The past two weeks have been grueling for both my mind and spirit. I have never sought for solitude, and have never stayed in it so long before like I did the past weeks …
You know that feeling when you just want to isolate yourself from people, when you just want to be in a far far hidden place to have space and time to think and reflect on your thoughts, to feel and examine your feelings; when every experience, every thought and feeling becomes a loud resonating sound inside your head and heart that even if you don’t want to listen you just couldn’t escape it? I guess the most excruciating part of being in solitude is sorting and sifting the different voices within and recognizing that which comes from deep deep within your true self… well, the question of who your true self is is also another struggle to begin with.
I have often feared silence and being alone with myself because of what I might find in myself… “will I meet a friend or ghost I left behind?” It is not that I have never been in solitude and have never gone into myself, but it’s just that the self is so mysterious and full of surprises… there are still so many things we do not know about our selves.
True enough, my recent days of chosen solitude has surfaced many fears, issues and what not. And yet the experience has also led me to profound insights and realizations, taking me further to self-awareness and most importantly leading me closer to my God.
From the Letters to A Young Poet, Rainier Maria Rilke wrote: “It is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad…the quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadness, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us…”
Solitude is my new-found friend. In it I discovered this paradox: that whenever I feel lonely I just have to be alone; and in my solitude I will feel that I am not alone.
Although I know I have so much to learn about the disciplines of solitude, and of prayer and discernment, but I realized and I am assured that God always meets me where I am.
