Carolina Perez Sanz

The reason we avoid engaging in what really matters is that, to do it, we need to be alone with our own mind, and to be okay with what we might find in there.

For the past few days, I’ve been frantically trying to find a place to live in Milwaukee, where my husband starts his new job next week.

Yesterday, I realized I was paralyzed, my mind in what seemed like an infinite open loop, waiting for landlords and property managers to get back to me. I’d planned on meditating, journaling, writing a mini-essay. Instead, I just sat there, waiting.

I’d finally found a house. Lovely, the perfect house. But looking at the map, it seemed like it was too far away. I wanted to say yes but at the same time I was scared of feeling isolated there. Alone. Lonely.

Frustrated with my indecision, I went to the grocery store. To accompany me, I put on a podcast: Stephen Batchelor was speaking with Krista Tippett about his book, The Art of Solitude.

Ironic: I put on a podcast because I didn’t want to be alone, but I chose a podcast about solitude.

This morning it all made sense. What scares me is confronting my own interiority, as Batchelor puts it. The house is just a symbol of my Self. If I’m alone and can’t escape to the grocery store whenever I feel restless, I’ll have to face my inner rooms, where my Ego and Ghosts remind me of my inadequacy.

And maybe that’s precisely the practice I need to pick up. I need to learn to be alone until I’m so comfortable with it that I don’t fear what I may discover in my writing.

What might you engage in if you weren’t afraid of being alone with what you’d find?

Love,

Carolina