“Solitude is the audience-chamber for God.” Anne C. Lynch
When lockdown started in the spring of 2020, my anxiety increased, and my heart raced. While searching for meditation apps, I found The Tapping Solution app. The name intrigued me, so I added the app. The first time I practiced tapping with the app, my heart stopped racing. I began a daily habit of practicing tapping. I began meditating daily a year later. Spending time in the silence and solitude of meditation brought me further down the road of trauma recovery.
I am convinced that periods of silence and solitude are necessary for recovery from childhood trauma. Silence is good for us, as studies show. Researchers found that spending even a few minutes in silence promotes relaxation and well-being. Solitude is equally good. Participants in a study reported that they felt a sense of well-being after spending time alone.
While I have always been the type of person who needs some time alone, I had a bad habit of shutting down when overwhelmed with anxiety. I believe there is productive solitude, where I spend time alone to read, meditate, think, write, and create. When I only want to be alone to isolate, that is destructive solitude. Productive solitude helps me be a better version of myself. It recharges my emotional batteries, while destructive solitude keeps me from letting others help me when I struggle emotionally. I am a worse version of myself when I isolate myself from people.
I have come to understand myself better by learning how my mind works. All of us have a monkey mind, that is, a mind that shifts wildly from thought to thought like a monkey swings from tree to tree. Maybe mine swings a bit more because I have ADHD. I gained an understanding of my mind by spending time in silence while focusing on my breath. Thoughts come rushing while meditating, but I let them go and focus on my breath. I learned from doing this that many of my thoughts are ones that I can just let pass.
There are no distractions, judgments, or expectations when I am alone in silence. There is no to-do list. I am in blessed silence without looking at a screen. As a writer, I spend much of the day in front of a laptop. Not doing anything but paying attention to my breath refreshes my soul. We live in a society where we look at screens throughout the day. We need times of solitude and silence.
We can only know ourselves well if we spend time alone. Solitude is where we can embrace our true selves and let go of our false selves. As we learn about ourselves, we can choose to love ourselves, faults and all. Without self-love, we can’t recover from childhood trauma.
“One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Do you spend time every day in solitude and silence? Drop a comment and let me know.
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Yes I am trying to spend some time every day in complete solitude I find it therapeutic