Practicing Solitude on holiday season is not that bad

 It is a common tradition that during holiday seasons we always spend our quality of time with our family, friends and colleagues. We enjoy family gatherings at home or even doing some festive activities outdoors. Most offices go for Christmas parties, and everyone have their own share of presentation numbers, antics and making contributions when it comes food, drinks, games or even simply helping with the cooking and tidying up with the host.

Holiday seasons brings nostalgia to those people who have transitioned to a different lifestyle for example Filipino Overseas Workers (OFW). Before they go abroad, they got used to visiting loved ones for the holidays however now that they are far from home, they miss their family and friends and the lively atmosphere that they once get used to. Now that they are in another country, they have to start celebrating holidays either from themselves or with a new group of people. Life continues to go on.

In Western countries we also encourage some people to visit those who are lonely and vulnerable groups like the elderly, people with disability, children on foster care, the prisoners and those who detained and people, people with addictions, chronic poverty and lastly those who have mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression and others. Even on these circumstances that they have, they do deserve human connection and it is normal for us to seek that love and the need of being belonged.

However, for those who spend their Christmas and New Years alone some people cannot help but formed some assumptions towards these groups of people. They think that those people in isolation are all lonely.

Here is one of the classic examples of statement that some people assume when someone is alone during holidays.

- Until now, she doesn't have boyfriend, yet I bet her holidays will be lonely.

True that there are many reasons why some people are on their own during holidays and at some point, might feel loneliness.

For example, having unsupportive and toxic family and friends that they choose to distance themselves. Those who need to work or doing charity and community works during holiday festivities, loss of a loved one. For some, holidays can be overwhelming that they need to follow old traditions that are against to their current values and priorities in life. There are some people who fear of overblown spending while others have a different expectation that when things start to run on a different course, they feel upset and loss their motivation to believe and start again.

On a positive note, there are others who prefer to be alone because they simply enjoy it especially for some Introverts who spends time alone to recharge and find happiness on stillness, simplicity and calmness. Some people are confident in their own skin and being open to new explorations. Just drinking a warm cup of Hot Choco without distractions alone already brings joy!

Unless we are aware and understand their stories and it would be best not to give any assumptions and understand where people are coming from before we judge them as lonely.

If we are starting to have fears of being in isolated, we have to begin making it as a friend. What I meant by it is to see your situation of being solitude in a different light.

By being solitude, it gives us the opportunity to prioritize our self-care. We sometimes tend to meet the expectations of other people from us without knowing that we are stretching ourselves too thin and it make us lose our authenticity to ourselves and it does affect our health. In practicing self-care, we value both our physical, internal and our mental health.

Practicing solitude also helps us to discover and reflect more about ourselves from our strengths and weaknesses, our boundaries, things that we care and value and is there anything that we need to improve or change by that?

There are some instances that we are overloaded with many tasks to do and once that we didn't reach people's expectations of us, our self-worth depletes however by doing Solitude you are able to develop compassion towards yourself and others because being alone, helps you to slow down and view things with further clarity and on a bigger picture.

Solitude also provides us the strong focus on our goals. Instead of focusing on negativity around you for example dealing with gossips you focus within on what you build for yourself.

And lastly being in Solitude makes you seek God and gives you the time to deepen your relationship with the Supreme Lord and improve the quality of relationship to your loved ones and others whom you encounter towards your journey in life. Living Solitude balances everything and it doesn't alienate yourself on others. You are making yourself heal and have peace within yourself and others.

Do we still think that Solitude is a bad thing? For me, it is about time to learn something from it and make it into good use.