Lachlan Brown
There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely. I know because I’ve experienced both — sometimes simultaneously, sometimes separately. You can be surrounded by people and feel profoundly lonely. And you can be entirely alone and feel something closer to peace.
The difference isn’t circumstance. It’s relationship — specifically, your relationship with yourself. When that relationship is hostile (constant self-criticism, restless avoidance of stillness, the sense that you’re bad company), any amount of solitude feels like punishment. When it’s steady (even imperfectly), aloneness becomes something else entirely: space. Room to breathe. The rare luxury of no one needing anything from you.
Buddhist contemplative traditions don’t just tolerate solitude — they seek it. Not as escape, but as practice. The capacity to be alone without being lonely is, in many traditions, considered a foundational skill for genuine well-being. It’s also one that modern life makes almost impossible to develop, because we’ve filled every gap with input.
Why aloneness feels unbearable — and what that reveals
Research on loneliness distinguishes between social loneliness (lacking a social network) and emotional loneliness (lacking intimate connection). Both are real. But there’s a third kind that gets less attention: existential loneliness — the discomfort of being alone with yourself, with your thoughts, with the silence.
This third kind is what makes people reach for their phone the moment they’re unstimulated. It’s what makes silence feel threatening rather than restful. It’s what drives the compulsive need for background noise, social plans, and constant connectivity.
The discomfort isn’t really about being alone. It’s about what surfaces when you are. Without distraction, the things you’ve been avoiding — unprocessed emotions, unanswered questions, the low hum of dissatisfaction — become audible. And most people would rather do almost anything than sit with that.
How to mindfulness can help us build a genuine relationship with solitude
1. Start with short, deliberate periods of no input
Don’t begin with a silent retreat. Begin with ten minutes. No phone. No music. No podcast. No book. Just you, sitting or walking, with whatever shows up in your mind.
The first few times will be uncomfortable. Your mind will race, then settle, then race again. You’ll feel restless, bored, possibly anxious. This is normal. Research on solitude shows that the discomfort of initial silence gives way to a state of lower emotional arousal and greater self-awareness — but only if you stay with it long enough for the transition to occur.
Think of it as a muscle. Stillness tolerance builds through repetition, not through a single heroic session.
2. Develop a solitary activity you genuinely enjoy
Not a productive one. Not a self-improvement one. Something you do purely because it pleases you — cooking a slow meal, drawing, walking a familiar route, sitting in a café with a notebook, tending plants.
The point isn’t to fill the alone time with activity. It’s to discover that your own company, engaged in something you enjoy, is actually pleasant. Many people have never tested this proposition because they’ve never been alone without also being busy or distracted.
3. Practice being a compassionate witness to your own mind
When you’re alone and difficult thoughts or emotions surface, the habitual response is to suppress, distract, or judge. Buddhist sati (mindful awareness) offers a different option: witness.
Just watch. “There’s sadness. There’s restlessness. There’s that old story about not being enough.” You’re not fixing anything. You’re being present with your own inner life — which is, at its core, an act of self-companionship. You’re keeping yourself company, not abandoning yourself to the noise.
4. Distinguish loneliness from the story about loneliness
Loneliness is a feeling — a signal from your nervous system that your social needs aren’t being met. It’s real, valid, and worth responding to.
But the story about loneliness — “I’m alone because something’s wrong with me,” “I’ll always be alone,” “nobody really cares” — is an interpretation. And these interpretations amplify the pain far beyond the original signal.
When loneliness arrives, feel it. Then check the story. Is it fact or narrative? Is “I’ll always be alone” a prediction or a feeling? The feeling deserves attention. The story deserves scrutiny.
5. Use solitude to reconnect, not to disconnect
The healthiest relationship with solitude isn’t escapist. It’s restorative. You go inward so you can come back outward more present, more grounded, more available for genuine connection.
If your alone time consistently makes you want less human contact rather than better human contact, something has shifted from restoration to avoidance. Solitude should refill you for relationships — not replace them.
A 2-minute practice
Set a timer for two minutes. Put your phone face-down. Close your eyes or soften your gaze.
Do nothing. Don’t meditate formally. Don’t try to clear your mind. Just sit with yourself — with whatever thoughts, feelings, or sensations are present.
When the timer goes off, notice how you feel. Not what you think about how you feel — how you actually feel. Was the silence unbearable? Neutral? Surprisingly calm?
Whatever the answer, you’ve just practiced the fundamental skill of being alone without fleeing. Two minutes. That’s the beginning of a capacity that, developed over time, changes your relationship with every quiet moment in your life.
Common traps
Romanticising solitude to avoid addressing loneliness. “I prefer being alone” can be genuine self-knowledge or a defence against the vulnerability of connection. If your solitude is consistently accompanied by sadness, it may not be the preference you’ve told yourself it is.
Using aloneness as an identity. “I’m a loner” or “I don’t need people” can become rigid identities that prevent you from reaching out when you actually do need connection. Humans need other humans. That’s not weakness — it’s biology.
Filling solitude with productivity. Being alone isn’t the same as being alone with yourself. If your alone time is filled with tasks, you’re just working without company. The practice of solitude requires some unstructured, purposeless time.
Expecting aloneness to feel good immediately. For most people, genuine comfort with solitude develops over weeks and months of practice. The early stages are uncomfortable. That discomfort isn’t a sign you’re doing it wrong.
A simple takeaway
- Being alone and being lonely are different experiences. The first is a circumstance. The second is a relationship — with yourself.
- The discomfort of solitude usually isn’t about being alone. It’s about what surfaces when you stop distracting yourself.
- Build solitude tolerance through short, deliberate periods of no input. Develop a solitary activity you genuinely enjoy. Practice witnessing your own mind with compassion.
- Healthy solitude is restorative, not escapist. It should refill you for connection, not replace it.
- Two minutes of sitting with yourself — no phone, no input, no agenda — is the beginning of a fundamentally different relationship with aloneness.
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