Ep. 133: Finding Peace In Your Own Company

This weekend, I had the rare experience of being completely alone—no kids, no plans, just me and my dog Yogi. And I’ll admit, at first, that old familiar feeling crept in… the fear that being alone might turn into feeling lonely.

But what I discovered was the opposite. I felt grounded, centered, and deeply connected to myself.

In this episode, I’m sharing why being alone doesn’t have to be something we avoid—and how, when we allow ourselves space from the noise of life, we often find the clarity and calm we didn’t even know we needed.

I also talk about:

• The surprising difference between alone and lonely
• How to embrace your own company without guilt
• Why carving out intentional alone time is essential to your growth

If you’ve ever struggled with being by yourself or felt disconnected even in a crowd, this conversation is for you. 💛

✨ Let me know in the comments: what’s one way you like to spend time alone?

🔔 Don’t forget to subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss an episode.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Setting the Scene
• 1:02 Alone Doesn't Mean Lonely
• 4:20 Embracing Weekend Solitude
• 7:55 Beach Day Reflections
• 9:12 The Value of Intentional Alone Time
• 11:41 Challenge to Schedule Self-Time

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the Maybe I Can podcast. I'm your host, debbie Weiss, and thank you so much for tuning in today, and if you happen to be watching on YouTube, you might notice that I don't have the usual background, because today, instead of being in my home office, I'm actually in my insurance office because this is the only time I had to record, so the sound quality and the camera quality not as good, but you know what I realized? None of that makes a difference. Sometimes, when we sit around and we wait for everything to be perfect, it doesn't happen. It doesn't have to be perfect, right? And I think, hopefully that's why you like listening to me, because I'm not perfect, just like the rest of us, and so whatever I have on my mind and my heart comes out as it comes out, and how I look is how it is, and this has absolutely nothing to do with what I want to talk to you about today.

Speaker 1: 1:02

Today I want to talk about the difference of being alone and lonely, and the reason it came up is because this past weekend I was alone for the whole weekend. I live with my 24 and my 22-year-old sons. They were both away for the whole weekend doing different things. And so it was just my almost 14-year-old multi-poo, yogi, and myself, and I had tentative plans for Sunday, but I had no plans for Friday night or Saturday to see anybody. And I had things that I could do, but it was just initially, when I realized that I was going to be all by myself. I almost had this feeling of impending doom, like this void, that I was going to feel lonely. And, for those who don't know, I'm a widow. My husband died, actually exactly two and a half years ago, to the day today that I'm recording this, and I don't know if it's that, because every time I am alone in the house I do kind of reflect back to gosh. It seemed, of course, like yesterday that it was us running around like crazy to the kids' activities and driving them places and having playdates and all of that. And where did the time go? Now my husband isn't here, my kids are off, as they should be doing their own thing, and here I sit, well, yogi and I, well, yogi and I.

Speaker 1: 2:51

And then I realized, just because I'm alone does not necessarily mean that I'm lonely. I mean, I am sure, just like me, you've had times where you were lonely when you were actually in the presence of other people, that feeling. When with someone else or a group of people, that's the worst, to feel so alone and lonely when you're with other people. I think when I was younger, I feared being alone, not just feared being alone in the house, like, oh, there were monsters hiding under my bed. Not that young, but I just think I wasn't comfortable. I didn't enjoy my own company. I was maybe afraid of the thoughts or my mind racing or what would I do. Or I viewed it as oh gosh, this is pathetic, look at me. Or I viewed it as oh gosh, this is pathetic, look at me. I'm here all by myself, and I had this vision that everybody else was off doing amazing things with their friends or their loved ones, and poor little old me, here I sit in my house by myself. And then I started to think about it. And then I started to think about it and I thought, boy, isn't it nice to have 24, 36, 48 hours in front of me where I had no one else to worry about except for myself, where really I could do whatever I wanted to do. Now, sure, I had things on my to-do list, chores, and I had work things. Actually, I really should have recorded this podcast over the weekend, but I didn't because I decided I'm going to embrace this time. This is time where I can do whatever it is that I want to do, want to do, and I did, and I actually loved every second of it. During the week, so often rushed first thing in the morning or don't take as much time as I would like to meditate and journal and read and all the things. And so I decided, you know what, for Saturday, I'm not going to set an alarm clock. Whenever I wake up, I wake up. I have no agenda. It doesn't matter what time it is, that I meditate or that I start working or I don't know what. And it was really, really wonderful. And it was really really wonderful. It was a great time.

Speaker 1: 5:40

I think being alone offers up us the time to really reconnect to ourselves. Oprah said alone time is when I distance myself from the voices of the world so I can hear my own, which is so true. It gives you that time to just connect back to what you want, what you enjoy, what is it that you really need? It gives you time to just reset. I decided well, when's the last time I picked up a book. I mean, I love reading, but it just doesn't seem to happen. Okay, you know what I read instead of recording the podcast, and I was good with it. And then I got to be honest at night I started binge watching. It was the bear that I started watching. I think I don't remember when that dropped. I know it just came out and I thought you know what? I'm going to go upstairs and lay in bed longer than I usually would and I don't have to do every load of laundry laundry and it was just nice not to have any distractions and if I wanted to just sit with my thoughts and process things, I did. It was actually.

Speaker 1: 6:58

I honestly was craving more by the time it was over, because on Sunday I did go to the beach, which was fantastic. That is my happy place. Every summer. My cousin and I try to go at least once a week to the beach. She lives down close to the shore. I'm in New Jersey and I live about a little over an hour away from her, so we have this whole routine where, hopefully, depending on the weather, we like to do it on Saturdays, because Sundays there's a lot of traffic for me. Coming back, I am in my car by quarter to seven, down at her house by eight and we are on the beach by 830. And it is so restorative. And this year I mean here it is July and this was my first weekend at the beach, that first Sunday, and we didn't stay as long as we usually do, but I didn't care. At least I made it there and that's always my happy place and time to decompress. But even with wanting to go to the beach, I kind of I really was torn because I was really enjoying my time alone and I had a list of other things that I wanted to do.

Speaker 1: 8:17

Loneliness is draining, right, and it can be a little bit gut-wrenching, but being alone and having that alone time is actually grounding. It's not about feeling isolated. Even if it's not your choice, right, this was not my choice that my kids went away. I didn't ask them to go away. It just kind of happened that they both had plans for the weekend. Happened that they both had plans for the weekend.

Speaker 1: 8:53

How about we be intentional about scheduling in this alone time with ourselves? Because I think it is so important to quiet your mind and give yourself time to just reconnect, and that can be in any way that works for you. Maybe it's going by yourself and sitting in a coffee shop and drinking coffee, or taking walks in nature without being glued to the phone or listening to something. Maybe it's journaling, maybe it's reading, maybe it's listening to music or dancing alone in your house. Whatever it is, I challenge you and I'm challenging myself as well. Like I said, this weekend just kind of happened, but why aren't I scheduling this in on a regular basis? It's something that I plan on doing. I absolutely plan on doing, because it feeds the soul.

Speaker 1: 9:54

And you know what? When I was younger, I didn't enjoy my own company because I didn't love myself enough and I didn't think I was enough. And now that I know I am, I do enjoy my own company and I know I don't need to be with other people to enjoy myself, to value myself. Any of those things me myself and I is enough, and the time that I spend alone with myself is just as valuable, if not more so, than the time that I spend with other people. So let me challenge you and ask you what do you think?

Speaker 1: 10:41

I would love to hear from you what your experience has been with being alone. Was there ever a time when you were alone and it gave you some kind of clarity or peace or helped you make a decision? Something like that some kind of clarity or peace or helped you make a decision, something like that? Maybe you're in like a noisy phase of your life right now and carving out 15 minutes just for you could be just what you need to make the shift. So my challenge to you is this coming week, can you schedule in 15 minutes not a lot of time, 15 minutes just by yourself, not when you're scrolling on your phone looking at videos. Nope, 15 minutes of reconnecting to yourself in whatever way works for you.

Speaker 1: 11:33

I'd love to hear some feedback on that. If you did it, if you've done it, what your experiences are. This is what it's all about, because when we share with each other, this is how we learn and this is how we grow. So make sure to DM me on Instagram, at debbierweiss, or shoot me an email at debbie, at debbie r weisscom, and if you're in the United States, I'm wishing you a happy 4th of July, happy Independence Day and, for everybody else, I want you to go make it a great week and, you know, sprinkle some alone time in there, you will not regret it. I promise See you soon.