Solitude and Quality of Life...

Solitude and quality of life form a complex matrix of meaning that includes having nourishing relationships and excludes relationships that detract from who we are as individuals, our essential solitude, and who we are as loving beings.

C.G. Jung wrote, "Solitude is for me a font of healing which makes my life worth living." Life being worth the living goes further than doing this or that with these or those people. In fact, too much contact with others, especially in order to while away time with idle socializing, detracts from self and quality of life.

Fear of growth, ongoing consciousness, often stems from a terror of isolation. To distinguish oneself in terms of interests, perspective, and mentality takes us apart from the group. We fear being different from everyone else. Embracing our capacity for solitude takes us into a depth of relationship with self and also, however surprising, into an increased capacity to nourish healthy relationships and personal lovingness.

"My head spins with too much to do and too many people in my life," exclaimed an anxiety-ridden soul. Dreams of fogginess and "people, people everywhere, so that I couldn't breathe. They were sucking up all the air" abounded for this individual. Quality of life had been compromised. Spirit, air, had been siphoned off. A return to the essential solitude of the self, to include nurturing relationships, was needed in order to rediscover a replenishing spirit and quality of life.