The more we find, know, embrace and love our true selves, the less we split off into the shadow in self hatred or rejection the more comfortable we feel with time alone.. I just re-listened to the reading i had with astrologer Melanie Reinhardt after my second accident in 2005 and she was encouraging me to pull back from those abusing me at that time with so much inner pain coming up and trying to recommend self healing practices and meditations.. Listening to myself share the hurt I was undergoing at the hands of the family I was lodging with then now makes sense of why I left to go to the ashram but it also makes me sad.. I got close to the lady I lodged with and she had opened up to me about her own pain but after the accident made me feel too hurt I was told my being sad was upsetting them and they wanted me to leave, and so I did.
Anyway its in the past now but its more of the same kept happening time after time possibly just pushing me home to my true self and inner child. In the reading Melanie also told me she felt I needed to live alone due to the fact others often use me as a container due to the strong Neptune and Chiron influences in my chart.. That was very good advice.. Echoing this reminder I just picked up Charles Whitfield’s book A Gift to Myself and read this on the primary relationships we need to foster as we recover emotionally.
Time Alone
While a major issue for adult children is difficulty with intimate relationships until we know and are comfortable with our True Self, our Child Within, any satisfying intimate relationship with another will likely be difficult for us.
My experience of the way we heal ou Child Within is that it is in three relationships : the one with ourselves, with safe others and if we choose with our Higher Power. These relationships are the basis for my and others beginning definition of what spirituality is all about.
There may be only two relationships that we can never escape for long -that with ourselves, and with our Higher Power.
Every relationship that we experience involves our awareness of our True Self. If we do not know experientially what is going on within it in our inner life, we will likely not be able to relate fully to others, the world and to our Higher Power.
So it is useful in recovery to spend time alone, just getting to know our True Self better.
But sometimes the pain of being alone can feel almost unbearable and we may compulsively rush out to be with other people. Or we may self medicate with other things, such as work, sex, eating, alcohol, other drugs, shopping, gambling and the like -anything that may lessen our pain.
As you are reading this, if you have time now, go inside for a minute or two. What is coming up for you?
I have seen many people who I have assisted in their healing and recovery process who use people, places and things to self medicate their pain of being alone. At times I have suggested that they start by spending just 30 minutes each day alone with no distactions. They can meditate, write in a journal, or in other ways be with themselves, but otherwise, no distractions. Many have much difficulty doing that and the difficulty, that pain, is then useful grist for the mill of their work in therapy and recovery.
That said
We do not have to recover alone, and the only way we can recover is by our own inner resources. Those internal resources are the sensitive, vulnerable, and powerful dimensions of the inner life of the Child Within itself,
In their own imperfections, the other people involved in these recovery aids may frustrate us to go within, gently unearth and begin to nurture that little Child.
Emerging From The Dark Night 