The difference between solitude and isolation has been on my mind frequently since the pandemic alerts first began. In many ways, the 2007 injury and subsequent search for wellness forced me to face these distinctions long before the rest of the world was confronting them on such a grand scale. Oddly, shortly after I was medically able to "return to life IN the community"... the "community" was forced to go home. Again, I found myself surrounded by a great deal of space between myself and others.
Over time, I have gained an appreciation for the value of solitude. But, it wasn't until recently that I realized how empowering that appreciation can actually be.
Self-awareness helps us adjust and adapt to our surroundings. Being authentic often means making difficult choices about who, when, what, where, and how we spend our energy and time.
Instead of the conditioned impulse to stifle ourselves in order to "belong"... Knowing how our authentic actions impact others has the power to inform when we choose to act and how we prepare ourselves for the consequences of those actions.
Each of us is a work in progress.
We learn to assess who is "ready" and who is not.
We learn to accept that some may never be "ready"...
We choose if/when/how to share space with them.
The appreciation for the value of solitude (not to be confused with isolation), empowers us to make these difficult choices. We are able to independently pursue that which makes us authentically ourselves without the fear of "exclusion" or marginalization.
There is true liberty to be found in knowing that we are able to be "okay" regardless of the perceptions and opinions of others. This Knowing enables us to be more authentic in the nature in which we choose to show up in community and more selective about when and how we choose to do that.
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