There's a big difference between the solace of solitude — the ability to wind down from daily demands and distractions — and just being alone.
Being alone doesn't help us develop healthy mental habits. Solitude does.
SMART solitude
Solace
This probably isn't a familiar word. It means to give comfort to, to alleviate anxiety, to comfort grief. Solitude, meanwhile, is the "quality or state of being alone."
I love that distinction — the quality of being alone. That's exactly right for understanding smart solitude. The goal isn't just to be alone, and especially not to be alone in order to hide out or avoid something or someone. That's not good.
Figuring out how to cultivate a quality of being alone is really about making space for solace. It matters more that it's mental space than physical space, but it's great if you can put the two together.
Meditation
One thing you can do with mental space is meditate. That word means lots of things across different definitions and cultures, so to be specific: I'm referring to filling your mind intentionally with smart stuff.
It might start with emptying your mind, like taking out the trash. But make sure you end up intentionally filling it with truth.
Assessment
From a place of solace, make an assessment of where you're at. Not in the "I'm a loser, I'm so far behind, I'm no good" self-condemning way. More like "I'm trying to get somewhere else, so let's use a map to find directions."
There are tons of assessment tools to try, but remember that the most important assessment is between you and what you believe you're called to become and do — in that order, please. Become first, then do.
Reflection
We're often driven to reflection rather than choosing it. Something goes wrong, and we end up alone wondering "what's going on? How did that go wrong? What did I do? What did they mean?"
However you wind up reflecting, don't just rehearse what's going wrong. Reflect on your progress. That sounds something like: "it used to take me three weeks to stop feeling hurt, and now it only takes a few days before I start to feel better and remember to take time to recover." Or: "I was really offended the last time someone did this — I think this time I'll just forgive and move on."
Truth
As we cultivate solace and make progress in meditation and reflection, we have time to determine and filter what we believe is true. We get better at making choices about what to believe.
There's a lot of "this is my truth" floating around, mostly using the word truth as a synonym for experience. It's understandable, but unfortunate. It's true what you experienced. But is truth limited to only what we individually experience? I hope not.
A big part of living smart is discovering and using your power of choice — and choice means selecting from alternatives. If I think I'm limited to what I've personally experienced as the only source of truth, I'm overlooking a lot of alternatives. And if I'm telling someone else that what they think or experienced isn't valid, that's a problem too.
The smarter way is to acknowledge what we and others have experienced as true fact, without substituting an experience for the truth. It's helpful and liberating to know that what I've experienced up to this point isn't the only alternative.
Personally, I believe in an external standard of truth. That's a comforting thought — that there's a higher set of alternatives I can aspire to understand and apply to whatever my situation is. The flip side is that the more we believe in a standard of truth, the fewer things we can include when we choose the definition, including our own experiences.
DUMB substitutes for solitude
Distraction
Does anyone need me to list the zillion options available to distract us?
Just think about your recent choices for what's filling up the time you could be spending enjoying the benefits of solace.
Un-attachment
At some point you concluded "it's just not worth it" or "it's too hard," and you chose to unattach and go it alone.
It's true that staying attached to your purpose, your people, and your passion is less comfortable and much harder. Living unattached is easier. But living without connection, and without providing benefit to others — that's not smart.
Making comparisons
Assessing who you are and what skills you can develop is great.
But using that information to build a comparison against someone else? That's not smart.
Becoming someone else
We don't need another copycat or another fake online personality. We need the capable, unique you.
Use these ideas to find the real you, and then share it.