3096: [Part 1] 5 Things that Happen When You Embrace Being Alone by Marc Chernoff of Marc and Angel on Self-Love

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[00:00:59] This is Optimal Relationships Daily. 5 Things That Happen When You Embrace Being Alone. Part 1. By Mark Chernoff of markandangel.com. Quote, Last night I was all dressed up and waiting on my blind date to arrive. He never showed up. It made me feel ugly and unworthy and abandoned. I thought he may have seen me from a distance and bailed. All sorts of negative thoughts were running through my mind.

[00:01:29] Then, as I left the restaurant alone, I heard a little girl ask her mom if I was a princess. It made me smile and changed my mindset. I decided to walk the long way home. And I truly took it in. The fresh air. The peaceful solitude. The moonlight glistening off the sidewalk. And I realized being alone right now was exactly what I needed. End quote.

[00:01:57] Those are lines right out of an email I received this morning from Diane, a new course student of ours. I'm sharing this with her permission. Her feelings of loneliness and then her willingness to embrace being alone is both inspiring and a wonderful reminder for all of us. Because sometimes being alone is exactly what we need, whether we realize it or not.

[00:02:20] The truth, however, is that an astounding number of people in this world hate being alone. Perhaps all of us do at some point or another. We fear being without friends, family, or a partner. We get anxious about traveling alone to strange places and being lost without anyone to hold our hand. We fear taking on life without a shoulder to lean on for fear that we're not strong enough or good enough to stand on our own two feet.

[00:02:49] This is natural, this resistance to being alone. We've all felt it deep down in our own way, though we often try desperately to ignore it and deny it. And this is one of the greatest causes of our stress. To avoid being alone, we'll socialize endlessly, offline and online. We'll date and even marry someone who isn't right for us just to have someone to cling to, someone to fill up the empty space in our lives.

[00:03:17] We'll watch hours of TV or stuff our faces with junk food or buy toys we don't need. Because these things are replacements for love, especially self-love. The secret to turning things around? Awareness and acceptance. We have to open our minds to the empowering nature of being alone. We tend to see solitude as grim and imprisoning. But in fact, the exact opposite can be true.

[00:03:45] Solitude can be seen as freeing, as an opportunity for exploration and growth. An opportunity to get to know and love yourself deeply. Like most of us, though, this is something I've learned the hard way. For many years, I feared being alone. But I gradually strengthened my emotional self-sufficiency. And now I love it. The more I've experienced and explored my own feelings of loneliness and uncertainty,

[00:04:12] the more I've realized how necessary these feelings are. It's good for us to spend some time exploring unknowns by ourselves. It gives us an opportunity to discover who we really are and what life is all about. Being alone is nothing to fear. Solitude is beautiful. Here are some things that happen when you embrace it. 1. You develop strengths you need and didn't know you had inside you.

[00:04:39] Whenever I tell a coaching or course student that they need to embrace being alone, they usually say something like, But don't you think the thought of being alone is scary? To go through life by yourself when you feel uncertain about things? Yes, it can be very scary. And that's precisely the reason to learn to do it. Sometimes the scary things are the right things. Sometimes the situations we don't want are the ones we need to grow.

[00:05:08] Embracing this may be painful at first, but nothing in life is as painful as staying endlessly stuck in a situation you don't belong in, simply because you're too scared to walk alone for a while. Likewise, it's always better to learn to stand on your own two legs, rather than have someone carry you around your whole life. And once you're self-sufficient, then relying on someone else from time to time is an act of strength, not weakness.

[00:05:35] So, if you don't know how to manage your finances and your life, start by educating yourself. Read one book on personal finance, one chapter at a time. Teach yourself life management skills, one at a time. Become self-sufficient, gradually. Don't know how to defend and protect yourself? Learn to avoid dangerous situations. Learn to be aware of your surroundings. Learn the basics of self-defense. Hence, you'll feel a lot more confident walking alone with each passing day.

[00:06:05] Regardless of what skill you're trying to strengthen in yourself, the key is to take small, consistent steps in the right direction, day in and day out. Journeying through life alone is a learning process. You become stronger as you go. It's like a kid who can't find her way home when she's alone. Doing it the first few times is daunting and scary, but in the long run, she's safer and better off having learned the way. To be continued.

[00:06:36] You just listened to part one of the post titled, Five Things That Happen When You Embrace Being Alone by Marc Chernoff of markandangel.com And thanks a lot to Mark for a great start to this post. And to think we've got four more bullets left to hit. Gotta love that. I really like the note we ended on today. How he was talking about actions we can take towards self-sufficiency. Learning about personal finance and self-defense, etc. And this is a really great approach because

[00:07:04] if we are worried about being alone, this shifts us into an empowering response. A means of preparation. It gives us something to do. It gives us something to build upon. Something to make progress in. Instead of focusing solely on a lack of partnership and how we are defenseless against that. But these skills he's listed and more are both helpful for survival and for attracting partners. Independence and self-sufficiency,

[00:07:34] needless to say, are very attractive qualities that help us get by as well as help us find love. And the ability to pass these traits on to others also helps us to be better providers and protectors for anyone, including those we may be or become romantically linked with. So definitely focus on these types of lessons. Lessons which help you build a better life for yourself, whether you're with someone or not. So I'll leave you to it, everyone. It's time to get going for now as we sign off

[00:08:04] and start looking forward to finishing this post up in our next episode. So until then, thanks for tuning in and have a great rest of your day. I look forward to being with you tomorrow for the rest. That's where your optimal life awaits.