Alone, Not Lonely – Sometimes You Need to Shut Everything Off

Someone said something recently that got to me…..

“The answers you are looking for are in the silence you are avoiding”

Now, I’m not the sort of person who avoids silence, in fact, I’m pretty much down with silence… I don’t fear my own thoughts and allow them to get me down or consume me.

It got to me because I’ve been wasting the alone time I have been getting, I spend a fair bit of time alone, driving up and down the country to look at different jobs and what not, and I’m fine with it – Alone, not lonely! But I’ve realised I don’t utilise that time well enough. I generally spend it listening to music, podcasts and audio books rarely with my own thoughts.

So when the opportunity arose to go wild camping on my lonesome in the lake district, I made a decision to leave all tech that allows me to listen to stuff at home, I would spend the whole weekend listening to my inner monologue.

FYI, I will document this trip thoroughly in a future blog, for now I want to briefly discuss what happened in my head over the course of about 20 hrs.

Setting off from Grasmere, my head was repeating about 3 lines of a song over and over again, thanks to my daughter for playing Golden from K Pop Demon hunters on repeat before I left! It tortured me for a good hour or so, until my brain realised it was free to do as it wished and skipped between the song and navigation, once I’d found my way to the top of Blea Rigg and scouted out a decent spot to camp, my mind was free to relax, and just…. Be!

If you’ve read previous blogs you’ll be aware and probably sick of hearing that It’s been a busy and tough summer, well I finally had some headspace to think about it.

So, I sat there and thought about it, I looked at the sun set behind the Langdale Pikes and thought about why it had been so tough, what went wrong, what went right and what I need to change, how can I ensure that it won’t be like this again and how can we still put out that volume of work without the stress it brings.

I sat there turning it all over in my head as the warmth of the sun disappeared behind the craggy summit of Pavey Ark one thing became pretty clear: I can’t have another year like this one. Work has consumed me this summer despite promising myself that after Belle that I wouldn’t let work take that much of me again. Although, I am proud of what we have achieved, it’s come at the expense of me being properly present at home and burnt out.

I don’t want that, my family is the most important part of my life and come the new year, I want to be in a position where I have more of myself available for them. Not consumed by the next deadline or distracted by whatever problem I’m trying to solve in my head.

So I started thinking about what actually needs to change, what do I need help with? What am I doing that somebody else could be doing? Where am I creating problems for myself? And how can I keep the business moving without it requiring quite so much of me?

I didn’t come down in the morning with all the answers, but I did come down with a better idea of the questions I need to answer.

I don’t think any of this was new to me, deep down I think I already knew most of it. I’d just been so blummin busy that I hadn’t given myself enough time to actually listen to what my own head was telling me.

This isn’t the end, not by any means it is only the beginning, however, I would not have come to these conclusions had I not allowed myself to be in silence for a few hours.

The world is too loud for us these days, we need to shut off the sound to allow our own brains to do the job they are designed to do. So, don’t be afraid, embrace the silence and figure some shit out!!

Take it easy!

TM

If you have enjoyed this blog, you may also enjoy the following posts. If you think others would too, please consider sharing it with friends and family.

Freedom, one step at a time – Living With a Wanderer’s Mind

A Week in The Lake District: Hard Graft, Good Ale and Headspace

These 7 Quotes Changed How I See Life (They Might Do the Same for You)