Solitude and the New Mom

I wrote this post many moons ago about the reasons why solitude is such a great and useful thing.  All of these things are completely true, and are major reasons why I think solitude is so grand.  Of course, I was not yet a parent at that time, and looking back on it, I imagine that parents in the know may have wanted to laugh me off the face of the Earth.

"Solitude," I imagine some mother scoffing at me via her computer screen circa three years ago, hair greasy, wearing pajamas, and getting up for the third time in five minutes to deal with some child-related catastrophe before vacating the vicinity of her computer screen for six hours, finally coming back after the kids have gone to bed, sighing, and shutting down the computer while throwing a load of laundry into the washer.  

Now that I'm that mom, I get it.   I continue to need to adjust accordingly.


One of the most challenging things for me about solitude as a new mom is that my opportunities for it have dramatically decreased since the birth of my daughter, especially once I returned to work.  For some people, perhaps this lack of solitude would be a welcome relief.  For me and for others, the demands of being involved with others in a continuous way -- even those we deeply love and care for -- creates a practical challenge to a vital aspect of our self-care.  In my case, lack of solitude makes it difficult for me to approach the tasks of my everyday life with the clarity and connectedness that I'd like to have.  From there, it's only a matter of time before I wind up a sobbing mess on the kitchen floor, hair in a Medusa-esque pile on my head.  

I am one of those people who cannot care well for my kid, my home, my job, or my relationship with my spouse without a little time to myself to fill my own cup, as they say.  Otherwise, I have nothing to give.  At first, trying to find time to myself was a daunting task, but I've managed to find it in a few places I wouldn't have expected before having kids.

1.  The Workplace
Not every mother goes back to the workplace, nor had outside employment to begin with.  However, for some women who relish solitude, going back to work in whatever capacity -- if you have the means and comfort to do so -- provides you with opportunities to be by yourself.  Whether it's in the car, a few minutes with a cup of your favorite (work-appropriate) beverage, or the time between clients, a little downtime can be found.


2.  Night Owls
For those who can wing it (ha ha, get it?  Wings?  Owls?  What a hoot!), grabbing a bit of time after the kids go to sleep and before you go to sleep can help fill your own cup.  Of course, if you'd just prefer to go to bed early, I'm certainly not going to blame you.


3.  Early Birds
If you're this type, go ahead and get up before your kids if you like.  Again, if you want to stay in bed, I won't judge.


4.  The Car
For whatever reason, the car seems to work magic for my daughter, and for other small kids I know.  You aren't exactly all by yourself, but a drive can give you a chunk of quiet time and space.


So I realize I'm not the first mother to ever walk the face of the planet, and I'm certainly not the first to come up with the above ideas.  I have found, however, that you can do all of the above and not feel like you've really had any solitude.  There are a couple of things I've learned about that, too.

1.  Be Present!
I define presence as the quality of bringing your full attention to the task at hand and resting there.  I have found that being by myself doesn't quite cut it -- I also need to be aware of the fact that I am in solitude and to fully engage it.  I check the clock, maybe put on a timer or alarm, and let go of my to-do lists or other activities until the alarm sounds.  By doing this, I get more out of the moments I do have, which leads me to...

2.  It's Not the Time, It's How You Use It.
Even if you were accustomed to spending tremendous stretches of time in solitude pre-kids, as I was, the length of time you have available for solitude doesn't necessarily matter.  Bringing presence to your downtime makes any time you do have -- whether it's three minutes or three hours -- more restorative and filling.

3.  Solitude Is An Inside Job
One of the major lessons I've learned about solitude in the past four months is, by and large, solitude is an inside job.  You can actually build a place of solitude within, like a wellspring or a reservoir, that you can draw upon to sustain you when even those brief pauses are difficult to come by.  I imagine this ability is really helpful once you come to parenting toddlers, but I'll let you know if that's my experience when I get there.   

I love solitude!  I think it's great, and my consistent experience is that it helps me to stay calmer, more competent, and more sane than I would be without it.  I am so glad to discover that I have been able to maintain some solitude in my life post-childbirth, although it looks different than it did before.

 

Top 6... I Mean, Middle 6... Reasons Why Solitude ROCKS!

After the highs and lows of summer school, I find myself on vacation for the month of August. I deliberately chose not to travel or to do anything unusual this summer, and instead committed to relaxing at home and enjoying it, since I’m so used to using my house more as a launch pad during the school year than as a dwelling. While I’ve always known that I lean toward introversion, coming out consistently as an INFJ on the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, I’ve always tried to push myself to be something other than that. Some of it had to do with wanting to fight the smart-but-can’t-socialize stereotype that has always existed, and until recently, I had no idea that that’s what I was doing. To my delight, I found that I didn’t need to keep on constantly battling against myself. I realized that I’m an introvert and I like it! Since I'm bored with 'Top 10' and 'Top 5' lists, I've decided to create a 'Middle 6' list of the reasons why solitude delights this introvert's soul:

8. Books. Coffee. Sandwiches.

All of the above are difficult to fully savor when you’re distracted by things like noise or incessant verbal processing.

7. Earplugs Get Uncomfortable

My resident Partner-in-Crime  – a far more introverted soul than I am – introduced me to the proper use of earplugs, and how I wish I had had them growing up! I didn’t realize until I was in my twenties that they could be used for anything other than road construction or factory work. Since then, I’ve used them to block out snoring, block out the neighbors on Competitive Suburban Lawnmowing Day, and for a variety of other quiet-making necessities. On the other hand, having them out and hearing nothing but the sound of the refrigerator humming is a pleasure.

6. Freedom of Choice

It can be awfully nice sometimes to be able to casually decide that you’re going to have lunch…now, rather than needing to take other people’s schedules into account. This is much, much harder to do if there is someone else around. Also, if you are used to making someone else's needs more important than yours in an unhealthy kind of way, or if you haven’t had the opportunity to develop much self-understanding, solitude has a way of helping you to become clear about what you like and don’t, and opens the door to further learning about where your preferences are as a unique human being without them being wrong or shameful.

5. Regular Rendezvous with the Unexpected

I’m amazed by how something completely new has the space to come into my life because I’ve stopped cluttering up all the free time with my brain’s never-ending to-do list. I was lucky enough to find some new radio stations to listen to, featuring world music, folk music, and even an oldies station I didn’t know about because I had the time to get curious about what my radio buttons could access other than Ke$ha, who apparently woke up twice before 9:30 this morning feeling like P. Diddy.

4. Pursuing the Creative Impulse

The pieces of life come together when you have some downtime, and sometimes the desire to do something in one area of your life satisfies more than one need. I had an overwhelming urge to go out to parks and state highways in my area and take photographs one day last week and came home to find that I had an array of photographs that I would be able to use as much-needed decorative art for the Master Bedroom, as well as potential gifts.

3. Spiritual Perspective

It is easy to get into a habit of reaching outside of oneself –whether you’re introverted or extroverted – when you’re feeling depleted and finding nothing to fill you. For those times when nothing else is fitting the bill, even five minutes of hiding in the bathroom, closing your eyes, and taking a few deep breaths can help to re-connect you to yourself or to God/Spirit. The chance to briefly be centered in solitude and be aware can quickly refresh and rejuvenate you.

I hope you are inspired to bring a little bit of the spirit of solitude into your world today!

Loneliness and Disconnection, or Being Part of the Whole

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Rather than take a far-away trip or fill my days with projects and activities during the month of August, I decided to deliberately leave things unstructured this year. As a result, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to learn about loneliness and that adrift, disconnected feeling that can sometimes arise for a person who is spending a lot of time in his or her own company without others. Even when I’m not on vacation, I suspect that I find myself in solitude more often than the average person and this lends itself to presenting opportunities to see this disconnectedness arise. For work, I am alone in the car or in my home office, sometimes for several hours a day. At home, I am often alone for several hours after the end of my school day. Only recently have I begun to really start to see the blessings that arise from allowing myself to be lonely or to feel a sense of disconnection, rather than trying to avoid the feeling or distract myself from it.

A few weeks ago, I decided to experiment with being conscious of these feelings as they came up throughout the day, to bring my focused attention to noticing when I was feeling lonely or disconnected and letting myself lean into it. I would not exactly describe this as fun, but I’m kind of hardcore about my spiritual growth. I discovered that I felt these feelings on many occasions throughout the day, yet it wasn’t as intolerable to manage and deal with as I had thought. In fact, as I acknowledged to myself what I was feeling, as I named it and treated myself with kindness and generosity when I was feeling that way rather than trying to pretend I didn’t feel that way, I slowly started to glimpse a bit of freedom.

I think there are two truths about separateness from and connection with others: one is that I am inextricably connected to others, and what I do has some kind of influence on others, which impacts others, and so on. If you’ve ever had someone show you an unexpected kindness that has altered the course of your day, you know what I’m talking about. The other truth is that we are unquestionably separate from one another since we are in separate bodies. Of course we are going to be lonely and feel disconnected sometimes! How could we not be, with each of us housed in a separate physical body that has a specific biology, with completely different life experiences than those of anyone else?

The part about freedom comes in from knowing and accepting that we are, indeed, separate here in the ‘real world’ or the physical world: I am somehow not like others, or I am separate from them, and this can be lonely. Realizing and accepting this is what ultimately gives me the freedom to express the uniqueness that I may happen to carry. Loneliness and the sense of disconnection that comes with it teaches us about our separateness and how we can honor and act on the stuff within us that is unique and, on the surface, may be separate from the greater whole. It shows us how we can care about ourselves and we can be brave and courageous on our own behalf, and how the benefits of that extend beyond us, helping others to become more of who they deeply are.

When I fully embrace my loneliness and don’t automatically try to fill it up right away with people, activities, or distractions, it creates a space for me to be able to see myself as the person I am. Embracing this willingness to be separate by relaxing with myself and not being like others as a way to try to win their approval allows me to take my rightful place as an individual person on this planet, which paradoxically helps me to fit right in as a part of the greater whole. When I can honor and see my separateness and disconnection, it helps me to see the ways in which I am the same as others and the ways in which I am connected to them. I can then come to know myself more as a whole person, who sometimes happens to be solitary and sometimes happens to be connected with others, while being both solitary and connected with others at the same time.

I am beginning to think that feelings of connection, community, commonality, and solidarity with others just can’t exist without the experience of feelings of separateness, loneliness, and disconnection. How can someone know what it means to be connected and part of a community if they haven’t had the experience of disconnection and separateness? It can be easy to try to cast loneliness aside because it seems, on the face of it, like just another difficult feeling that we don’t really want to have to deal with. Yet like any other feeling, loneliness and disconnection have a lot to teach us about how we are a part of the greater whole. For me, this takes willingness to open to the feelings, cultivate kindness and friendliness toward myself, and allow them to take me deeper into my own experience of self.