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.
Soul Work Compass Course:
Is a vague sense of emptiness lurking beneath the surface? It’s time to reclaim your life. The Soul Work Compass Course helps you break free from self-doubt and repetitive pain. Don’t just survive – thrive by creating a personalized map for your future. Start your journey to profound self-discovery and authentic life direction now.
Firstly, not all of us:
- Have access to safe and supportive people,
- Want to even be around people (wave to the lone wolves out there!),
- 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.
Want to get LonerWolf at the top of your Google search results?
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!
If you need more help, we offer 2 powerful ways to guide you on your inner journey:
1. The Soul Work Compass Course: Break free from feeling lost and disconnected. The Soul Work Compass is a practical 12-step course that transforms soul loss into soul clarity. Discover your core values, heal core wounds, and create a personalized compass to guide every decision you make.
2. The Inner Work Journal Bundle: Heal at the root. This Inner Work Journal Bundle guides you through self-love, inner child healing, and shadow integration with 150+ prompts and activities. You get editable digital files to use on any device or print unlimited times. Not for lukewarm seekers, these journals are for those ready to transform.
I find rain very healing and I feel like myself when it rains. Here in Wales where I live, we got quite a bit of rain but most people moan about it.
We also get periods of dry weather, and even hot weather in the spring and summer time, and it’s been hot here recently (up to 30C) and I am fed up with it. I want it to rain now so that I can feel like myself again.
Hi Aletheia,
Thank you for this article! At age 56 I sold my 5 bedroom, 3 bath home in an affluent neighborhood in the U.S. and moved onto a shuttle bus I tore apart and rebuilt into a tiny home. I spent the next 3 winters living amongst other nomadic travelers in the desert of Arizona with my dog. My mother was a talk therapist, and though I myself have benefitted from some of that kind of therapy, I found that my most profound healing happened on my own. Getting away from every day American society was so helpful. Long, reflective walks in the desert, day after day with my dog, was also so healing. And although many nights were spent in community around a blazing fire, my most profound “aha moment” happened when I build a fire myself and no one else was present. I had this sudden realization, staring into flames in the dark of night, that a few deeply hurtful things my therapist mother said to me in the last few years of her life, even though each sentence started with “You…” were only ways she was telling me about HERSELF. My mother truly was this amazing healer to others, but her treatment of me, at times in my life, had been devastating. So incredibly confusing to live that experience. And so freeing to have been able to make sense of it out in the desert, staring into a fire alone! It felt like a miracle!
Thanks again for all that you do in creating this community!
Much love and gratitude,
Annie
Wow, what a beautiful and transformative experience, Annie. I love that you found yourself in the desert, alone with your dog. Others were there present, but ultimately, the deepest revelations came from the center of your being. That is special. Thank you for taking the time to share that here with us all 💜 🔥