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.
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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.
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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!
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Dear Lonely Wolves,
I read this today which is the “Day of All Souls”, often referred to as the “Day of The Dead” in my native catholic country. Thank you for gifting me your synchronistic wisdom, I thought I was dead to the world and developing full-blown agoraphobia.
I struggled through the last four years of my working career due to having to serve up a daily rundown of my life to my idly gossiping colleagues. It came to the point I could barely deal with the customers being so weighed down under this toxic expectancy to over-share. Needless to say I never got on with said colleagues and had a terrible time.
Now that I am free of those people, I seem to suffer from a form of PTSD that makes me want to run if I am surrounded by more than 1 or 2 people, and I have indeed physically run from reunions where I felt ambushed, tricked, trapped. I recently cancelled a London theatre trip I had booked 10 months ago, and a holiday next summer I know I won’t be able to go through because it involves group travel for 5 days. I plan for how many days I can stay indoors with no need to go out and can happily stay home for up to 4 or 5 days without any problem.
My favourite mornings are staying in bed reading my spiritual books, my LonerWolf posts, and my novels of choice. I then get up for a leisurely breakfast and do some admin and journalling on the laptop. I then plan a tasty dinner and settle in front of favourite TV programs. Now and then I do some gentle home-video exercises. And I strenuously avoid human contact apart from when I do an exceptional favour to my former employers, and my Saturday mornings volunteering at the local hospice shop.
This is my experience of Heaven which I know I have earned over decades of what you astutely refer to as “torment/torture” – because that’s exactly what if felt like.
With much love,
Marie-France
Thank you for your vulnerability, Marie-France. I think your comment will help many not feel so alone in feeling claustrophobic around multiple people. I also feel that way in groups – it reminds me too much of being in a church environment from my earlier years, of which gave me complex trauma. I’m glad you’re listening to your nervous system and taking the needed steps to preserve your sense of sovereignty and wellbeing. May you find continued healing in solitude <3
Thank you 🙏 Definitely my catholic church upbringing in my case 🙏💗
I ponder if the ways we heal are ever truly solitary. We may be physically alone, yet all healing carries a relational spark. We are human mycelium; all living forms, seen and unseen, share the same breath. We absorb, replenish, release—pouring life through every hair, root, and pore. Every paw leaves an imprint, seen or unseen. Even lone wolves carry their pack within.
Healing is never truly a game of solitaire, even in solitude. We pour in and out through pores, walking in and out of paw prints, moving with the ever-dynamic flow of relational healing.
Beautifully expressed, Amanda. Aloneness is a paradox. Even the word itself contains “oneness” – ALLoneness. On a subjective level we may feel alone, but on a more objective level we are never alone for all the reasons you describe so well. Thank you for this thoughtful post <3
Maybe that’s why I like to do compost:
a bit of ‘soilatude’ to fix my ‘soulatude’.
Either way, it is that ‘attitude’ that creates the altitude.
I love your play on words, Michael ;)
regular breathwork has helped me greatly.
Thanks for sharing that, Stephen :)
I am a bit schizophrenic in this regard. I can become overstimulated at times depending on the human energy and environment I am experiencing. It can deplete my energy. On the other hand, at times I crave and need the interaction with friends, family and others for stimulation, comfort and connection. Being an empathetic person it is a delicate balance.
Perhaps ‘ambivert’ is the right term here.
I think one of the ways i heal is to cry. Crying alone helps to unburden some of the things.
At times, i have felt that crying in front of other people is not taken well. Vulnerable and messy emotions require a safe space and in those moments only you yourself are your biggest support.
“At times, i have felt that crying in front of other people is not taken well. Vulnerable and messy emotions require a safe space and in those moments only you yourself are your biggest support.” — I feel this way too, Soulsearcher. There’s a lot of stigma surrounding crying alone because it’s stereotyped as being tragic. But it can actually be a moment of cleansing, intimacy, and relief.
Dear Luna, I subscribe to every word of your message. Even if solitude can be at the very least uncomfortable, I find that interacting with other humans drains me of my energy. As a starseed, I don’t understand their way of being. The authenticity I’m seeking (and love and solace), l find it all with my three cats and my horse (who is actually a unicorn). Together, we even wrote years ago a fairy tale called Luna and the Unicorn 🦄 🥰 In summer, I feed hedgehogs, and in winter, birds in my garden. Trusting and loving relationship with animals is a truly wonderful gift on a solitary path 🐺
That’s gorgeous, Roxy. Your life definitely feels very inner child friendly. :)
I agree very much with needing solitude to heal. I have found that I need solitude to heal over anything else, along with rest.
Thanks for validating that, Suzanne. :)
Mental health professionals, life coaches and religious leaders come out with fatuous, overgeneralised, one-size-fits-all pablum just like the rest of the population.
Like the fetishisation and romanticisation of “community,” which is abstract sentimentality in any case.
Consistent immersion in “community,” for any solitude-loving, independent, individualistic, lone wolf empath, is actually incredibly undermining, invalidating and destructive.
We all absorb and internalise the sensibility of our environment, and if that collective social ambience is antithetical to the temperament and idiosyncracy of someone who deviates from the norm and needs space and quiescence in order to function, imposing leveling groupthink mediocrity on them in the name of prosocial adjustment is simply ignorant and a recipe for dysfunction and dysregulation.
“imposing leveling groupthink mediocrity on them in the name of prosocial adjustment is simply ignorant and a recipe for dysfunction and dysregulation” — this is powerful, Steve. I have never understood how someone can feel a sense of belonging to the abstract idea of “community.” Even in my church going era, I couldn’t connect or relate, even wearing the same ‘Christian’ label. I prefer words like interdependence or coexistence to “community” as they still preserve one’s uniqueness without stripping it away.
So true! It took me some time to build up to this – the idea that I’m perfectly good healing alone (and that it’s ok, and doesn’t suck, or is sad, etc.). Had to fight conditioning/stories of others of how therapy, yoga, etc. is helpful for healing. But after a lot of trial and error, I realized the solo path is the way to go, along with some time in the gym (physical activity is great and highly recommended).
Oh yes, physical catharsis is the best – even if that’s just a walk in nature. There’s so much conditioning from society about this, and I hope to explore it more in upcoming posts.