Solitude as a resource
“What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours — that is what you must be able to attain.”
We live in a world that whispers (and sometimes shouts) that the answer is always out there: another training, another conversation, another insight waiting in the next meeting or scroll.
Yet Rilke's words tap us on the shoulder with a different truth: that there is a vast, necessary solitude we are called to enter if we want to know ourselves—and serve others, from a place of something real.
Not the solitude of loneliness, but the solitude that clears the noise so we can hear.
It is easy to overlook solitude as a resource, especially as a coach. We champion connection, presence, and deep listening for others, but how often do we grant ourselves the same presence without the constant ripple of external input?
How often do we protect enough stillness to sense the quiet shifts in our breath or to notice what rises in the silence when we're not producing, or preparing to serve?
For me (Monselete), solitude looks like doing almost nothing. Sitting in total silence, reading in total silence, working in total silence... alone, with no one around to interrupt the hush. That's when everything unclenches. My shoulders drop, my mind stops hustling for the next insight, and my breath finally remembers how to do its job without me managing it.
Sometimes, solitude is also about new places. A quiet corner of a café, a stretch of unfamiliar trees, a room with a different window to stare out of while the world moves quietly around me. These places don't demand anything from me. They give me just enough distance to see my own life a little differently, and that shift feels like soul-level rest.
At the end of it all, what I hear is nothing.
And honestly? That nothing is everything.
It's the space that lets me breathe deeper, unclutter my head, and loosen the death grip I didn't realize I had on my own thoughts. It feels like an exhale I didn't know I was holding.
When I come back from this kind of solitude, I feel spacious, clear, and a little softer around the edges. I can meet what's in front of me without needing it to be different. I can listen, really listen, to others and to myself, without rushing to fix, shift, or prove.
Dan here. As far as solitude goes, I crave it.
I swear that I was Samuel Taylor Coleridge in a previous life, because I HATE to be interrupted when I am in a creative space, meditating, or processing ideas. (If you don’t know the story, Coleridge was interrupted from an opium dream while transcribing Kubla Khan, his epic poem.
He had received the entire epic (supposedly 200-300 lines) in one download. The interruption happened around line 50…and he was never able to reconnect to the rest of the dream. What was written is pure beauty.
So, yeah, I’m protective of my creativity when I am in flow. When I am there, I am in a daydream state of Alpha brainwaves; getting jarred back to Beta brainwave consciousness is like whiplash.
For me, solitude is silence, as much of it as I can create.
Actually, that’s not totally true. There are sounds that help me to create a sense of solitude where I can center, focus, and enjoy whatever I am doing, whether it is creating or relaxing.
Brown noise gives me that sense. This video helps me to tune out the world. Ever since it was shared with me, I use it to drown out random noises and interruptions from those around me. (I’m actually listening to it in my earbuds as I am writing this…Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!)
I have introverted tendencies and let’s just say ‘peopling’ takes a lot out of me. I must actively create time to reconnect to myself after a busy day or a large networking event.
Solitude is about giving myself the same level of presence that I give to others, particularly clients. It’s a gift that often gets forgotten in the hustle and bustle, but it is a gift I must give to myself.
I used to LOOOOOVE listening to loud music while driving. There’s nothing like good rock on a dark desert highway…and if Golden Earring’s Radar Love comes on? Fuhgeddaboudit! Best driving song, ever! I can easily get lost in that bass line; it’s hypnotic.
Yet, I find that I’d much rather listen to the white noise created by the ragtop on my Jeep than music. I don’t have to put a meaning to it. I don’t have to decipher it. I don’t connect to memories. I. Just. Listen. To. My. Thoughts…To. Myself. Like the brown noise video, it helps me to focus; distracting my conscious mind so I can go deeper.
And I learn more about myself in a 15-minute drive than I do in hours of conversation.
My creativity explodes; new ideas are connected; fresh insights are discovered…and I feel happy.
All because I didn’t have to make meaning out of a distraction, nor did I have to spend energetic bandwidth on tuning it out.
In the silence, in the solitude of self, I reconnect to my Creator-Self. And there, nothing else is required. I am complete.
“A man who awaits nothing fears nothing”
This kind of solitude doesn’t just restore our energy. It reminds us how to live with a little more grace. To walk with a little less urgency. To trust that what’s meant for us will arrive in its own quiet way, without us having to chase it down.
Maybe this August is an invitation to create that space for yourself, the kind where your breath softens, your thoughts quiet, and something small but true becomes visible again.
Not as a retreat from life. But as a quiet homecoming.
What becomes possible when you treat solitude as a resource, not a retreat?
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