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I find it interesting that I just spent 3-months living solo in the woods at Empty Mountain, where I was alone but not lonely, and then went to Deer Park Monastery (where I’ve been now for the past 2.5-weeks), where I am surrounded by people all the time, and yet I am experiencing pings of loneliness.
Our human situation is so incredibly vast. We can be alone and super content, and we can be surrounded by people and feel lonely. We are wired for connection as social animals, and yet developing the skill of spending quality time with our self and enjoying our own company is fundamentally important to our wellness of being. We are nothing if not dynamic and complex creatures!
And we’re all a little different. Some of us need a higher degree of social interaction time with people, whereas for others of us a little goes a long way. If Mike and I were the sort who had higher social needs, I reckon we would not have gravitated to moving from Missoula and into the remote woods.
I’ve been reflecting on what it is that contributes to feelings of loneliness for myself, and why it was that I didn’t feel lonely when living solo at EM over the summer. One big difference is that when I was solo at EM, I had the luxury of crafting my own daily schedule, with the wooded privacy, abundant space, and freedom to have all the parts of my personality manifest with ease as they pleased. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. So personal freedom, and whether or not I feel stifled, seems to be a factor involved when it comes to whether I feel content or lonely.
While I sincerely and dearly love and appreciate Deer Park, I feel I need to temper certain aspects of myself when I am here, based on the simple fact that this is a monastery and home to nuns and monks. And this makes sense to me. Surely I’m not going to go around here blasting my music out loud and dancing like no one’s watching (though I do bring my mp3 player and earbuds and find it crucial to listen to music while kicking a soccer ball around the dirt field by the dorms). I’m 100% on board with respecting and caring for the sanctity of the monastery environment. And, I might be entering a new phase of my path, and a new stage of life, where certain things are changing in regards to where and how and with whom I want to spend my time.
Ultimately, each environment is enriching for different reasons. EM and DP foster different personal growth channels for me. And there’s a chance that what I am more interested in right now is cultivating my life at Empty Mountain, more so than spending long periods of time at DP. This is a fresh and ongoing investigation, so we’ll see what transpires over the winter, as when I get home on Oct 20, Mike and I will be heading back here to DP until February or March.
I’m aware, too, that it’s never been easy for me to leave home and head to DP for the winter. And it’s difficult for me in the reverse, too. Splitting my time between home and here has involved both ups and downs over these past few years. My own personal investigation continues. And, as always, everything changes.