The Allure of Alone: Beauty and benefits in solitude
“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.”
― May Sarton
Being alone has incredible benefits for our work, our most important relationships, and our health.
My first adult job was in ministry, I was an associate pastor of a small church. On one particularly hard day, I had had enough. I found myself literally seething with anger at one of the young leaders I was supposed to be mentoring. At the time my office was on the upper floor of a home that the church owned, and right across the hall from the head pastor - my mentor and boss. While in my office my emotions boiled over and I took my lunch - a beautifully curated ham and cheese sandwich - and launched it against the wall, shouting a word that associate pastors should not be saying (let alone shouting).
Just a moment later I heard a soft tap on the door and my mentor/boss walked in.
“Hey, friend. I think it’s time for you to go on a retreat.”
That’s how I learned the value of solitude as a way to regulate my emotions and recalibrate my inner life. It’s soul care at its finest. He sent me to a monastery for a full week of solitude, silence, reading, reflection, and prayer. I never recovered from that trip and, to this day, solitude is a go-to practice for me.
I love helping others discover the same benefits and beauty that I do from intentional time away.
There are 3 recurring benefits I want to share in this essay:
Retreats help us do our best work. Are you feeling stuck? Is there a creative block you can’t get past? Is there a problem so challenging in your work that you think you will never figure it out? Maybe it’s a person. Maybe it’s a process improvement that is needed. Whatever “it” is, a retreat is often the very thing that will help you get unstuck.
But beware: I’ve been on retreats where it seemed like nothing was getting “accomplished” (often this is the point!) but then at the end of it or within a few days the “A’ ha” moment hits. Sometimes we just need to lower the RPMs in our brains and the solution will present itself. Like a mud puddle that finally clears once we stop stirring it up.Retreats improve our relationships. This one is a little bit of a head tilter. More solitude = better relationships? Once we settle into solitude, our love and insight for the people who matter most to us will surface. Sometimes this will visit us with a certain inner feeling of ‘missing’ them. But right on the heels of that, our understanding of what they need and how we can best care for them or guide them emerges.
Bring a notebook! You’re going to get amazing insights about your loved ones and all those you lead.Retreats improve our mental & physical health. The mental health part is fairly obvious. Our emotional attachments and anxieties can calm down when we’re out of our normal relational patterns. Combining this with physical rejuvenation also helps. Breathwork. Stretching. Hiking. All these and more work in tandem to aid our mental and physical health simultaneously.
The Japanese - who are no strangers to the stressors of urban life and dense populations! - have mastered a practice called “Forest Bathing.” Walking among trees and forested paths has been proven in their practice to rejuvenate body and mind.
And there’s science to back it up too! (see the book Forest Bathing by Dr. Qing Li)
How do you rejuvenate in solitude? What are your favorite places and practices for getting alone? When you’re ready, please reach out to us. We’d love to help you plan and experience a retreat on our slice of glamping paradise at Dappled Light! (If you want to book a discounted stay before March 1st, enter the code: CAMPFIRE when you check out on our website.)
Questions? Please reach out! We want your glamping experience to be as lovely as possible.
From the whole Dappled Light team, thank you for reading!
We look forward to hosting you soon,
Izaac Rains
