July 14th, 2019
“I have lost myself, though I know where I am.” –Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” -Blaise Pascal
“I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. ” -Henry David Thoreau
Hi!
I love the outdoors, and hiking is one of my biggest passions. I hike about 1,000 miles a year and at least half of those I hike alone. This is not because I can’t find people to hike with but rather because I often prefer it.
As I write this, I’m reminded of a poem by my favorite poet, the late Mary Oliver. It’s called How I Go Into the Woods, and it articulates perfectly why I often go into the woods alone.
How I go to the woods
Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers, and therefore unsuitable.
I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree.
I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours.
Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible.
I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned.
I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.
If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.
I love people, and I love hiking with my family and close friends. One of my favorite aspects of my work is guiding others on Epic Adventures. If you’ve ever hiked with me, I do indeed love you very much. 🙂
Hiking in solitude over the years is how I have discovered who I am. It’s how I discover who I am becoming. When I’m struggling or hurting or confused, my time spent hiking in solitude heals me and shows me the way. Time spent alone inspires me to imagine all that is possible. I’m inspired to dream. The clients I coach and take on epic adventures often comment about the value of the solitude they experience even during what are group adventures. Leaders today are in demand almost constantly thanks to technology and the challenges of an ever-changing and often uncertain future. One leader, who is 52 years old, told me that the solitude he experienced in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming “showed me that the space for me to grow is so much bigger than I thought it was.” That’s what happens when we give ourselves some time alone. We see the possibility in ourselves and in our lives.
In addition, hiking alone has taught me how to pay attention, not only to my thoughts but to the wonders around me. My favorite poet, the late Mary Oliver, suggested that the “instructions for living a life” are: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. My solo treks have provided ample practice in paying attention and I am constantly being astonished. (I sometimes think it was Mary Oliver, in her many poems reflecting on walks in the woods and as a witness to nature, who taught me how to pay attention.)
Last week, I went on a 25-mile training hike, the first of many such long solo hikes I’ll do this Summer. After I posted photos and videos from my long solo hike on Facebook, there were some comments made out of concern for my safety, given I hiked so far and that I did it alone. The comments were not criticisms as much as concerns from wonderful people, and they were heartfelt and well-meaning, which I appreciate.
I am aware of the risks and I mitigate them the best I can. I tell Jerry and the boys, and/or my parents, where I’ll be and my expected timeline. I am familiar with the trails and area I’ll be hiking in. I always have a map and a compass. Plus, I carry with me a Garmin InReach, which allows my husband and family to track me on a map so they always can know my whereabouts when I’m in the mountains, and I am able to send and receive texts. If I get injured I can notify them, and I can launch a search or S.O.S. with the push of a button. I don’t hike with headphones on. I carry bear spray and items that would help in case of an emergency or if I have to spend an unexpected night in the woods. While hiking, I am hypervigilant and pay careful attention to my surroundings, in addition to always being on the lookout for the ineffable. I love my life, and I want to be safe. I always want to return from my hike.
Rebecca Solnit writes in one of my favorite books of hers, A Field Guide to Getting Lost: “I have lost myself though I know where I am.” In fact, it is in losing myself in my thoughts and with nature all around me that I find myself over and over again.
One day in Alaska’s Brooks Range, on my NOLS course in 2011, we got turned around and we weren’t sure of our location. After some hours of backpacking, we were feeling a little demoralized and uncertain so we took off our heavy packs, and got our big topographical maps out before going about trying to figure out where we were.
The Brooks Range is a 700-mile-long mountain range that stretches from West to East in the far north of Alaska. The country is remote and vast and wild. There are no roads and no trails in the Brooks Range. So, in order to determine your location, you have to try to match the land formations around you with features on the map. It can be laborious. After a while of not figuring out where we were, a couple of us grew impatient, myself included. I just wanted to move, in any direction. I was tired of not going anywhere, and tired of not figuring out the answer to our question. One of my course-mates said to me, “With all due respect, I don’t think it’s a waste of time to figure out where we are, so we can figure out where we’re going.”
I’ve never forgotten those words. Such wisdom! First of all, if you’re in the wilderness and you think you may be lost, you don’t keep going. You S.T.O.P. Stop, Think, Observe and Plan. But even more importantly, we should live our lives with such wisdom. We cannot expect to realize our dreams or achieve our goals without first having a very good understanding of who we are, and where we are. Self-awareness is the necessary first step to not only living our best (epic) life but to being the best version of ourselves. Our vision of who we want to be serves as our True North.
In other words, our compass is more important than our map. Who we are is more valuable than what our goals are.
By design, I do a lot of things for work. Mostly, I’m a life and leadership coach, keynote presenter, leadership developer, and adventure guide. People hire me when they want to take stock of their life or leadership or both, and to help them make changes.
In order to be content and self-aware, we must have some regular intervals of time each week when we’re available only to ourselves in order to listen to our thoughts, including the good, the bad and the ugly. I’m not a coach for everyone. Anyone who works with me can expect to do a deep dive into Self. It’s that important to a fulfilled life, and it’s not easy work.
As someone who likes people, and who values relationships, I feel strongly that listening is the most important skill we ought to develop. (Unfortunately, we are not taught to listen, which in my humble opinion, is a tragedy.) Most of us are not very good listeners. Right now, take a second to think about all of the people you know and are in a relationship with. Can you think of one or two who are really good listeners? These are people who listen to you so closely that you feel as if you’re the only person in the world when you’re with them. It’s uncommon to find these great listeners, so when you do, it’s a gift. If you have any of them in your life, cherish and thank them. Seeing and hearing a person is one of the greatest gifts we can offer someone.
But we also need to be great listeners for ourselves.
Time alone, and solitude feels not empty, but “full.” Thanks to Joel Krieger for this photo of me in my backyard, near Temple Peak and Temple Lake, in the Wind River Range.
My love for solitude happened by accident. When I was 21 years old, I lost my Division I basketball scholarship. It was my most spectacular failure. I wasn’t a good enough player, and there was someone else who was better and more deserving of my scholarship, so my scholarship was given to another player.
I was devastated, and a long way from home. Most of my friends were still on the basketball team, so losing my scholarship meant also losing significant time with my friends. I started spending a lot of time alone, hiking Mount Sentinel on the edge of campus. Until then, I always thought people who went to the movies alone, or who hiked or did anything alone, were lonely people. Boy was I wrong about that. In fact, lonely and alone are not the same things. We can feel lonely in a crowded room or at a party a friend is throwing, yet not feel lonely when we’re alone. As writer May Sarton wrote: “Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.”
Before I continue singing the praises of time spent alone, I want to share something that should get all of our attention: We are in a loneliness epidemic. A Cigna study released in May of 2018 confirmed that 50% of Americans report feeling lonely. (In the 1980s, when we were far less “connected” via technology, just 20% of Americans reported feeling lonely.) One of the most concerning things about the loneliness epidemic is that many who are lonely today are our young people, particularly those who are age 18-22. The emotional suffering and despair caused by loneliness are difficult to live with and often lead to increased rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide. Experiencing loneliness also has serious physical health ramifications. According to the Cigna study, being lonely has the same effect on our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. If you feel like you are experiencing loneliness, then solitude might not be something to seek right now. In fact, the key to decreasing loneliness is having meaningful relationships, feeling engaged and accepted at work, taking care of our health, and feeling as if we belong. If you’re feeling lonely, more time in isolation is likely not what you’re needing.
I recommend reading Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone, by Brené Brown. This is the book that raised my awareness about loneliness.) I’m saving the topic of loneliness for another blog post, and for the record, while I don’t consider myself lonely right now, I have experienced loneliness before, and will likely experience it again.
Also, introverts might have an easier and more enjoyable time in solitude than extroverts. I’m oversimplifying, but in short, introverts tend to get their energy internally, and extroverts tend to get energy from other people and from being in social situations. So it might be that solitude is easier and more desirable for introverts than it is for extroverts, yet there is value in solitude for both.
I am blessed that I was only 21 years old when I discovered the value of time spent alone, because now I am 51 years old, and the solitude I regularly enjoy has been a blessing over the years. It has been a difference-maker in my life.
We hear a lot about being our “Authentic Self,” and in leadership, we hear a lot about being an “Authentic Leader.” Both are hard, if not impossible, to be if we don’t even know who we are. Joseph Campbell said, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” Amen to that. If only people would dare to invest time alone so that they may discover who they are. By the way, I have learned that how we live is how we lead, so self-knowledge is the first step whether your motive is to live your best life or to have a positive and effective leadership impact on others.
We discover our authentic self during time alone, taking stock, listening to our thoughts, feeling our emotions, asking ourselves important questions and then giving ourselves the time and space to answer them.
Solitude is a gift and an opportunity, yet most of us don’t get enough of it. As a coach who promotes time spent alone, there are three excuses I hear most often for not getting enough of, or any, solitude.
The first excuse is a common excuse for not doing a lot of things we want and need to do. It is the, “I don’t have time. I’m so busy, and I can’t find the time” excuse. I think it was writer Elizabeth Gilbert who said, “We don’t find the time; we make the time.” I couldn’t agree more. We all have 24 hours in a day. I often challenge people I work with and/or know to wake up 15 minutes earlier and to simply go to a dark room and sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes before officially starting their day. Using this time to start a mindfulness practice is also beneficial, and is another good way to introduce yourself to Solitude.
The second excuse–and one that I commonly hear from people who hire me as their coach–is, “It’s uncomfortable.” I agree. Being alone with our thoughts can be very uncomfortable. It can be difficult to listen to our thoughts because they’re not always positive. Time spent alone can facilitate a sort of reckoning. We are forced to confront the truths in our life. It is hard to run or hide from one’s self if left alone with our thoughts. This is one of the reasons I think Solitude is so valuable. How can we be a truth teller to our Self if we’re not aware of, or confronting, the hard truths in our life?
In 2008, after selling our first company, I suddenly found myself with time alone, something I hadn’t had the luxury of for years. What I learned was that things were not okay. I wasn’t healthy. I was in a downward spiral and once I had the opportunity to pause and take stock of my life I found that all kinds of alarms were going off. I was 30 pounds overweight, drinking wine on too many weeknights, sedentary, addicted to my iPhone–and depressed.
As Dov Siedman says, “When you press the pause button on a machine, it stops. But when you press the pause button on human beings they start up.” When I finally had time alone I was able to see and confront the hard truths that were hijacking my life.
Time spent alone helps to prevent me from running from or ignoring the areas that could use my attention. Tears frequently come for me during solitude. The quiet and lack of others around help me to feel and experience and process my emotions at a deeper level. I recently read the book, I Miss You When I Blink, by Mary Laura Philpott. In it, I highlighted the following: “When I look back now at this time when I craved solitude and escape, I see that I wanted to be unwitnessed for a while, that’s all. I didn’t want anyone to see how wrong I felt. I wanted a chance to feel messed up without also feeling self-conscious. It was like the feeling I used to get before I fainted–an inkling of a crash, a hunch that I should get close to the ground. I needed a place where I could hit the floor without the added anxiety of knowing someone was watching me fall.”
As someone who is an expert when it comes to self-criticism, solitude helps me to be more self-compassionate as a result of the greater understanding I have of myself, which has come through all the time I have spent alone.
I’ve coached 175 individual from across the U.S. during the last eight years, and I think every one of them struggles, at least at times, with self-criticism. We tend to be hard on ourselves.
The potential reward for spending time alone is to gain an understanding of self, which leads to more compassion for, and less judgment of, self, and others.
One of my favorite essays is Joan Didion’s On Self Respect, written in 1961. It so resonates for me because it articulates better than I can the importance of knowing oneself in the interest of respecting oneself. From her essay is this favorite passage of mine:
“To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference. If we do not respect ourselves, we are on the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out–since our self-image is untenable–their false notion of us.”
Today, it uncommon for people to invest the time and effort it takes to really know oneself.
One question I challenge people I know and work with to ask themselves is, “What am I needing?” This is such an important question, and most of us do not give ourselves time and space to consider the question, let alone the possible answers to it. It is much easier to live in denial, and to not confront or address personal challenges, weaknesses or pains if we avoid making ourselves aware of them. But this lack of awareness also prevents us from making changes that could be significant to our life.
I’m a voracious reader and one book I love is Journal of a Solitude, by the late May Sarton. Sarton was an American novelist, poet, and memoirist who suffered from bouts of depression. (Sarton referred to solitude as “the richness of the self.”) Journal Of A Solitude is a book that is one year’s worth of Sarton’s journaling, which includes some pretty dark times. Here are just two of the many gems I have highlighted in my dog-eared copy of the book:
“I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my ‘real’ life again at last,” begins Sarton, in Journal of a Solitude. “That is what is strange—that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life, unless there is time alone in which to explore what is happening or what has happened.”
And, another gem from the book: “There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it.”
Sarton’s book is inspiring to me, in ways I can’t quite articulate other than to say I have my own dark pools and depressive moments, and reading of Sarton’s own struggles helps me feel not as alone in my personal struggles. I highly recommend the book.
The third excuse I hear is “It’s boring.” As a society, we have come to view boredom as a problem to solve. Think about the last time you had to wait for anything–out front of the school waiting for a son or daughter, in the waiting room of a clinic, waiting in line at the post office or grocery store, stuck at a stop light or stop sign, or in TSA line at the airport–or well, just about in any situation. At the first glimpse of free time, most of us reach for our smartphone. (I read somewhere that the average U.S. American adult reaches for his/her phone 150 times a day. This is staggering, and I believe it.)
I work with many creative people, and in my presentations to leaders, and in my coaching work with them, I like to make a case for boredom. In order for us to brainstorm new ideas, to have Aha moments and new solutions to old problems, we must allow our mind to wander. Our mind wanders only if and when we allow ourselves to experience boredom.
Joseph Campbell, from his Power of Myth, writes about the important influence that solitude has on one’s creativity, whether toward self or a creative endeavor.
“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.”
And another favorite, from Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift From the Sea, a book I recommend (especially to women): “Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone.”
Try to resist the temptation to reach for your phone, or fill/use up the little bits of free time the next time you are required to wait or have a moment to not do anything. It’s hard work, AND it’s worth it. The podcast, Note to Self, did a series of challenges they called “Bored and Brilliant” that were designed to “guide you to less phone time and more creativity.” Thousands of people signed up for the challenges, which included things like not reaching for your phone during public transit, not using your phone as a camera to instead “see the world through your eyes not your screen,” delete apps, and other challenges.
As far as our rampant use of smartphones, let the record show that I’m guilty! Technology is a Godsend for me, and my work. It enabled our first company (Yellowstone Journal/YellowstonePark.com, NationalParkTrips) to do world-class work from the Frontier of Wyoming, and it enables me to reach and serve clients from around the country even as I work in an RV parked by the river in the foothills of Wyoming’s Wind River Range. I think I mostly use technology for good, but it’s also a fact that I’m too tethered to it. Facebook, in particular, has facilitated meaningful friendships I wouldn’t have otherwise, and has enriched so many of my connections with friends and family. It is also a marketing tool for me, as well as a place for me to share things that I find inspiring, and worth sharing with the world.
But I am finding that my almost-constant tethered-ness to my phone and social media is also not always serving me. It’s addictive, and distracting, and it probably limits me at least as much as it helps and enriches me. This is a real conundrum, and something I’ve been working on addressing for years now. (Cal Newport, author of Deep Work, and also the work of Derek Sivers and Josh Waitzkin continue to inspire me to take serious stock of my use of technology.)
University of Virginia psychologist Timothy Wilson and colleagues have studied people when in solitude. For one experiment, people were instructed to sit alone, with only their thoughts, in an empty lab room for 15 minutes. The only thing in the room was a button they could push, and if they pushed it, it would self-administer an electrical shock. The results were startling: Even though all participants had previously stated that they would pay money to avoid being shocked with electricity, half of all participants shocked themselves at least once, the team reported in Science. That’s newsworthy, so I’ll be redundant: Half of us would rather shock ourselves than sit alone with our thoughts for 15 minutes. I can’t help myself – this is shocking!
Sherry Turkle is Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Initiative on Technology and Self. Turkle has been studying the psychology of online connectivity for more than 30 years, and she is the author of two books I recommend, Alone Together, and Reclaiming Conversation. The latter, which investigates how a flight from conversation undermines our relationships, creativity, and productivity, is a cautionary tale for us, especially for parents and teachers. (But for the record, I think everyone ought to read the book.)
According to Turkle, “Studies of conversation both in the laboratory and in natural settings show that when two people are talking, the mere presence of a phone on a table between them or in the periphery of their vision changes both what they talk about and the degree of connection they feel. People keep the conversation on topics where they won’t mind being interrupted. They don’t feel as invested in each other. Even a silent phone disconnects us.” So just the presence of a phone, which has become a way to “solve” boredom, prevents us from going deep with people.
One finding of Turkle’s that is a surprise, and warrants our attention, is that our capacity for Solitude actually helps us be more empathetic with others.
“In solitude we find ourselves; we prepare ourselves to come to a conversation with something to say that is authentic, ours. If we can’t gather ourselves, we can’t recognize other people for who they are. If we are not content to be alone, we turn others into the people we need them to be. If we don’t know how to be alone, we’ll only know how to be lonely.”
Hear hear. I cannot say it better.
Sometimes I like to ask people, If you had just one piece of advice for someone that would help them live their best life, what would it be? If I were asked the question, I would offer, Pay Attention.
One of the best ways I have found to practice paying attention is to spend time alone, listening to my thoughts, reflecting on my life, and noticing all that is around me.
I hope this blog post will inspire you to carve out more time for yourself, and that the solitude you experience will bless you and your life in new and unexpected ways.
Thanks for reading. I really appreciate it.
“A little while alone in your room will prove more valuable than anything else that could ever be given you.” (Rumi) Photo: Solitude in the Cirque of the Towers.
- Categories: Adventure, Family, Fitness, Life and Leadership, Travel
- Tags: brain pickings, journal of a solitude, may sarton, realization, self awareness, sherry turkle, solitude, taking stock, time alone
- Comments: 7 Comments
