Alone

This post is part of a conversation that we had while recording our podcast.

Nico: My point is, it's good to have alone time. But for me, it doesn't serve any specific purpose. It doesn't bring me anything to be absolutely alone. To have no one in sight to not talk with anyone for one day. This only removes things for me. It doesn't bring me anything, what brings me things is to be able to be in a room, or in the bathroom in the bathtub, or sitting at my desk while some other people are doing some other things. I love this feeling. For me, the human life is made to be shared. It's not to be alone in a cabin. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, because a lot of people value and say you need this silent retreat, or you need this, hermit life. And okay, maybe it helps something. Maybe if you do this, you grow?

I was thinking, I should spend more time alone. I was almost feeling guilty of not spending time alone. And I realised, that it doesn't feel really right for me to be completely alone. If I am, it's okay, I'm not going to run to someone. But I have so many people I want to see, I'm not going not to be with them. Because I value more time alone. That's my conclusion.

Natalia: I think there is an important meaning in time alone, I feel it now, and maybe that's gonna be different for different people. But I feel that when you are with someone, you are always subject to distractions. For me, I need time alone sometimes to reach a state of connection with something deeper, I feel that through being alone, it's my way to do it. There may be other ways, but I feel like being alone. Recently I'm more and more curious to do this 10 day silent retreat. And actually, it's with people. It's interesting, because you are with people but not talking to them. So it's a bit more like your you’re saying. So maybe it'll be even more interesting in this way. But I feel that it's needed to be with our brain alone.

Nico: It's true. My conclusion is that I think you need to find how to become more alone when you're with people. And I need to explore the real aloneness to see what what is there for me? And then we can talk again about it.

Natalia: Yeah, for example, I felt that I needed to go for this trip in the New Year's Eve to be completely alone in the mountains. And I needed it to feel that I can trust something bigger than anyone else that I can trust that I will be fine just by myself in the mountains, even in a situation a bit dangerous or whatever. I needed to feel that I’m completely alone there and that it gave me power. It brought me power to be alone. And it actually made me more connected to myself and therefore to others. And I don't think I could have reached this state being there with someone else.

Nico: Yeah. That's for sure. You know, I was at my parents and I remember this feeling of being at home and something is happening in the house. So you know there's life, you know you are not responsible completely, you can also count on other people. Because we are all watching for each other, naturally. I could really relax, be in my bubble, in my room, in my workshop, doing my things, because I knew that the world was continuing outside without me having to care about it. It's actually a very deep focus, where when you're really alone, you also need to have some kind of survival mode inside you that has to check about your safety, and your food, and your shelter. Is everything going okay? You are responsible for 100% of your life. And so it's hard to completely focus on some tasks. That's, that's what I noticed.

Unless your main focus, like you was survival. When you're completely alone in nature, that's the only thing that you're doing. So you're fully focused on being yourself as a living being.

Natalia: I think that's it. I went there to experience this feeling of survival, the purest form, in the strongest form, I could sustain myself. And therefore, I increased my capacity for having and handling it outside of there. So now, I don't feel so strong because I know that I can survive anyhow. I know that I've been through difficult situations completely alone. And therefore my capacity to deal with this difficult feeling has just grew and I am not bothered by when I'm alone in other places.