Solitude – Self-Sufficiency –

If This Card Chooses You – Time to Make Friends With Yourself. Have you been fearing time alone? It is vital that we carve out time to reflect on all that is happening to us and the part we play and want to play. Our dreams alone could fill a shelf of books – plus we have to cultivate, curate and care for our daytime warrior. Sometimes we have other people to care for and relationships to manage. We need to learn how to be our own best friend.

Your Mind Is Your Most Important Tool – Sun Tzu reminds us that all battles are won and lost in the brain. Your mind determines your experience which controls your mind which develops your experience in a perfect feedback loop. In a culture based on “likes” from strangers we are all too ready to hand the reins of our brain over to God know who. Advertisers, influencers and partisans do NOT have your best interests at heart. We must learn how to turn that feedback loop into an upward trending spiral.

After the Party Comes Cleanup – We need to develop self-confidence. Frustrated Warriors devour themselves. We need to trust, not fear, our own reactions. This takes practice – “reps” in the words of the physical trainers. There is no need for two weeks alone on the Appalachian Trail (nice as that would be) because we are already alone inside our heads. Check your voices: what are you saying to yourself? “Good effort” or “Idiot”? It matters! Many of us treat ourselves worse than we would treat any other human (or animal.) That must change today.

Warrior Danger – We are not proposing a life without feedback or a divorce from reality. If you really were your own best friend, you would protect, not exalt yourself. You would strategize towards health and sharing, not secrecy and isolation.

Do You Hate Your Thoughts? – A recent poll discovered that most people would rather experience electric shocks than spend time alone with their thoughts, doing nothing but thinking. Just as mapping your future is a Warrior’s job, so is mapping your brain. Make yourself a person it’s a pleasure to spend time with. You are not lonely when you enjoy your own company.

Your Training Journal Is Your Mirror – It anchors you with its reflection. It is not necessary to write long pieces – lists or single words are adequate. Visual thinkers may want to sketch out or paste in pictures. Your Training Journal answers the following questions: Where Have I Been? Where Am I Going? Who Am I? Meditate 20 minutes a day on these issues.

Warrior Opportunity – find a voice you respect and admire to model your internal voice. Can you check with this person that you are on the right path? We all need a life coach or a cheerleader in our corner. Learn to enjoy time alone by building in rewards – indulging in nourishing hobbies as simple as walking and reading. You don’t need rocket science, you need a healthful day to day peaceful retreat inside your own head.

Ask Yourself What You Take For Granted – This is the part of the picture that’s hardest to see. Because we take it for granted! Here is where your study of models can be helpful because you will be surprised by what other people take for granted. For example, some people assume being a warrior is constant suffering and hardship, but to me, it is the peace of totally owning oneself and being responsible for oneself. It is serfdom that is suffering and hardship.

Gratitude Practice – Gratitude must be part of your everyday practice. Give thanks for this wonderful body, with its aches and cuts and bruises, eagerly shaping itself according to your efforts. Give thanks for the freedom of your mind. Give daily thanks for the honor of being a Warrior.

Models & Mentors – “Loneliness is the poverty of self – Solitude is the richness of self.”

– May Sarton

“The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude” – Voltaire

“Solitude is necessary for creativity” – Picasso

“The best thinking is done in solitude” – Thomas Edison

#Haiku: Selfish Armor

Imagination untrammeled –
My alone time’s
For your protection