Learn to Love Being Alone

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, you want to get some inspirational text messages from me directly to your phone, text you right now, 512-580-9305. Once again, 512-580-9305. Today, we're going to be talking about how to fall in love with being alone. because let's be real being alone can be hard sometimes and I don't if you're out there like well being alone isn't that hard for me I don't mean being alone and watching Netflix or scrolling on your phone or any of that I mean being alone 100 % alone with no external stimulation is that kind of tough for you because for most people that I talk to it's almost unbearable a couple reasons why.

1:06Number one, we're tribal beings. We like to be around other people. It's built into us. And we like socializing. For people who are introverts like me, we like socializing less than the average person, but we still like it at some points in time. And we also like to be entertained. But the statistics prove that the older that you get, the more time you will spend alone. And so if that's the case, we might as well learn from it. We might as well gain from and get something from being alone. But here's the truth of the matter. Being alone doesn't mean that you have to be lonely. And the key here is how you actually look at it and how you actually frame it.

1:50If you can shift your mindset, solitude will become an opportunity rather than some form of a burden that you need to avoid. Today's episode is not going to be like surface level self-care tips or anything like that. We're going to be diving deep into the psychology of this, the rewiring of your thought patterns, and the real transformation that can happen when you fully embrace being alone within yourself without having to have anybody around or any external stimulation. Loneliness, when you look at loneliness, is the pain of feeling disconnected. solitude on the other side is the power of being deeply connected to yourself when you're alone and so the the only home that we will ever really have like this is a you know i live inside of a house this is a studio that i have in one of the rooms in my house this is my house but the only true real home that i will ever have is inside of me and same with you the only real home that you'll ever have is within you.

2:55The problem is that many of us mix the two of them up between solitude and loneliness. We assume that if we're alone, something must be wrong. And when we have FOMO or we think, why are people not wanting to hang out with me or I should entertain myself in some sort of way? But I want you to think about it like this, okay? And this is very important for you to understand. Being alone is a state of being. Loneliness is a state of mind. See the difference? Being alone is just a state of being. I'm just alone. Loneliness is a state of mind. Oh my gosh, I shouldn't be alone. I should be with people.

3:32Why don't people want to hang out with me? It's a state of mind. It's all happening in your head. And so the shift really starts here. Loneliness is the idea of saying, I'm missing something. Solitude says, I have everything I need within me. Now, I know for some of you that's already a little bit stressful, but I don't have, Rob, I don't have everything I need within me though. I need more within me. I'm not okay within myself. Solitude is us getting to the point of saying, I have everything I need within me. Everything I decide to do later on in life, if I decide to leave my house and go hang out with friends, it's just icing on the cake.

4:10And so psychological research supports this distinction too. There was a study done in 2017 that was published in Personality and Psychology Bulletin that found that people who chose to spend time alone rather than feeling like they were forced into isolation experienced increased self-awareness. So they became more aware of themselves because of the fact that they spent time alone. They chose to spend time alone and they had reduced stress. Why did they have reduced stress? Because when solitude is framed as a choice rather than forced isolation, it becomes a tool for self-regulation rather than a source of distress.

4:51And so the key factor here was the mindset behind the person. What they found out was those who saw solitude as a choice benefited from it, while those who felt like solitude and being alone was imposed on them felt lonely. And so how do you shift your mindset from loneliness to solitude? Well, it's by realizing that your mind is the thing that creates the difference between the two. You see that? You don't need more people around you to feel whole. You need a stronger connection to yourself to feel whole. And so what we need to do is we need to kind of reframe solitude. So I want you to think about this.

5:38Imagine that you're given a beautifully wrapped box and you open it up and time is inside of it. It's time just for you. No demands, no children, no obligations, no work, just space to breathe and to think and to exist. Doesn't that sound nice for some of you guys that are just so busy doing things all the time and you got the kids, you got the work, and you got the business, you got everything, and you have a million plates you're spinning. Oh my god, I'm going to give you a box of time just for you. No demands, no children, no work, any of those things. Doesn't that sound nice? Most people crave this, but then when they get it, they freak out.

6:19They panic when they finally get time to themselves. So why is that? Because silence makes us face ourselves. And for a lot of people, that's really scary. There's a 2014 study from the Journal of Experimental Psychology that revealed that most people would rather experience mild electric shocks than sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. So they could either sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes or if they just want to get out of the experience, they could just do mild electric shock. Most people chose shock. That's how uncomfortable we are with solitude. But why is that? Why are we so uncomfortable with being alone?

7:04It's being with our thoughts, with being with our feelings. Because when we stop distracting ourselves, we come in contact with what's lying underneath the surface. Well, what's lying underneath the surface that we're trying to run from? A few different things. Number one, a lot of people have unprocessed emotions. Grief, anger, resentment, guilt, regret. Second thing, a lot of people have really deep-seated fears that they're running from and they're trying not to come in contact with. The fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of other people's opinions, fear of running out of money, fear of not being worthy.

7:42The third thing, a lot of us have very unmet needs or desires. So when you're quiet, you realize, oh my God, I don't like the path that I'm on in my life. Or we just sit there and we're like, I feel completely unfulfilled. Or you're sitting there like, I wonder, I wonder if I'll be alone forever. Oh my God, it's so much easier to keep yourself distracted than to go in those thoughts, isn't it? The fourth thing people have, a lot of negative self-talk and limiting beliefs that come up. Oh, I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm such a loser. I'll never make anything of my life. I don't deserve happiness.

8:18The only way that I'm valuable is I keep busy and keep productive. And then the fifth thing, when you get past all of those things, all of the fears and the limiting beliefs and the desires and the negative self-talk and the unprocessed emotions, then you get like deep existential questions. What's my purpose? Why am I here? Am I truly living or am I just existing? And so most people don't want to come in contact with all of those things that are just bubbling under the surface. So what do they do? They want to keep busy by being around other people. They want to keep busy by being on their phones.

8:55They want to keep busy by watching Netflix and watching other stuff and whatever new app pops up on my Samsung TV for me to try to take my attention away from myself, right? But what if we looked at time alone as an invitation to listen to our own thoughts without outside influence, to get to know ourself a little bit more, an invitation to discover what we actually enjoy rather than what we've been conditioned and told we should enjoy. Maybe an invitation to be present with ourselves, to learn who we truly are. Solitude is the only real place where self-awareness can grow. Now, you can grow by seeing how you interact with other people.

9:40But then when you take time and you're alone, you get to really deconstruct the way that everything happened when you were talking to that person and the way they reacted to that person. So solitude is where self-awareness really grows. And if you can frame it, instead of like, more than anything else, if you can reframe it as an opportunity, instead of something to avoid, everything really changes. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. So instead of saying, oh my god, I'm so bored and trying to avoid boredom, what if you stopped calling it boredom and you just called it relaxing?

10:14You're relaxing your mind. You're relaxing your nervous system. You can't be go, go, go, go, go every single second. And this is the really key part. A lot of loneliness isn't about lacking company of other people. I really want you to understand this. A lot of loneliness is not about lacking the company of other people. It's about not liking the company you have when you are alone. Do you get that? And it's going to sting for a lot of people. It's about not liking the company that you have when you're alone. You. A lot of people don't like the company they have when they're alone. And that has to be healed.

10:58You cannot ignore it and try to avoid it. You are the person that you will spend more time with than anybody else alive. And if that hits a nerve, stay with me. Think about this. When was the last time you really sat in silence and felt deep peace within yourself? Oh, wait. When was the last time that you sat in silence and just felt deep, complete peace within yourself. Not being distracted by your phone, not numbing yourself with your TV, just you sitting with your thoughts. For many people, it's terrifying. But why is that? Because when we stop distracting ourselves, all of the things that we just spoke about a minute ago, all of the buried emotions and thoughts and feelings and unresolved pain comes to the surface.

11:45It's sitting there. It's just waiting for it to have some space. But here's the thing though, that coming to the surface is not a bad thing. It's an opening. It is your chance to heal. This is how you heal more than anything else. And so what you really start to do as you spend more time alone is you really actually start to rebuild the relationship with yourself. You start to notice this inner dialogue that's happening behind the scenes all the time. You get to pay attention to how you talk to yourself when you're alone. Are you kind? Or do you criticize yourself constantly? Do you guilt yourself and shame yourself and, you know, beat yourself up?

12:25So what could you do? Well, one thing that you could do is you want to keep yourself a little bit busy, write to yourself. You can write a letter to yourself. You could journal. Journaling isn't about just, you know, dear diary or about doodling or making pretty pages. It's about honesty. Write to yourself. Write a letter to yourself. Put your thoughts on a piece of paper. Ask yourself how you're really doing. How are you really doing? And then give yourself a minute to answer that. You can also just sit in stillness. Start with five minutes a day. No distractions, just being. Notice what comes up.

13:02Get curious instead of judging. This morning was a perfect example for me because we went to bed really early last night. So I woke up before Lauren and the baby did. I had an extra hour to myself and I went outside the back porch. It was a little bit cold, so I put a blanket over myself, and I just sat there and closed my eyes, and for like 20 minutes, I just simply meditated, and I breathe. And since the baby's been born, I haven't gotten many of those moments. Not in the morning, at least. I usually try to find them throughout the day, little pockets of time where I can do breathing or breath work, but not many of them happen in the morning, because usually he is my alarm more than anything else.

13:39And so just sit in stillness, quiet, be with yourself. Start to enjoy your own company. And science backs up that this is important. There's a study that was published in Psychological Science in 2016 that found out that self-reflection through meditation or through journaling or through just being alone with yourself, when you do it constructively, improves your mental and emotional regulation and it helps with your own personal self-compassion. Because as you start to spend more time with yourself, you start to go, you know what? I was a little bit hard on you then. I know that you were doing your best.

14:16I know that I can be a little bit hard. I'm sorry. I love you. And you're starting to talk to yourself. So you're having more self-compassion. You're getting better at it. So instead of spiraling into negative thoughts and fears and worries, when you have kind of like a structured solitude, it helps you process your emotions healthily. So one of the biggest things that you can do to help yourself with this is to realize that you're going to have some more time with yourself and you're going to learn to enjoy your own company. One of the biggest reasons why people feel lonely is because they feel like they don't know themselves.

14:48They don't know what they're doing. They don't know what they're doing with their life. They feel like they're purposeless. You know, when you lack direction, solitude feels like this endless void because you're like, what the am I doing here? So what if we shift the focus a little bit to, you know, instead of being alone, what if you were alone with purpose? Being alone and doing nothing is what we're shooting for. But for some of you guys, you're like, I don't know. That seems like it's too far off, Rob. I don't know if I can do that yet. So what if we took kind of a step in the right direction, right?

15:17What if you could try this out? Pick something that's meaningful to you. Maybe it's a creative project. Maybe it's a book that you bought six months ago and you haven't even cracked open. You've been really wanting to read it. Maybe there's a skill that you've been wanting to learn in some sort of way. So instead of going straight to just, oh my God, I'm going to be alone with no external stimuli, that might be like cold turkey for a lot of you guys, might be hard. A step in the right direction would be like dedicate your alone time to building rather than just staring at a wall. You know, just kind of take a step in the right direction.

15:53Make your solitude kind of like a space for creation, not just contemplation. I do think that you should have quiet time of literally no external stimulation. I do believe in that. But a step in the right direction could be like, hey, I'm just going to spend time alone doing stuff with myself. Not scrolling on Instagram, not being on TikTok, not being entertained passively by just looking at a screen like a TV or a phone. But like, you know what? I'm going to do something that means something to me alone. Right? Purpose makes solitude feel full rather than empty for a lot of people. It also makes you really understand that there's been a lot of research that's been done around this that have found that people who engage in meaningful activities alone, there was a study that was done in the Journal of Happiness, and they found out that people that do these things in meaningful activities alone, whether it's writing or painting or exercising or playing an instrument, report higher levels of life satisfaction and lower levels of loneliness.

16:56And so if you can't just go to doing nothing, maybe a step in the right direction is like being alone with purpose. And so really what this is all about is becoming your own best companion. You will spend more time with yourself than anyone else that you will ever meet in your entire life. Just the way that's going to go. That relationship, like any really important close relationship in your life, deserves attention, it deserves care, and it deserves love. So loneliness isn't solved by more people. It's solved by a deeper connection to yourself, to your purpose, to what you want to do, and to the world in ways that are meaningful to you.

17:37So next time you find yourself alone, don't rush to fill the silence or get your phone or be around other people. Just take a deep breath. Just sit in it for a second. Embrace it and learn from it. because solitude, when you truly use it, is one of life's greatest teachers. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me in it, Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission, make someone else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.