Lonely or Alone? - Grieving Our Past Self and Letting Go of Old Wants and Needs

The thing is sometimes we need to give ourselves the gift of being alone or by ourselves without any external influence. To sit with all our emotions, feelings and thoughts and to really feel into what we need to process and ultimately become comfortable with what our wants and needs really are.

As we heal, we grow, we learn, we ponder and inevitably we change, and therefore our wants and needs change. It's interesting and can be an intense experience. You now know things you didn't know about yourself and that's awesome, but then there is the other side, which can actually feel like a loss, a type of mourning of your past self, and the life you had and wanted and needed at the time.

What we don't learn how to do after we begin healing and growing is how to let go of things that we used to want and need. We might still think we want those things perhaps, but in a different way. This can be in relation to things we own, jobs we have, relationships and friendships we are part of. When it comes to people in our lives, it might look like asking them to change, and no one is going to change unless it's on their own accord, which is how it should be. So, unless they want to move in the same direction as us, we sometimes need to let go.

So what happens? Sometimes people grow apart and sometimes people are able to hold space for each other to grow and change and still feel mutually connected in their wants and needs.We often think we need someone to be there, to hold our hand, and truth be told we do, but it doesn't mean that however that looks for us is wrong or right. We can journey with someone alongside us or we can journey alone and still have people flow in and out. This is about when we are not really sure what we want and need, and therefore needing space to quietly reflect deeply into the stillness of our own existence. To press pause on everything so we can get clear and understand the difference between being alone and feeling alone. Either way, if it means letting go of people and things, we need to grieve and work through that pain so we can move forward. It isn't easy and of course it's further healing. Does it ever end?

For me, Greece has represented solidarity. The need to be alone and wander my own path without the securities that I was so used to. It's been full on, I've felt emotionally depleted, crazy, sad, empty and anxious a lot because I'm moving through the stages of letting go of who I was. I'm still me but I'm different now. I'm having experiences by myself and also leaning on other humans because for me connection is important. It is scary sometimes but it's really making me grow in so many ways. Ways that are messy and even sometimes unhealthy - me at my worst -but it is all part of the process amd I am learning to accept myself, because that is what the universe wants to teach me. To gireve my old life, wants and needs, and to bravely keep stepping forward into the unknown whether that is alone or not.

Do I know what I want and need? Nope not quite. Did I ever really? I think it's about connecting with yourself and feeling into it. The answers are always within us, we just need to listen. We need to listen to ourselves rather than the external buzz surrounding us constantly. This is probably something that takes a while to reach, I'm not quite there yet. I still doubt myself and what I am doing often, but it is all working out how it should and it's partly scary, partly surreal and partly liberating. I am alive so I am living.

I hope you are living and growing in a way that feels good for you, whether alone or in company. It is your journey, don't forget that.

Big love, Anne