(PDF to download or print for your Solitude Mapping)
The following steps will sharpen your awareness about
● the types of solitude you experience
● how you balance solitude and human community
Step 1: Types of Solitude
Directions: Please circle the types of solitude you experience:
1. Solitude as Anonymity – Because you are alone, you may act in whatever ways you feel like at the moment, without concern for social niceties or what others might think.
2. Solitude as Creativity – Being alone stimulates novel ideas or innovative ways of expressing yourself, whether actually in art, poetry or intellectual pursuits, or whimsically in daydreaming with a purpose.
3. Solitude as Diversion – You fill the time alone by watching television, reading a book, surfing the internet, or engaging in other distracting activities.
4. Solitude as Inner Peace – While alone, you feel calm and relaxed free from the pressures of everyday life.
5. Solitude as Intimacy – Although alone, you feel especially close to someone you care about (for example, an absent friend or lover, or perhaps a deceased relative such as a beloved grandparent); the absence of the person only strengthens your feeling of closeness.
6. Solitude as Loneliness – You feel self-conscious, anxious or depressed, you long for interpersonal contact.
7. Solitude as Problem Solving – Aloneness provides the opportunity to think about specific problems or decisions you are facing and you attempt to come to some resolution.
8. Solitude as Self Discovery – By focusing attention on yourself, you gain insight into your fundamental values and goals and you come to realize your unique strengths and weaknesses.
9. Solitude as Spirituality – While alone, you have a mystic–like experience, for example, a sense of transcending everyday concerns, of being a part of something grander than yourself: Such experiences are sometimes interpreted within a religious context (e.g. as being close to God) but they also can be entirely secular (e.g. as being in harmony with a social or natural order).
Adapted from Long, et. al (Univ. of Mass.) PSPB, Vol. 29 No. 5, May 2003 578-583.
● Please write the type(s) of solitude you feel most drawn to, the one you would most like to experience:
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Step 2:
Your Patterns of Choice
A. At this time in my life I would prefer to have:
a. more solitude.
b. more involvement with others.
c. other: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
B. I seem to keep about the right balance of time between solitude and being with others:
a. most of the time
b. rarely
c. other: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
C. Needing to choose between solitude and being with others leaves me feeling frustrated.
a. often
b. not often
c. other: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
D. I feel upset when I need to choose between solitude and being with others.
a. usually
b. not usually
c. other: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
E. My everyday choices between solitude and being with others are influenced by feelings of shame or guilt.
a. often
b. not often
c. other: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
F. My everyday choices between solitude and being with others are influenced by feelings of social pressures and expectations.
a. usually
b. not usually
c. other: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
● After considering these questions, you may decide to work on re-balancing solitude and community.
Step 3: Balancing Solitude and Community (Conclusions)
1. What type(s) of solitude, listed in Step 1, would you go to some effort to experience?
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2. In what places, situations or conditions are you likely to find solitude?
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3. If you would like to find a better balance between solitude and community:
A. What are some resources (internal and external) that you have for doing this
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B. What obstacles (internal and external) make it difficult to do this?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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4. What would you need to do, on an everyday and long term basis, to create more solitude, or a better balance into your life?
(Remember that re-balancing requires working things out with those around you, as kindly as possible. Others are affected when you shift your balance between solitude and community.)
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5. What is your next step?
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© Robert Smith, Ph. D., Aug.,2011, robertcharlessmithphd@gmail.com