I spent most of my life trying to make time and space for me, to be by myself. I would work really hard to create this space and time. I felt I was only truly happy and relaxed when I was on my own. I could breathe freely, and do what I liked, when I liked, with no one making demands on me, judging me or telling me what to do.
Why did I feel that I needed to be alone to be myself? Why was I like this?
When I was young, I got hurt. Nothing terrible happened, but I felt hurt that people did not truly see me and feel how lovely I was, and appreciate me – just for being me. From that time I found it hard to be myself around people, even though I loved them, as I was always trying to please everybody (which is exhausting) and so, I was always looking for ways to be alone.
The irony was that despite this deep desire to be alone, I rarely was. I worked with people, I was nearly always in a relationship, and once I had children, I was never alone! This desire to be alone when I was always surrounded by people, created a great deal of tension in my body and in my life.
Nowadays, I rarely have a moment to myself, and yet I rarely feel the same tension. When I do, I know that something is not right with me.
So, what has changed?
I have let people in. Not through the front door, or into my bed (except my husband!), but into my heart and into my world.
I have allowed people to see all of me. Now I do not hide the parts I don’t like much and I do not pretend to be someone I am not.
I am much more accepting of myself, and so I am much more accepting of everyone else, with all their foibles, weaknesses, and great beauty. When I allow them to see all of me, I can see all of them… and we are all mainly wonderful.
I like myself, and that has made it much more possible to like other people.
What I have learnt is that everyone I meet is reflecting something to me, so everyone becomes a gift, and every meeting is a great opportunity to learn more about myself and other people.
Having time and space alone can be lovely – an opportunity to deeply connect with myself. But if I ever feel like I need time and space to be by myself now, I ask myself: what is going on? Usually this happens because I have reacted to someone, felt hurt, taken something personally, and then gone into a ‘shut down’ state – wanting to withdraw from people, trying to protect myself from further hurt. I have learned that this does not work! It creates a wall between me and other people, and this wall does not protect me. All it does is stop me from seeing and feeling what is true, which is the great beauty that other people are, and that I am too.
We don’t always behave beautifully, but we are lovely, and if I remain aware of that I am not so hurt by another’s behaviour, even if it may be love-less. I now see the love-less behaviour as something that the person has done, and not who they are. And I know that because we are love; if our behaviour is loveless, in that moment we are not truly being ourselves.
If I am just being myself there is a great space within me, and all the time in the world. And this spaciousness spreads and extends from within me and is all around me, and I live and breathe and move in this space.
This spaciousness that I am feeling has a quality of lightness and loveliness, of being able to breathe freely and move flowingly and feel connected with everyone and everything around me. I feel open within, and therefore open to everyone and everything else. It feels like there is no beginning and no end to me.
I then share this space with everyone else, joyfully feeling that they hold the same quality, which is love, within them.
I share it with my husband, my children, my family and friends and everyone I meet. I don’t feel that work is hard work, even though I work hard – for it is a chance to be with people, whom I love. I don’t feel I need time away from my family, for I love to be with them, and share my spacious space with them!
Making time and space for me now means to hold that feeling, to be aware of the loveliness that lives within me, and to always live in that. And then I have all the time and space in the world… just being me.
I am forever inspired by the life and work of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
By Anne Malatt, woman, doctor, wife, mother, grandmother, Northern NSW, Australia
Further Reading:
Accepting All of You
Inspired by Universal Medicine… Just Being Me
A Space Just For Me
974 Comments
This was a great read for me this morning as I can feel that all I want is to be away from others, to have time on my own and am waiting for those moments. This blog offers me something to ponder on more deeply and look at where I am getting hurt, why and what is feeding this desire to be on my own.
This is great what your have shared Anne, for much is to be achieved when we allow our-self to feel the space through having a true purpose so we have created spaciousness instead of pushing through with a drive until we run out of time.
Pretending to be something that you are not is a game of ill truth that is feed to the world and no amount of masking to hide the inner turmoil we all feel when we are not being who we truly are.
Currently away on holiday, spending time with family, it has highlighted how I do not make time and space for me as much as I would like to, reflecting on this I can see how this impacts all relationships.
I feel this holiday has inspired me to have a renewed sense of commitment to myself.
It is quite the illusion to think that we can be ourselves when we take time out alone which often amounts to not very often and when it happens it is in exhaustion. And what does this say about the rest of the time? Do we spend this time regretting this part of our lives? Such a trap, and one I was hooked into for years. As with you Anne I have discovered there is a way to be with ourselves in every moment of the day, through being in connection to my essence within. From here the space to be myself is everywhere I go and sharing this quality with others is liberating, joyful and inspiring with no time out needed.
This is like heading in the opposite direction to the way in which the world is heading… And yet making space, taking a moment, is reflected in nature, and in the cycles of life, all around us.
Anne, I love this; ‘I have allowed people to see all of me. Now I do not hide the parts I don’t like much and I do not pretend to be someone I am not.’ I love the simplicity of what you are sharing and can feel what a beautiful, natural way this is to live.
To experience space it helps me to be true in my movements. The way I talk, how long I talk, how I move my body , to just make appointments which are truly serving. So every single moment is clear and in service. Then I feel more and more space in which can be done even more without any effort. All goes in a flow.
“What I have learnt is that everyone I meet is reflecting something to me, so everyone becomes a gift, and every meeting is a great opportunity to learn more about myself and other people.” – I love this sentence Anne, and when I have honoured this all of a sudden there really are no ‘issues’ or ‘problems’ in life, only opportunities to learn and grow. Your sharing really helped me understand my own tendencies to want to be alone sometimes when I am reacting to something in my life and feel hurt or misunderstood/under-appreciated, and I can see how much this protection serves no one anymore.
Yes, love this reminder that every moment is an opportunity for more love, more awareness, more joy.. what if we saw life as a series of rich blessings and opportunities, with no pictures or conditions on what they looked like – just full appreciation of the potential for learning that is always there?
I am discovering that I love to be with people and really love them. Letting people in is something I actively practice at this moment, because I can be with people without letting them in. That is very well possible.
Love how you claim the truth when you feel you need “you time” it is showing you something more. There is a great deal of responsibility in this and a deep love of yourself which is not just beneficial for you but for all.
The more I have appreciation for how beautiful I really am and to allow myself to feel it as I go about the day and not shut this off depending what is going on around, the more I realise that this is what is really needed. I totally agree about having more space to enjoy being me and that this is the key to life, expressing all of who I am no matter what. Still very much a working progress and it feels like I am back on my trainer wheels and it feels so remarkable at the same time.
I love this comment Natalie. It made me smile and reconnect to my own beauty and reminded me that having more space not’ for me’ but ‘to enjoy being me’ is the key to life ‘expressing all of who I am no matter what’
You can honour everyone when you start honouring yourself .. Then you become also aware of what great gift you are for other people as well.
We are always weak in places where we are actually genius in. How could we otherwise know and do exactly what is needed to spoil or sabotage it?! Having chosen a very unsocial life almost all of my life, I know exactly what you are sharing here. And I do say unsocial, although I knew many people and had many friends. But there was always this relief, when I could with me on my own again.There was always this border no one could cross. Living and letting people in now is a 180 degree turnaround- everything changed through that… I might write a blog about it 🙂
There is a lot to relate of great significance in this blog with simple and life changing tools. 2 things that have worked for me:
– Letting people IN and
– Observing what is offered through reflection in others.
Both are fantastic to feel what is true – my job is then to be absolutely honest in what I am feeling.
We are so worthy of space, as space offers love – love to you and love to another. Meeting others in this space is wonderful, because you offer them to be who they are with however they are feeling.. Also, we allow space to be ourselves. The deepest love is shared by this. What a wonderful choice.
Every moment is an opportunity to appreciate what is on offer whether that is the expanding or the confirming of our love. Recently I have been appreciating and confirming the love within me and this has been lovely. To call out that which is not love is super supportive and loving but to confirm the love within is also super supportive and loving too!
Anne, there is a tremendous wisdom that comes through in your writing. A wisdom that knows who we are and to where we are headed and so there is no need to rush or worry, just allow and accept the journey of returning to the soul to unfold so that we all may be together and each be a part of that journey in support for each other – whatever that journey may look like or take the shape of, the soul is always present.
When we associate being hurt with being with people, it follows that we will crave time out. If this is the case, being alone feels like the safe option, as there is no one to hurt you. However, I am finding that although this may seem to work on one level, we are designed to be in community and relationships. The safe part of us knows we are missing something deeper that we crave. The key for me is to be able to be myself and respect my feelings when I am with people, so the need to retreat isn’t there.
Beautiful to read Anne, so relate to the being hurt and closing down to letting people in, I am just starting to shift this and find myself looking for hurts and justifications for not being open and vulnerable. It is so not worth it.
It’s quite a trap working hard and being out there giving to others in order to give yourself the reward with alone time. I have had the same pattern and I can see that it is the way I was with other people; the pleasing, being nice, not being myself that was the problem and not the people. When you hold yourself and stay steady with yourself there is no need for the alone time.
I no longer feel the need to fix things for others which leaves me free to enjoy their company rather than feeling drained by it.
I used to champion the fact that I needed time alone to reconnect with myself but it never worked because I was shut down to myself as well as others and thus feeling a constant tension which was exhausting. As you say it is when we choose to open up to others that the space expands and we can be ourself whether we are alone or in a crowd.
Learning to appreciate who we are inspires us to equally appreciate others.
This has also been a behaviour of mine that is to withdraw when I felt hurt but now I am choosing to go in the opposite direction and connect to people sometimes immediately when I find myself hurt. To share and express with another brings about healing and what I am realising is that it is the absolute love I can give to myself in that moment.
I love this blog. It is so relatable – I remember how much I used to want to escape and not talk to anyone, needing solace from the world. Now the solace is within me, I simply need to come inwards back to me while the hustle and bustle exists in all its warts and ugliness around me. And that is how we inspire the inward movement back to who we are to others as well.
It really is quite simple – we create space for ourselves – we are then more present and loving with others.
The changes that you have made sound very simple and obvious but when we are nursing hurts or living protected, letting people in and allowing them to see the real you can feel daunting. What you have shared about accepting yourself and liking yourself feels key to no longer needing to hide or protect the real you.
True Anne, Pleasing everybody is exhausting and made me a woman holding a lot of frustration and resentment in my body also way to not let people and avoiding the deep love I have for others.
Anne it is so true, not being ourselves and trying to please others is exhausting – no wonder we would want time away from people to recuperate and just be. That transparency of simply being all of ourselves with everyone in our weakness and beauty is liberating in many ways.
I know the wanting time and space for myself well. For me it was only ever about shutting off from the world no matter how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise.
Sometimes I can see that there is a tension created by feeling out of control which can create an aching desire to be alone – where full control can be enjoyed. This kind of desire though is isolating as I have also observed how it actually does not support anyone to return back in to life again, able to fully embrace what may come. However, what I am coming to understand is how there can be an inner harmony being lived with at all times – a deep connection with oneself – and so you are never not alone and you are never without people, life is one continuos stream that holds you, and everyone equally with the freedom to feel loved, and for me this has become far more important than having a sense of control, which is a big turn around because I used to scramble for time and space to just be with me – which I understand now was a longing for the one life of continuous love to be felt and experienced once again.
When we hold back parts of us because we see them as less than things we are more mastered in we are forgetting that we are all human beings full of imperfections that we are here to learn to master and let go of.
I like the part about knowing that something is not quite right in yourself when you feel the tension of wanting to be away from people again, and how you can feel very much at ease when you are with people and how in fact this is actually your normal way, to be with people as much as you are with yourself.
Anne, this is interesting to read about how you used to feel when you were alone; ‘I could breathe freely, and do what I liked, when I liked, with no one making demands on me, judging me or telling me what to do.’ I had some time alone recently while my family were away and enjoyed the freedom and not having demands made of me and I enjoyed putting myself and my needs first, this made me realise that I can live like this all of the time – putting myself first and honouring my natural rhythm and that I do not need to be alone to do this.
By just reading your words about space I feel myself expanding in my heart.
Thank you Anne for your great sharing.
Wow you can really feel how exhausting it is to keep people out. The space we so desire to have is actually made by creating the space within, and to do this we accept and appreciate all we are for just being us. When this is appreciated we love to share who we are, we accept that we are worth being loved.
I used to run from going deeper in my relationship, when asked I would say I wanted to but my movements did not match what I was saying, in fact my movements were often saying back off.
Over time I am learning to drop the protection and let love in, and wow is this extrodinary, we are made to love, be love and receive love, nothing in the world beats the feeling of truly connecting with another.
I love how you write Anne – always offering a greater depth of ourselves and each other to connect to. When we are our real selves that is no doubt we are a gift to the world. Imagine then if we all embraced being who we are, just how greatly enriched our lives and the world would be.
When we are accepting of ourselves, the tendency to shut people out doesn’t exist anymore because we are more accepting of others.