LAPM-Step Three: Solitude

Okay, Ladies…this is a big one.  It may even make many of you throw something at me when you see me on the street.

Step Three for Life After Poor Me is…………….solitude.

Matthew 1:35
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.

We have spent the past two posts working towards peace and quiet.  Why?  So that we can keep getting tossed into the storm caused by our relationships?  Heck no.  We are working towards peace and quiet so that we can be ALONE.  Yes, you heard it correctly, we need to learn to be alone again.  For some, this is worse than a death sentence: being told that we must spend some time alone.

Think about it, when are we alone?  I know that unless I physically hit the shut off button on my Blackberry I am NEVER alone.  I have IM, text messages, email, phone calls, Facebook, Twitter.  Then, what I just found out…oh shoot me…is that I can watch my Verizon Fios at home on my red couch, and there is a widget for Facebook right on the television.  So now, those few mindless moments I spend watching DVR at 11:30pm having shut my phone off for a blessed 4 hours, having put every computer on standby, having put my kids to bed, those moments can  still be wrought with the temptation to “just check Facebook” one more time.  I mean seriously!  Ladies, we are never alone.

But, then, too, we are just not talking about virtual alone-ness are we?  We are talking about someone placing their hand on our back as they walk past us.  We are talking about, not “Mommy, I can’t sleep” cuddles in the middle of the night, but “Baby, hmmmm….” cuddles in the middle of the night.  We are talking about that casual pat on the behind, that arm touching giggle, that slight kiss that makes us feel like a woman appreciated.

So, how after years of marriage to we get to a place where we can be alone again?  Can I ask you an honest question, first?  Before you got married, before that last long relationship, were you able to enjoy your own company without wishing you could share it?  The point I am making with these questions is this:  Is your feeling of lonely desperation a by-product of your divorce/separation or is it more deeply part of you?  Does it matter?

Yes! Because it goes a long way in helping you to understand you.  But, the solution is the same.  Well, Vida, what is the solution?  How do you get through those periods of loneliness to just being alone?

Be Alone.  Practice being alone.  Be alone more and more often until you can enjoy your own company.

And there it is, ladies.  The crux of the matter.  I can tell you to be like Jesus and go spend 5 minutes a day in solitude praying.  But, ultimately, that is not going to solve your problem.  For those five minutes you will feel fulfilled.  But, unless you are praying at 2:30 in the morning at the height of your loneliness and lustfulness, it is not going to help you in the slightest.  And, frankly, at the height of loneliness and lustfulness the most we can utter is “DAAAYYYAMMMM!”  and hope like the dickens that Jesus will come save us.

The key to being alone, ladies, is to really spend time with yourself understanding who you are, and why you love you.  Oh…wait did I say why we love ourselves?

Ah, light bulb, huh!??!  If we do not spend time with ourselves learning ourselves and loving ourselves, then there is absolutely no way that we can be ready for a new relationship.  We will continue to subject ourselves to bad relationship patterns, because that familiar insanity “makes sense” and feels “familiar”, even if it doesn’t feel good.  While I love the 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman, and I highly recommend it, I believe good loving requires personal responsibility for loving oneself first.  It’s about figuring out not just how you love…but truly if you love.

When you go through your day, how many good and bad decisions do you make with regard to yourself?  Do you start your day with meditation?  Do you start your day with a good breakfast, at least?  How about your appearance, do you look your best?  (NOT DO YOU LOOK EXPENSIVE AND PUT TOGETHER!)  Did you drink water today?  Did you take a 10 minute break away from the world, to just enter your own space?  Did you say “yay, me!” even once?

Let me give you some starting places for learning to love your self, and thus learning that spend some time in solitude:

1. Before you get in the shower, look in a full length mirror for at least 30 sec.
2. Go to a bookstore on  your lunch break, and find titles of books that appeal to you–not what everyone says you should be reading, and not a magazine–but what appeals to you. Romance, Sci Fi,Magic, Historical, etc. (buy no more than one!)
3. Go to a fabric store and get swatches of everything that grabs your eye.
4. Go walk around a lake.
5. Sit in a corner of your house with your favorite beverage, in total solitude, in complete quiet.
6. Get a kids coloring book, and a box of crayons, and color.

Most importantly, grab a notebook, and take it with you, recording 30 second thoughts and epiphanies.  It will grow into a journal, be graceful with yourself.  Secondly, let your daily decisions be in your best interest, because you love you.

Girls, in this way, we begin to fall in love with ourselves.  We will go to Vickie Secrets and buy lingerie that makes us feel sexy and feminine…not that makes him visually aroused. (Ahh!  See the difference.)  If we feel sexy and good and feminine, then he will feel that way about us, too, (when time comes for there to be an him). We don’t have to trick him into feeling that way.  WE feel that way, and he can’t help himself.  That is a healthy relationship girls.  Its me being me, and him being him, and us being loving and respectful about the best in one another.

When we are confident about who we are…we know when he is not respecting who we are.  We feel it, and we run from it, before we are mired in marriage and children and life.  Just like we know when shoes don’t fit, we know when a relationship does not fit, because we know our size.

Ladies, this was a very practical post, not so much a spiritual one, so far.

What I hope you know is this: You are never alone.

When  you begin your journey by yourself, Jesus gets in lock step beside you.  And, without the distractions, when you go out to dinner by your self, you will feel his presence and feel at ease–and loved.  At random alone moments in your day, you will feel the pressure of His kiss on your cheek.  That is why He went off by himself, that is why Moses went of by himself, that is why Mary prayed alone, that is why the Widow stayed in the temple, that is why Esther prepared alone…Ladies, it is only in the very practical alone time where we can feel the presence of God.

Thank you for listening.  Be loved this week!

Vida