* Can solitude be something I choose rather than something that happens to me?

Come, sit with us for a moment. Let’s talk about loneliness. There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from constantly looking outside of ourselves — for answers, for reassurance, for distraction, for people, for something that will make us feel less uncertain or less alone.

We live in a world that rarely asks us to be still. There is always something to watch, someone to talk to, somewhere to go, something to achieve. We are constantly told that connection is essential to our wellbeing. Talk to people. Build your community. Reach out. Don’t isolate yourself. Make sure you have someone to call. And of course, there is truth in this. Human beings need relationships, intimacy and a sense of belonging, it is an instinct that unfortunately is not always met.  Prolonged isolation can be painful, and for many people, spending too much time alone can eventually become loneliness.

But have we turned the importance of connection into a kind of must do, an almost unquestioned belief that interacting is always better than being alone? As if every uncomfortable feeling should immediately be labelled as wrong, shameful, and fixed before it gets too dark, too heavy to talk about, and too heave to be in. But perhaps there is something we lose when we become too afraid of our own feelings in our own company.

Loneliness can arise when we are alone and when we are amongst people, but can we learn to stay with that feeling without immediately turning it into a problem? Solitude can become a training ground for attention. A place where we notice what happens inside us when there is no conversation, no stimulation and no one else to orient ourselves around. It can teach us something about our own mind and perhaps make us less dependent on constant external noise. A kind of solitude – one that can become a place of clarity, observation and presence. This does not mean choosing isolation over connection. It means questioning the idea that we must always choose connection in order to be well.

Mycorejourney finds the belief that learning to be with ourselves is not about withdrawing from the world. That perhaps it is more about becoming so comfortable with our own inner world so that we don’t need others as much as earlier. And while there is no bigger punishment than the feeling of utter loneliness, and there is nothing more healing than sharing laughter, dialog and tears with others. If you for various reasons don’t experience that connection, maybe the most important relationship we have to learn to live with is sometimes the one we have with ourselves. And to manage your situation with self-care.

This is what is so interesting in Shi Heng Yi’s perspective. His words invite us to look at silence, self-discipline and solitude differently — not as punishment or isolation, but as an opportunity to come back to ourselves. Listen to Focus on yourself and stay silenct from Voices Worth Hearing.