#81: Spending Time Alone Isn’t the Same as Spending Time With Yourself
Hello and welcome to Find Yourself, Change Your Life. I’m your host, Mary Clavieres. This is a podcast about making clearer decisions, navigating change, and coming back to yourself.
For today’s episode, I wanted to share a story and a question that I recently got around spending time alone.
Spending Time Alone: The Workshop Question That Started This Conversation
I was giving a workshop to a local women’s networking group and it was all about the mind-body connection. One of the pieces that I teach with the mind-body connection is around spending time with yourself.
Someone in the audience asked: does it count as spending time by myself if I’m alone, but I’m on a walk and I’m listening to a podcast?
I thought it was a great question. And there’s a really big distinction that I feel is very important for people to pay attention to, because if you are in this process of wanting to understand yourself better, wanting to get out of your mind, back into your body, reconnect with yourself and your purpose, then how you spend your alone time matters.
Layer One: The Physical Part of Spending Time Alone
There are a couple of layers to it. One of the layers is, yes, when I say spending time by yourself, it means physically having time to yourself. So if you live with other people and they’re home all the time, it may mean that you need to leave the house to have some time on your own.
I would look at it even further, if you think, well, I’ll go to my room and that’s my alone time, you can do that. I believe there’s something to be said about giving yourself more space energetically. So leaving the house is always the clearer option to me.
It could be that you go take yourself on a walk. So that’s one part, the physical part of separating from other people to have your alone time.
Layer Two: What You Do With the Time You Spend Alone
The next part is what you do with that time.
There’s a time and a place for everything, so I’m just sharing this as another layer and another piece to it. She had asked specifically about podcasts — and I know you’re listening to this on a podcast right now.
Podcasts are amazing and they have a time and place. And the type of alone time that I’m speaking about — really spending time with yourself to get to know yourself — means that you don’t have other inputs coming in. So that would include podcasts or music, for example, or watching TV.
If you want to reconnect with yourself and you want to better understand and have clarity around your purpose, your direction, or you’re trying to figure out a problem, or you’re navigating something that’s challenging… the alone time needs to be with you, not while you’re having inputs from other people.
Why Inputs Get in the Way of Spending Time Alone
When you think about something like a podcast or music, you are still receiving information or receiving energy from whatever it is that you’re listening to.
With music, for example, you might put on certain music for a certain mood that you’re in, and that mood and that music match energetically for you. Time and a place for it. But if you’re really looking at you as a person and trying to understand more about how you operate, or you want to be paying more attention to your thoughts and what’s coming to you, you won’t be able to hear those thoughts the same way if you have an input.
This is a really important distinction because we are really in a culture and in a society that consumes a lot of information. I would say we generally try to overconsume information. Not even that we try to. I think we just do by accident because we’re inundated all the time and it’s really hard to separate ourselves from that.
But if you are really looking to reconnect with yourself — whether it’s figuring out or problem solving some type of challenge, or wanting a clearer direction on something — you’re not gonna get that while you’re listening to or consuming another piece of information. The clarity of that will happen when you’re on your own.
You Don’t Have to Sit in a Dark Room to Spend Time Alone
If you’re really truly on your own, you can still be doing something. You can be crafting or crocheting or washing dishes or exercising even. You can be doing something else. You don’t have to sit and meditate.
If you’ve been around a while, you know that that’s something that I say often… you don’t have to sit in a dark room for 30 minutes to have the same benefits in other ways. But you do have to spend that time with yourself. Whatever type of activity you’re doing, it’s okay as long as it’s not one where you’re consuming other information or having other inputs at the same time. That’s the distinction between the two.
I Used to Always Have Something Playing
I used to be someone that was always listening to something. I either had music or a podcast or some other type of webinar or something always going in the background, especially when I would go for walks. Because I thought — okay, well, it’s more productive if I’m learning these other things while I’m taking my walk.
But in the end, actually, this whole process and everything that I speak about with mind-body connection comes back to the self. And the self can’t be consuming from other people all the time.
Yes, I get it. This is a podcast and you’re listening to this as a piece of information. But let it be something that is supportive to you in your process. You can’t be listening to all those things and hearing yourself at the same time. And this whole process is about you hearing yourself.
Your Invitation for This Week
It doesn’t have to be all of a sudden you go cold turkey and you never listen to another thing again. That’s absolutely not what I’m saying.
What I am saying is… if you are taking a little time for yourself, if you have a moment or a pocket of time where you have time on your own and you are in a process of trying to reconnect with yourself in some way, use that time for yourself without other inputs. It can be on whatever kind of activity you want to do, just be mindful of the other inputs that would be coming at the same time.
The invitation to reflect on is really around:
How much time are you spending alone with yourself without consuming other things?
If you don’t do it much at all right now, are there ways that you can invite it into your life?
If you already do it, are there ways that you can expand on it and have that grow a little bit?
It’s really an ever-changing, ever-evolving process.
The Return Community
A place to strengthen the relationship you have with yourself. You’re invited to join us here.
Connect with Mary here:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-clavieres-19917a7/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/mary.clavieres
Voxer: @ maryclavieres
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the difference between being alone and spending time with yourself? A: Being physically alone means no other people around. Spending time with yourself means no outside inputs either… no podcasts, music, social media, or anything else you’re consuming. As Mary shares in this episode, you can be completely alone and still not be spending time with yourself if you’re constantly filling the space with information from other sources.
Q: Does listening to a podcast on a walk count as alone time? A: Physically, yes, you’re by yourself. But in terms of reconnecting with yourself, understanding your own thoughts, or gaining clarity on something you’re navigating, no. When you’re consuming input from another source, that input is occupying the space where your own thoughts and signals would otherwise come through.
Q: Do I have to meditate to spend real time with myself? A: No, you don’t have to sit in a dark room for 30 minutes. You can walk, cook, wash dishes, craft, crochet, exercise. The key is that you’re doing the activity without simultaneously consuming input from another source. The activity itself is fine, it’s the added input that changes what the time is doing for you.
Q: How much time alone (without inputs) do I actually need? A: Mary doesn’t prescribe a specific amount. The invitation is to notice how much you currently have, and then look for ways to invite more in or expand what’s already there. Even one activity per week without outside input is a starting point.
Q: Why is it so hard to be with ourselves without inputs? A: Because we’re inundated. As Mary shares, we don’t even overconsume information on purpose… it just happens because it’s everywhere and it’s the default. Choosing to not have an input playing is actually a deliberate act in this culture, which is part of why it feels uncomfortable at first.
Q: What happens when I do spend time with myself without inputs? A: That’s when clarity comes. When you’re working through a problem, trying to figure out your direction, or wanting to understand yourself better… the answers don’t usually come while you’re listening to someone else’s thoughts. They come in the quiet.
Q: What is the Return Community? A: A one-year membership community created by Mary Clavieres for people who want to practice coming back to themselves with tools, support, and people doing the same work. Mind-body connection, Human Design, monthly calls, quarterly workshops. Founding member bonuses available until October 1. Details at community.maryclaivieres.com.
