Alone Time (Not Lonely Time!)

Some people do a great job at this, sometimes not necessarily by choice. If you live alone, alone time is probably quite regular for you, as you have to make a conscious effort to have a social life. For those with roommates who are close friends or significant others, alone time is harder to come by, but it can still be achieved naturally with conflicting schedules. The hardest person to separate from, however, even for as little as 30 minutes - some of you no doubt have experienced this - is a travel companion.

Me with some of my past travel companions

It is the trusty travel companion who can be there to share in the joys of new experiences, who can ward off loneliness brought on by language barriers and big cities and tiny towns and shyness, and it is the trusty travel companion who can support you throughout your journey, helping you to reflect on lessons learned. But, sooner or later, as I have experienced on every trip of significant length, and with a variety of travel companions from friends to family to lovers, alone time is absolutely necessary!

Me and my current travel companion, my husband Eyal

Notice that I don't just recommend time apart from your travel companion - that is important as well, to develop relationships with different people you meet along the way. But time where you are truly alone is something different, something to be held and cuddled and treasured. As psychiatrist Abigail Brenner says, "Being alone allows you to drop your 'social guard,' thus giving you the freedom to make better choices and decisions about who you are and what you want without outside influence." 

Alone time refreshes the senses, provides new perspective, allows us to switch our minds into a new gear, to turn our focus inward and put all our thoughts in order. For some of us, being alone is our time to switch off, to daydream, to answer to nobody except ourselves. This time can be spent walking, writing in a journal, working on a hobby, anything that helps you to feel good - but not sleeping!

I have to admit, I myself am not the best at getting in my much needed alone time. Since my husband and I began travelling together seven months ago, our alone time has been circumstantial and minimal. A few weeks ago, my husband was asked to drive with our work exchange host to Spain to buy some plants (we were in Portugal). I did some work in the morning and had a few hours to myself in the early afternoon, before they returned from Spain. As I munched on some lunch, I thought about what I wanted to do next. Wow, what a feeling! It sounds trivial, but I hadn't felt that in months, and boy, did it feel good. Thinking about what I wanted to do, with nobody else to consider. I imagine that mothers with small children know what I'm talking about! So, in the end, I took a nice hot shower, sat in a lawnchair in the sun, and invited one of the 15 kitties living with us into my lap for some cuddles. Then I picked up a pen and notebook and wrote my first blog entry. I had been meaning to start a blog but hadn't had the inspiration until that very moment.

By the time my husband returned, I felt rejuvenated, calm, and productive, and I promised to give him the same gift of alone time. It hasn't been easy, admittedly, to start a new routine. We're still figuring out how often we need time apart, and we each don't want to hurt the other or send confusing signals by suggesting time apart. But the topic is on the table, and we're working on it!

Do you find it easy or difficult to get time alone? What do you do to get the most out of your alone time? Please share in the comments :)

What is Spirituality to You?

Everyone these days throws around the word spirituality to describe everything from organized religion to yoga to appreciating nature. I even started to use this word to describe my meditation practice to my friends and family, and to be honest, I think it worried them because they didn't know exactly what I meant, which in turn conjured up images in their heads of me chanting around a fire with my fellow cult members. Truthfully, I used this word because I wasn't exactly sure myself what it meant, and I was too lazy (or afraid?) to analyze my new ways of thinking and to formulate the words to share with my friends and family exactly what kind of journey I was on.

One day, my best friend had had enough of this vagueness, and she flat out asked me, in an email, "What exactly is spirituality to you?" I was dumbfounded yet intrigued. I started to write back to her, and my response began to twist and wind around words like connection, happiness, and love. I asked my husband the same question, and his answer was completely different, revolving more around music and using lots of examples of feeling bliss in various situations.

I began to think, is Spirituality just a buzz word that sells books and workshop tickets, and makes people feel good? Does it actually mean something? Does it even matter?

So, I ask you, What is spirituality to you? Leave your answer in the comments section!

One-way Ticket Out of Town: A Reinvigoration of Life

Setting the Stage

I came from the high tech world of Silicon Valley, where people have good intentions and kind hearts, but long work days and unvaried work and high salaries result in people living for the weekend, and any free time is spent at the gym, or at the bar, or at the vintage shops. I spent money almost as fast as I earned it, with little to show for it besides a bangin' wardrobe, which I hoped looked less expensive than it was, and heaps of half-baked memories of so-called epic nights out, which if I was lucky, ended in canoodling with a stranger. If I wasn't lucky, those nights ended curled up in bed at 7am, mind still racing from too many vodka red bulls, dreading the next couple of days of coming down and feeling empty and depressed.

I lived like this for almost two years.

The Turn

Somewhere around the middle of that time, I started dreaming of travel and adventure. I felt that California, and even the entire continental US, just wasn't for me. I didn't analyze this feeling very much, but I do remember a surprisingly insightful comment that I made about a week before I left San Francisco.

I was with my best friend, seeing Alt-J at the Fillmore, and we both felt that this was our goodbye. As we watched the opening band close their set, it started to hit us that we were going to really fucking miss each other. We attracted many curious glances as we both started sobbing uncontrollably and loudly, above the music that played from the speakers in-between sets. As that music came to a stop and the crowd began clapping and cheering in anticipation, I half-yelled to my best friend, ''I feel like this place isn't for me. But, maybe it's just because I don't know yet how I fit in here. Maybe when I know better who I am and what I want, I'll be able to come back and be happy here.''

A New Direction

Whenever I'm speaking with people in Europe about anything alternative or spiritual, they say to me, ''Well, you must know all about this, being from San Francisco.'' And I have to admit to them, with my tail between my legs, that I wasn't involved in anything alternative or spiritual in San Francisco. But, every time this happens, I get more excited to move back to the Bay Area and explore this whole world that I didn't know existed. I find it amusing that it took me leaving the US for two years to discover where I fit in my own hometown. But I think it makes sense, and it must happen for many people.

The Lesson

It's nearly impossible to soul-search, I mean really soul-search, without leaving home. There's a freedom that comes along with getting far away from everyone who knows you. It gives you the space to step out of familiar patterns of activity, of conversation, of cuisine, of self care (or lack of), and it gives you the space to welcome new inspiration, to explore new passions, to find all sorts of hidden talents that you never knew you had.

And for me, it wasn't enough to do this once in my life (I lived in Australia for two years post-college), and I'm no psychic but I'd say I won't stop at twice. A one-way ticket out of town is so far the best reinvigoration of life that I know, and I recommend it to people of all backgrounds, of all ages, of all occupations, of all emotional states - if a reinvigoration of your life is what you're after!