The very first time I lived alone – no parents, no siblings, no companions, no roommates – was about 3 years into my teaching career.  

I had been living with a roommate in her condo and she was moving. And my parents were selling our family home and moving with some of my younger siblings to a town a few towns north. 

It was time to try living solo. 

If you ask my mom, she will tell you that I was the very last of her eleven kids that she would have expected to like living alone.  In fact, My dad used to tease me that when I was little I was “tied to her apron strings.”  And my mom’s right – I had always planned to live with people, preferably people I married and birthed.

I didn’t plan to make the decisions of my life alone – for the next twenty-five years.

But that’s the thing about plans, right? Your life happens when you’re busy making plans (or something like that!). 

Turns out being alone with ourselves – whether by choice or by circumstance, whether ‘actually’ being alone or just trying to get in the bathroom alone because you have a gaggle of other people under your feet! – is a skill. 

And, like any skill, it’s a skill we can improve. 

It starts with knowing ourselves. 

Jody Moore offers 4 really great tips for knowing ourselves.  She asserts that if you don’t know yourself – actually and truly know yourself – it impacts e-v-e-r-y area of your life.  

Ready to find out how?

Pay attention to your inner voice

• know that your thoughts are optional
• know that the story you’re telling yourself may not be serving you
• decide to set unuseful beliefs down
• practice “I love you, anyway” with yourself

Pay attention to yourself

• do you acknowledge you or neglect you?
• listen to those very small whispers of curiosity
• whenever possible, connect with yourself in writing
• don’t avoid pictures or videos of yourself
• give yourself some sort of attention each day

Pay attention to and honor the commitments you make to yourself

• start to underpromise and overdeliver with yourself instead of the opposite
• begin to do what you say you’re going to do with yourself, for yourself
• be done with letting yourself down

Pay attention to your closeness with yourself

• closeness is intimacy and it is deep and vulnerable
• ask yourself what’s really going on?
• ask yourself what you need?
• be a listener to yourself and ask good questions
• think of ways to be present with you
• ask yourself what your opinion is of you
• ask yourself what strengths you have that no one else knows about
• ask yourself about when you feel most like yourself

I have a pretty great story of how I’m not alone now.  

But, like the rest of you, I continue to work on knowing myself better every day.  It’s good work. 

I can’t wait to hear about how that work is going for you! And if you’re stuck, I’d love to help.