When I say solitude I don't mean feeling lonely and lost. I mean I am with myself. I enjoy being with myself as much as being myself.
Sometimes it is important to cut out the noise around you. You are always listening to people, their opinions, their wants, their pain, their desires. This is true in my kind of profession as a counselor, I am constantly listening to the stories of others. When do I listen to myself? Am I not important, maybe not to you, but to me I am the most important person because this is my life. I hope you get the drift.
The Noise
The noise around gathers strength if you happen to be a good listener and people trust you. Everyone decides you are their dumping ground and dump all their secrets on you as well. While there is nothing wrong with this, you need me time or you will burn out soon. Here I am not talking about your beauty regime time or your crafting time, I mean a heart-to-heart me time.
It is in solitude alone this kind of me-time is possible. Your solitude can be a ten minute break to an hour-long meditation. This is your choice. For me, a ten minute break in the bathtub is good enough most of the time. I just need to listen to myself, what my mind, body and spirit are telling me. They often have a deeper and more important message for me call it intuition or gut feeling or whatever you want. These are thrown about from time to time and it would do us well to pay attention to them.
Most of us never really pay enough attention to ourselves, just like we do with our loved ones. While we pay so much attention to strangers, office mates and people we interact with rarely by listening to them, being polite and considerate we don't show the same amount of consideration to our loved ones. This is the same way with how we treat ourselves.
Why is it important to pay attention to your mind body and spirit?
I would say its because you are one person and you cannot neglect parts of you and expect to be whole and complete individual. Have you ever thought about this.
The truth is when you are constantly in discord with yourself you can never be at peace within or without. Peace is not everything working to plan or lack of inner struggles, it is a condition that enables you to think rationally, consider all things in an unbiased manner and come to a right decision which does not give you anxiety. Peace is you are well tuned to the world within and this helps you to tune in smoothly with the world outside. It is when you are in total agreement with yourself and the world does not seem like a threat to you.
Mind Body and Spirit
To find inner peace you've got to find yourself first, know what you want to do and come to a place of agreement with your mind, body, and spirit so that you can face the forces outside.
The mind, body, and spirit cannot be in agreement when one does not know or accept the existence of the other. The inner balance that you find keeps you stronger even when you face the greatest obstacles in your life. When you cannot find that inner balance everything falls apart, the first to do so is your mind the rest follows. Fear, anxiety, worry, feelings of insecurity, depression etc come into play and threaten the very identity of who you are.
Personal Identity
The saddest part of mental instability is that the person has lost or is losing his/her identity. It is our identity that makes us stand as proud humans. Our identity gives us a place in our society, and this comes from being who we are.
The Power of Solitude
Solitude helps you gather yourself, your thoughts, your desires your plans for your life and you values and helps tie them up together. Solitude gives you an opportunity to face yourself boldly. People are often afraid of solitude, they have to have background noise on all the time TV, Music whatever. They do not want to go to those places where their thoughts lead them. They do not like to be questioned by their conscience which is founded on their values or beliefs.
The mind when allowed to be calm and collected can be the most powerful tool of mankind. No weapon has such power as the mind. A powerful take you past the limits of time and space, it can help you conquer the tallest mountains, help you master the harshest desert, and cross the deepest ravines because it is stronger than the physical realm.
Make solitude your friend. Use the power of solitude!