Heart Pocket Word for the Day is Alone!

The word from my heart pocket is Alone.

What do you feel when you say the word,alone?

As we humans are wont to do, many of us conjure images of sadness or worse, abandonment. There are surely times when being alone is the result of a difficult time. Each of us has a story ... or two, we could share. 

But it also means "in solitary", "on one's own", unattached, unique, matchless, and in some instances, "traveling light". Let's change the color of the word ...

 Alone

That feels better, almost as if we aren't ... alone. The negative connotations of the word come when we are afraid. The powerful feelings of being on our own happen when we are confident and satisfied. This feeling can be present most of the time if we allow it. Being alone might be scary for a moment, but when we face that frightening time, we feel proud of ourselves that we have stayed the course, we gain confidence in our own judgment and we find new courage in our autonomy. 

This is not to say we don't need others in our lives - our parents, our children, our neighbors, our God. Alone is where we collect ourselves and without all of the noise of the world, we remember who we are and what is important to our well being.

What a practical tool Alone is! Why do some of us shy away from it? What is so frightening about alone? If we're not practiced at being alone, we are uncertain and uncertainty is scary ... if we're not practiced at being uncertain. Being comfortable with Alone is a very secure place. It means we trust ourselves and we know that if we have to, we can make it on our own. Scary Alone surfaces when we panic. Our mind puts up a wall and as long as we're panicking, the power of Alone will be blocked. When we calm the mind - 10 slow and deep breaths absolutely do it - we clear out those good old boys who get all riled up when the panic button is pushed. Guys like fear and self-doubt and shame and blame are sent packing when we stop and take stock and suddenly, it's not so crowded in there because ... we're alone. We can think. We can feel. And if we let it, our gut tells us what to do. We're not really alone. We have all of those positive human tools we can count on. We just have to make room for them by finding a quiet space to be alone.

Big or small, our decisions come more easily and satisfactorily when we have the final say. We can claim the consequences and we can change our mind at any time. We can do it because we know the power of our uniqueness, the strength of our courage and the matchlessness of our singularity. 

Together we stand ... Alone.