The Truth About Healing Alone (And Why It’s Perfectly Okay)

There’s so much content out there about how healing can only happen in community. How we must co-regulate with others to truly heal. How trauma is best fixed by safe relationships.

While this may have some level of truth, I’m here to affirm that healing doesn’t always have to involve other people. 

It’s okay if your healing journey is a solitary one.

Firstly, not all of us:

1. Have access to safe and supportive people,
2. Want to even be around people (wave to the lone wolves out there!),
3. Find that choosing solitude is way more healing than talking with others.

While I’ve found that connecting with others does help for some types of trauma, for others, it can be counterproductive. It can overwhelm, dissociate, and shut down the mind and body. It can stress an already burdened nervous system with fears, doubts, and unwanted social obligations. 

Sometimes, we need to burrow away in a cozy, quiet hole with warm blankets and a hot cup of tea, watching the world go by.

Sometimes, we need people-free spaces that allow us to hear our own authentic inner needs, rather than the incessant noise pollution of daily life.

Sometimes that’s the most powerful form of soul work available to us.

As a highly sensitive introvert, I often find that the most healing and grounding moments I experience occur in total solitude, often in nature. These times of silent contemplation give me the breathing space to think, dream, and recharge my life force energy. 

Perhaps most importantly, they allow me to get back in touch with my Soul, my deeper, authentic Self that feels connected with the whole glittering web of life.

Truthfully, being in noise and engaging with others often doesn’t allow me to do that. It has the effect of filling me with words, ideas, and ego-based interactions, all of which deplete rather than nourish my spirit. 

To find that sacred space, I often find that I need to be emptied more than filled. That’s why solitude can be so healing.

Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung once echoed these feelings, writing in a letter to an old acquaintance,

Solitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often torment for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.

Don’t you love his use of “torment”?! It seems a little… strong. But let’s face it, talking and engaging with others can feel like torture, especially when you lack the physical, mental, or emotional bandwidth.  

So this is just a short and sweet message to let you know that you’re not “doing healing wrong” if it has been mostly a solitary journey so far.

No one gets to tell you how your healing journey “should” look or what you “need” to be doing. Follow your instincts. If that’s to get a therapist, get one. If that’s to spend most of your time on quiet walks in the woods or curled up alone watching fluffy cat videos, do that. Your body and Soul know better than a book or YouTube video.

In the words of the poet Dodinsky,

In solitude is healing. Speak to your soul. Listen to your heart. Sometimes in the absence of noise, we find the answers.

Tell me, what unexpected practice has been the most healing for you so far – something not often discussed or validated? I’d love to hear in the comments!