Realize that you need to spend time with yourself.  Get to know those parts of  yourself that you have been avoiding or running from.  There is a shift that will happen when you get comfortable being alone.  Your thoughts become louder and you get to a place where you are forced to confront your situation.  There is an inner strength you gain by facing your mind.

Sometimes we are our own worst critics so this part of the process of self evolution can prove to be one of the hardest parts.  Most people are afraid, if not terrified, of being alone.  Whether this translates into being alone physically, alone as in no one cares about them or alone with their thoughts.  Part of change is facing loneliness.

There is a beauty in being lonely for it is in these moments we can remember that we are never truly alone.  God is with us no matter where we are.  Whether you believe in him, yet, or not, his love and comfort stand the test of time and they are something you can ALWAYS count on.  He is always right there.  You have a voice in your head that comes from you and what you are thinking and then there is the voice in your heart, which that voice, I believe is the Spirit of God.  He lives inside of us all.

The Spirit has become my best friend.  I talk to God regularly now when I’m alone asking for his opinion or recognizing something I need to ask for his help on.  It’s quit comforting and I’ve earned a sense of self-belonging.  Self-belonging is a term I have come up with to suggest that you belong with yourself.  Get comfortable in your skin, all the parts of you.  Spend time falling in love with yourself.  Even the things you aren’t proud of, ashamed of or anything you talk negatively to yourself about.  Pay attention to how you treat yourself.  Are you hard on you?  Are you critical?  These are areas where you should try to practice self-love.

For me, I have always been a perfectionist. Therefore, I repeatedly beat myself up.  I always wanted everything to be perfect so I had these expectations I’d store up in my head.  Then when things didn’t play out exactly as I had envisioned, I’d find myself wrapped up ever so neatly in a ball of anger.  Not the kind of raging anger most people think of, but this was more of a dull anger, which was really disappointment in disguise at either myself or someone else.  I had these preconceived ideas of how it was “supposed” to be or how it was “supposed” to happen.  I had to let go of them and trust that things always happen as they should.

God is the perfectionist.  Not me.  His timing and plan are the only things in this life that are perfect.  Don’t lose site of this promise that has been made to each of us.

Let my example of one of the mental patterns I realized about myself demonstrate the beauty of the time I spent alone getting to know myself.  This time provided me with the insight I needed to see where a root of my problem was stemming from.  Had I continued on my life of numbing everything with drugs and alcohol, I wouldn’t have seen that part of my problem was coming from the inside and the expectations I was setting.

I learned, only by getting very quiet, how to recognize this pattern and identify when I was doing it.  Recognition is key to restoration.  And restoration of love for yourself is the key to any transition.  If you can restore your heart and mind into a loving state, you will gain so much more strength.  A person’s strength lies in knowing their weaknesses.  Therefore, it is wise to get intimately familiar with yours.  As Joel Osteen says, “What you don’t confront, you cannot conquer.”  Shine the light of love on yourself and on your weaknesses.   Victory and LOVE are in the air.