Silence and Solitude are sometimes needed to know what to change – be selfish

Today I wanted to write to encourage you to make small decisions to help change your mindset and mood.  I remember a time when surviving in the moment and the decision to survive was all that I had, if you are in that place today, don’t give up things can change as I am proof of that.

While I can give great advice, I often struggle to remember it when I really need it.  Every now and then I get in a bad funk due to a chronic illness that I have, and I forget how much small decisions can change my mood.

Prior to this post I had been dealing with a bout of migraine associated vertigo, never heard of it, great, you don’t’ want to.  Vertigo is basically a thief that slowly steals your life and sentences you to dark rooms, headaches and sunglasses pretty much 24-7 with the bonus of feeling like you are on a very fast merry go round on the water!

The good news is that normally after a few days of bedrest and sunglasses I am able to return to somewhat of a normal life. The struggle is that after putting all of my strength into dealing with the vertigo for days, I completely lack any motivation or desire to work on anything else in my life, let alone writing to you.

Since I am no longer in that dark, unmotivated place I wanted to share my thoughts with you in case you are in a dark place. I know that many men and woman live with an invisible chronic illness and by sharing this I hope you will not feel as alone as I once did.

Well, as I write this for you, it is a different day mentally and I really don’t think this would have happened if I had been surrounded by others, the silence and solitude helped bring out a change.

Not long after being up today I had that normal urge to write, the one I usually push down as it doesn’t’ seem as important as other things like cleaning the house, but today was different, I put my laptop on my bed and began doing some writing on other projects and it began to get my creative juices flowing.

I often hear of writers that don’t know what to write about, but I never seem to run out of ideas, I just run out of the follow through to put the words on paper and sometimes to just hit publish. If you have followed me here for long, you know I rarely post, I wrote a lot, but struggle to then share.

After a little bit of writing, I put on Youtube which I love to do as it always inspires me (here is a post I wrote about from a great video I saw about how counting down from 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 can change your life You have a 5-second window to change your life, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 …)

Taking this time today and enjoying the silence and solitude, something I often feel selfish by doing was exactly what I needed. Having this one day to myself (which did not include chores) helped to jump-start my productivity, as I shared this was something I had been trying to get back for months.

The reason I am sharing this is to remind you that it is the little things that matter and the little decisions that can change your life. I am all about changing your life by changing your focus. If is often hard to admit it but as the saying goes, “You get what you focus on, stop focusing on what you can’t change.”

For years I had focused on a horrible past as it seemed to have such a strong hold on me, it was as if I had never really gotten free.

I find it funny as I reread this for errors I have to wonder if I write all of this to remind myself of what is important. Writing is an amazing gift; I encourage you to write for yourself.  Sometimes it is like having therapist but much cheaper!

Even if you do not want to share your writing as I feel compelled to do, you can journal privately.

Ladies, it is time to be free, if you are out of the violence and struggling to heal find some rituals that can quickly bring you back to this minute and what you want moving forward.

This was one of the hardest things for me and at times still is today, but each day is that fresh start to create the life you want.

I would love to hear what you did or are doing now to help leave your past, in the past where it belongs.

What did you do to move forward and heal?

Have you drastically changed your life for the better?

If so, please share your story for others, stories that encourage can change another life.

May you get a few minutes of silence and solitude today.

Love & Peace,
Rebecca

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How to Stop letting the fear of the Silence & Solitude keep you from enjoying your new freedom

The fear of being alone with ourselves is … a feeling of embarrassment, bordering sometimes on terror at seeing a person at once so well known and so strange; we are afraid and run away. We thus miss the chance of listening to ourselves, and we continue to ignore our conscience. – Erich Fromm (1900-1980) Man for Himself: An inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics 4.2.B, 1947

How true is this for you?  The following is an excerpt from the book I am forever finishing about the solitude I faced.

I was shocked at how alone and frightened I was after my husband was removed, the silence was more deafening and frightening than I could have ever imagined. I couldn’t wait to be away from him but I never realized how alone and more isolated I would feel. I was now alone with my thoughts and they were restlessly fighting to be heard. Day by day, year by year my husband, like most abusers, had isolated me from all family, all other human contact. I now know that he had feared that I would tell someone of the way I lived and he would no longer be the ruler of the house. Suddenly, I could do what I wanted and had complete control over my life, but I had no idea what to do now for I had not lived for a long time now. I felt as though I were coming out of a coma that had lasted for ten years, I couldn’t even remember how to breathe without the fear of doing it too loud and upsetting him. It would take some time for me to remember that I could now have an opinion, but having been so long without being able to genuinely express one, would feel foreign to me, even now over ten years later. I felt so deeply ashamed that I was in my early thirties, and afraid of my own shadow and closing my eyes. The last thing I could do was to let my guard down.

How did you cope with the solitude after domestic violence?  Do you find any solitude if you are living in abuse?

Love & Peace,
Rebecca

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