Alone - A Re-Frame

What happens when a random yoga instructor's words send me into a positive mind-flipping tail spin

One of my favorite scenes to simply be in - hot tea and empty pages sprawled out before me waiting to be filled.

“Now find stillness here, to simply be with yourself,” the YouTube yogi stated in a calm, breathy voice.

Be with myself.

It could just be the trauma-informed, heart-opening stretch she has me doing, but that phrase brings a pool of salt tinged tears to my eyes.

Be with MYSELF.

With myself!

Why has this turn of phrase never occurred to me before? I have embraced the idea of getting to know all parts of me (shoutout to my therapist, she’s the real MVP). I have practiced sitting in my feelings, spending time alone, mending trauma gaps in my brainwaves - but it has all felt so. fucking. lonely.

Be with myself.

Not just asking to be a “friend” to yourself, or to “be friendly” with yourself.

But BE WITH yourself.

Those words are a culmination of all of the work I’ve done over the past 3 years, draped over me like a tapestry. One I painstakingly crafted with my own aching hands, often sewing in one shape only to have to unknot another.

“You need to learn to enjoy your alone time,” they say. Tell that to the little girl who believes in with every stretch of tendon and thick of bone that the people she loves most will leave her. Left behind. My deepest, darkest fear - my own personal brand of despair.

He left me and I didn’t even know why. I was 3 years old. My dad was my world and then he was gone. He returned almost a year later, with a suitcase full of hugs and tears. It wasn’t until I was nearly an adult that my older brother finally told me the truth. Our dad had been in jail during that time. But by then I had already integrated one core belief - that the people you loved most would leave you, and you wouldn’t even know why.

My serious high school boyfriend’s choices cause my brain to double down on this belief. When our senior year rolled around, after 2.5 years of losing myself in this person, he ended things very suddenly. I sat, horrified, as the future I had crafted with him in my mind shattered before my eyes. 5 months later he ran away in the middle of the night to be with someone else who lived across the country - two weeks before we were set to graduate. “I bet he’ll be back,” one of our mutual teacher’s had said when I gave him the news. It’s been nearly 17 years since that day, and he never returned. Even your favorite teachers can’t tell the future.

People leave.

I am a deeply independent and self-reliant person, and yet the idea of being left behind is earth shattering. Not necessarily being alone, but the act of being rejected. Unloved. Abandoned. Left for dead.

But would I die if I were on my own? Is that core of this fear, or is it something more?

3 year old me clings to the idea that the sheer pain might end me. Though I still had a parent there to care for me back then, the one who was more nurturing and affectionate had disappeared. I was left with only my grief and my unanswered questions.

So naturally, my brain formed its own conclusions.

Q: If you love someone too much, what will happen?

A: The person you love will almost certainly leave you. You’re somehow too much and yet still not enough for them to stay.

Q: If someone you love leaves you behind to do their own thing, what does that mean?

A: It means they might never come back. It means they probably never wanted to be with you in the first place, so why would they come back?

Q: If you have too many feelings, then what?

A: They’ll call you a crybaby and put you in a corner alone. Keep your feelings locked up tight so you’re not an inconvenience to be around.

I have spent 35 long years with these truths. They live in my body, sabotaging my relationships and torturing my mind. For years I wanted to purge them from my depths, wishing they had never dug in their claws.

They were also my protectors. Trying to keep me safe from ever having to feel the level of grief my tiny body held at only 3 years old.

Be with myself.

Yes, some people leave. I may be rejected, ridiculed, and misunderstood.

Some people stay. They will see me, accept me, and love me deeply.

Regardless of both of those things, I’m creating a new truth to hold onto. Never again can I be fully and utterly abandoned. Because after years of abandoning my own needs, my intuition, my truest self - I have finally found my voice and my momentum. I have journeyed and found rest. I have picked a new plot of land and built myself a home, using mud and sticks and stone.

Not just a structure to live in, but a space to thrive. In this house we move in gentle ways, and we adorn our chilly feet in woolen slippers when they are cold. We wrap ourselves in loving grace while our chest opens toward the sunshine of possibility. We pour hot water over carefully draped teabags and cover our mugs with a plate to keep the warmth in our grasp. A feeling of safety others could never provide, now radiating from within.

I am finally here with myself. No longer without, now wholeheartedly within.

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