Spend Some Time Alone

Related post: Creativity in Solitude

You may have noticed by now that I say a lot about being alone, solitude, or simply being by yourself. There is a good reason for this-no there are many good reasons for this. I’ve had forced time spend alone and I’ve learned the true value of it for your inner peace which leads to self-confidence, self-awareness, and spiritual awareness.

It’s true that we are social creatures who need one another. And we ought to be with our friends and family. However, it is only during time spent alone that certain personal development can occur. Allow me to suggest a few examples for you to consider:

• When you are alone you can clear your head of all the noise around you. You can discover what you goals need to be going forward.
• When you are alone you can hear the still, small voice within that will guide you and assist you with making right choices.
• When you are alone you can come to a place of acceptance about the circumstances in your life. Though they may not be pleasant you will develop courage to face tomorrow.
• When you spend time alone you may learn how to accept the worst of your past so that you can enjoy the best of your future.
• Creativity often comes, develops, and increases during time spent along.

The beginning of Chapter 1 in Living Learning Loving
Living with Solitude

Being alone gets a bad rap. Often being alone has a negative connotation as if something is wrong with you if you are alone. You enter a restaurant, for example, and the hostess says, “Just one?” as if there is something wrong with being just one. Our world is geared for pairs.

Even though being single should not carry any undertone at all, our culture continues to support the notion that a single woman must have a flaw. Not so for the single man. That is the myth. Single mothers are not flawed. They are competent, hard-working, loving women who carry a heavy load.

Another myth that plagues too many single women is their search for a man to “complete” them. As in The Missing Piece Meets the Big O by Shel Silverstein, single women must learn to “roll” alone before searching to be completed by another.

As a single mom you may be lonely, if only occasionally. You may not be living the life you had planned. One single mom told me, “I have been a single mom for ten years now, my daughter is in sixth grade, things are going well but I’m already thirty-five years old, and aching to find a suitable partner and maybe have another child. I envy those who have their complete and blossoming family while I am alone raising my child.” Surely many women raising children alone could say this.

Go to My WEBSITE for a FREE download of the complete Chapter 1 from Living Learning Loving-Living with Solitude

Gail raised three children as a single mother before she remarried. She has experienced the potholes, pests, and perils of being the single head-of-household. As an educator in regular and special education for twenty years she knows a great deal about child development and how to handle kids. She is the founder of SMORE for Women, a nonprofit whose goal is Single Moms, Overjoyed, Rejuvenated, and Empowered. She is a Certified Professional Coach and her stories have been published in several Christian books and magazines. Her book, Living Learning Loving is available on CreateSpace, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble online.