Solitude is Not the Worst Thing

At some point, you may find yourself alone.

When you take some time to yourself, you get to see what you actually think. You don’t need to worry that you will have a thought that could offend someone. You may find it in you to explore some thoughts more deeply, alone with yourself. Perhaps these are the thoughts that truly mattered to you, that you never found the time to reflect on.

If you train your mind to be peaceful and reasonable, you do not need to see yourself as an unwelcome enemy to be avoided. You can rejoice in the comfort of yourself as your own companion.

Like anything else, solitude is not good on its own and is not to be sought out in excess. But when it happens, understand that this is not the worst thing.

Take it as an opportunity to endure the silence, or the mental chatter if that is what you have, to actually see who you are when no one else is there to expect you to think or behave in one way or another.

Know that in their expectation, they often would guide you into being what they thought you were or should be. Yet you may find that you are not the person you felt the need to be when in their presence.

In solitude, you can seek clarity from everything, for you are not truly alone if you are watching shows, reading the thoughts and beliefs of others, or keeping yourself occupied with busy and needless work.

You are alone when you allow yourself to be aware that you are indeed alone.

When alone, you can take a moment to suspend all the concerns you had regarding other people in your life. You can let them melt away because for the moment they don’t matter.

In your aloneness, you may find that you are always busy, but for what? Most of the time, you were doing things for others, or your fear of how they would react if you didn’t do what was expected. Your mind may have been too preoccupied with others, and not enough with your true self.

Or you may find that you don’t understand this experience of being alone. You had always strayed from it, always been with other people, things, or ideas that didn’t allow you to actually be alone.

There is a good chance that if you aren’t ready to be alone, your mind will quickly recall the times you had with other people. It will aim to fill that feeling of being alone with experiences, even if just simulated in your mind. Then that is something to be aware of – that you do not seem to be ready to be alone. Or perhaps, you need further practice in being alone.

Even if you do allow yourself to remain just with yourself, fully alone, that foreign sense of being with yourself may concern or frighten you.

But why should it? You are not some threat – you are yourself.

And the lack of something to think or do or someone to share an experience with shouldn’t be the worst thing.

There is something worth learning if you would spend just a bit of time alone with yourself, and deal with the temporary pains that may come with it. You may find that you are not the person you thought you were or that being alone helped you to think more clearly. You may find that being with others had actually been a distraction from something that was truly important to you - something you had strayed away from in time.

Alone does not have to mean lonely. It can mean a path to true self-understanding.

When alone, you may find a hidden strength or ability within that you had never perceived before, as in the presence of others, you never needed to tap into it.

Needless to say, there is value in family, friendship, and communication, but it is also well worth learning how to be alone and seeing that there are fruits to be gained with this path as well.

We may perceive being alone as meaning that we have been abandoned, or that we are unworthy. But sometimes it is worth consciously choosing solitude, or embracing it. Yourself is nothing to be feared, after all.

Remember Who You Are

Today I would like to share an excerpt from my book, Your Personal Truth: A Journey to Discover Your Truth, Become Your True Self, & Live Your Truth.

Remember Yourself

“Remember who you are and where you come from; otherwise, you don’t know where you are going.”
— Karolína Kurková

How can we remember who we are? The best way to do this is to listen to your heart. Now the key is to consider what that means. Essentially, the real you is not what we see, nor all that you have been taught to think and do. There is a deeper part of yourself.

I believe many of us get used to going against our spirit, and we have to remember who we are. This is easier said than done.

I have come to think that part of our human journey is that we lose ourselves along the way. Many well-meaning people in our lives teach us so much that we may lose our core, authentic self in time. We develop obsessions—whether making money, seeking fame, having a perfect figure, or an addiction to buying stuff or playing games. This is where the world is steering us, away from ourselves.

The modern world is excellent at filling our lives with distractions that do not necessarily lead to a truthful, meaningful place.

Notice that animals have powerful drives, which we call instincts. To me, instinct is just knowing who you are. You know that when something happens, you react in a certain way, and you don’t need to question it because it is a deep drive inside yourself—it is you. Yet, when placed in zoos, animals start to lose their instincts. Animals that may have had a killer instinct can lose it. They can lose who they are, trapped behind bars. This is because the zoo is an artificial environment, holding back their true, wild selves.

Interestingly, I have come to think that humans also have a wild side that has been lost. It makes sense, of course, for society to avoid any part of ourselves that may cause havoc or violence, especially without any good reason. But as all animals have a wild side, and we are animals, perhaps we have this side to ourselves too, and it is neglected.

As part of our domestication on becoming human, we go to school and obey a teacher’s instructions. Then, later on, most of us go to work and obey our boss’s instructions. If we are promoted to management, we continue to follow the lead manager’s instructions. We are taught from the earliest phases in our lives that we must respect order. We are just a tiny puzzle piece in a much bigger puzzle.

If we had a wild side, we tended to lose it. But it’s not a matter of “if.” Just look at young children and how wild and carefree they can be. Perhaps without society to teach them to be civilized humans, they would have grown into wild adults.

Think back: If you stepped out of line in your youth at any time, someone was there to correct you and show you the error of your ways. I can still recall being a child and constantly hearing the words “single-file line.” Of course, in elementary school, teachers said this to remind us to walk in a precise, straight line on the way to the bathroom. They did not want to see disorder.

And so we learned to stay in line, to be orderly, follow instructions, and the wild parts of us were stamped out. Maybe some of this is good, but perhaps not all of it.

If we can learn to appreciate the wild nature in the world, why shouldn’t we enjoy it in ourselves? Why shouldn’t we appreciate the wild side of humanity? Must we follow the rules and instructions perfectly all of the time? You may explore such ideas as you figure out your truth.

Every day we are led along certain paths. Our teachers showed us that we had to follow their instructions as they reminded us to “stay in line.” We are adults now, but perhaps not much has changed. We don’t talk back to superiors, say something that could make someone feel uncomfortable, or laugh at inappropriate times. This is just what adults do (or don’t do).

Consider this: Do you deny parts of who you are just to follow the expected order? Is that order worth it? Or are you making a personal sacrifice?

If you choose to deny your true nature every day, you may eventually find that you do not know who you are anymore. You may have been following the paths others laid out for you for so long. For example, those paths the people around you believed to be good and encouraged you to go on. Perhaps all that this will accomplish is introduce falseness in your life and lead you away from your truth.

Ask yourself: Have I forgotten who I truly am? Have I been masquerading as someone that I am not? Am I an imposter in my own life?

No one can answer such questions except for you. Only you know if you are where you were meant to be. Even if you are not where you wanted to be, then the key question is whether you are doing everything you can to find that path that you were meant to be on.

Are you committed to being your true self? Is this something you are willing to struggle for? To take seriously? Or will you calmly lose the battle for yourself and allow your mind and body to be guided wherever the forces of the world happen to take you?

If you have forgotten who you were, how can you recapture yourself and remember? You may contact childhood friends or family members that you have not seen in a long time. Or you could get in touch with some lost beliefs, values, or desires that you had long ago and had set aside.

When was the last time that you felt completely free to be your true self? Were you a child? A teenager? A young adult? Was it decades ago, a few years ago, or months ago? Is it just on the weekends when you’re alone? Or does it only happen when you are around close friends and family?

Sometimes remembering isn’t enough, and you must get in touch with who you were, at that last point where you can recall having been your true self. Maybe you have lost touch with family—and you must visit them. Perhaps you have lost touch with a topic or activity you loved, and you must do this again. Or maybe you have denied a part of your personality to please someone, and it is time that you go back to being your true self.

Remembering who you are doesn’t just mean revisiting memories. It involves recapturing who you are for yourself. When you remember, you can find your true self inside yourself, in your mind, and then you will know the right path for you.

Key Questions (Remember Yourself)

1. Did you used to be a different person? If so, did you change for better or worse?

2. Do you find that pretending, lying, or exaggerating is a regular part of your life? If so, why are you covering up who you are?

3. When you were a child, what excited you the most? Do you still gain some pleasure in this?

4. Have you stifled a part of yourself that is wild, rebellious, or spontaneous to keep the peace?

5. Do you feel like the true you is different from what you have chosen to show the world?

Take Action Today (Remember Yourself)

Action: Consider the last time that you felt like things were going your way. You were happy, you were loved, or you felt generally fulfilled in life. Embrace this positive feeling that you had at that time in your life. Then, ask why you felt that way. Was it because of the people you had in your life? Was it because of a particular event that happened? Had you just achieved a life goal?

If you struggle to think of such a time, it could help to talk to an old friend to discuss some memories or to look through some old photos.

When you have your memory, relive the experience in your mind. Consider: did you have a positive feeling because you had so much potential then? Was it a simpler time? Were you more sure of what you wanted?

Is there a way to recapture that feeling? Instead of just recalling a memory, can you revisit a location that connects to your heart? Or can you contact people who inspired you or perform an activity you used to love but had given up on?

Reason: The goal here is simply to remember yourself. It’s easy to forget who we are and how we got to the point we are at now. Sometimes, we need to step back and remember when things were going our way and we felt like our true selves.

Tip: Instead of just reconnecting with an experience in your mind, can you recreate it? Can you play the music that reminds you of a time and place? If something inspired you in the past, can you draw from that same source once again?

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If you are interested in reading more of Your Personal Truth, the book is available on Amazon and other major retailers.

Who Can Truly Teach You?

“Believe me: It is no teaching and no instruction that I give you. On what basis should I presume to teach you? I give you news of the way of this man, but not of your own way. My path is not your path, therefore I cannot teach you. Within us is the way, the truth, and the life.” – The Red Book (Liber Novus) by C. G. Jung

This is a powerful insight and one that I have been contemplating in my own way. This Thought suggests that no one can truly teach us, and in the end, we must find our own way. Ultimately, anything that we are taught is likely to apply to someone else, perhaps of a different time, context, and situation. In that way, the teachings we are given have a way of leaving us behind if we do not adapt and find our own way.

My current way is to read as much as I can and absorb as much knowledge and understanding as possible. Yet, some of the most advanced thinkers I have known of (some personally, and some through books such as Jung’s) have spent great deals of time searching for their own way rather than looking beyond themselves for it. Perhaps they haven’t merely searched but created and cultivated their own way of seeing and being. They have reached a stage of not needing the teacher and not even needing to teach, necessarily.

Of course, a key part of thinking involves knowledge, and where do we get our knowledge from?

In reading, or in learning generally from the world around us, we can see different types of knowledge. There is anecdotal knowledge – meaning that there is some information that pertains to a particular person at a point in time.

There is scientific knowledge – meaning that some information has been found to apply to a particular group of people, and we can figure that this information is likely to transfer to another similar group of people. For example, research conducted on smokers is likely to apply to other people who smoke, even those who did not participate in the research.

Then there is spiritual knowledge – meaning information that has somehow surpassed the need for the anecdotal or scientific understanding. With this kind of knowledge, we come to know some deeper part of ourselves, the universe, or others without necessarily being able to explain it in words or relationships.

You may be surprised to learn that often, none of the above types of knowledge will give you certainty. Anecdotal knowledge may apply just to particular cases and not universally. Scientific knowledge may apply generally and not necessarily to your specific case.

Spiritual knowledge may apply to only the individual spirit, yet this spirit may be interconnected with other spirits or the universe more deeply. Theoretically, spiritual knowledge can transcend our finite being, and tap into something much deeper and greater, perhaps even infinite. Yet this knowledge is not easily put into words and cannot be conveniently revealed to anyone else.

Jung is interested in spiritual knowledge and seems to have lost the need or desire for anecdotal and scientific knowledge, which has failed him on his quest for true spiritual understanding.

Jung clearly believes in a soul, which is the idea that we have an eternal element within us. Given this idea, it makes sense that one could gain deeper truths within rather than searching for them in a universe that is in constant states of change. I have read other works which state that scientifically, there is no proof or even evidence of a soul – and you can make of that what you will and figure out where you stand on this issue.

Some assume we have a soul, and others say there is no evidence of one. What do you think?

Do you have a soul? Do you believe the idea is misguided and does not exist? Or do you think we have lost our souls, and need to find them once again?

Are you part of an eternal, infinite realm that connects you to the past, before you were born, and the future, after your death, and perhaps to alternate realities and dimensions? Or are you just here, just now, just limited to what we see? Personally, I think it is fun to speculate on this. However, I am also a pragmatist, and I like to focus on ideas that can help to learn something valuable and not just get stuck in speculation.

On a practical level, I believe that there is some true knowledge and understanding to be gained by looking within, rather than spending all our time captivated by the whims of our external reality, of the happenings around us.

But who can teach us to look within, and what does this even mean? First, this has to be something that we wish to pursue. We have to get fed up with the transient noise that everyday life brings us. Is every day just some new trivial drama to attend to? Some chores that must be taken care of? Some enjoyment gotten from a silly task or screen? A search to satisfy our need for more, whether it be more money, things, or the adoration of people we barely know? Is that what we are here for, or is there something more?

Then we have to get fed up with teachers who have led us astray. The teacher who taught us to want a particular thing, solve a certain problem in a certain way and not in some other way, see some as good and others as evil, follow arbitrary rules, and so on. Perhaps some of the teachings led us to make more mistakes, question or dampen our own spirit, or ultimately regret having been taught.

I have found that the best teachers are the ones who allow you to create your own path, make your own mistakes, and form your own distinct footprint on the world.

I admit, I sometimes wonder – what would have happened if I had never been taught? Would I have learned more through my own curiosity, will, and searching? Or would I have become a hopeless case, an ignorant fool? Ultimately, I would have found my own way, just via a different route. The key is to teach our students how to find their own way, and not limit them and make them need to have a teacher for life.

When we finally get fed up with the fact that our daily patterns, teachings, sources of information, and everything in our lives is not truly teaching us anything worthwhile, then the only place left to look is within. You do this by being quiet with yourself. Meditating, or not. Simply sitting in quiet, thinking about your life, your wants. Then you think, “Why?” Why did you do things this way and not that way? Why did you want this and not that? What did it ultimately matter when you got that thing you wanted? Or what did it matter when you didn’t get that thing you wanted? What was the difference in the end?

What were the things that ultimately mattered? Was it the things as they happened, or your beliefs about what those things meant? Was it the experience, or the interpretation of that experience?

What are you thirsting after? It’s always something. The next TV show. The next book. The next teacher. The next restaurant. The next place to visit. The next thing to buy that will solve all our problems (but it never does).

But do we know ourselves? Soul or not, do we know who we truly are? Are we here to fall in line and be told who we are by others? Or to discover our own true path in life?

I can’t teach you who you are. I can’t even teach you how to figure out who you are. I am the teacher who doesn’t know how to teach and doesn’t want to teach, but maybe that is the best teacher to have. I’m not sure anyone else can teach you who you are or how to find who you are. No one can be your teacher for this. The universe itself must be your teacher.

I wonder: What are your fundamental truths? By this, I mean the things you know to be true and do not need a pile of evidence for. You simply know them. Maybe this is something that points you toward your soul. Or maybe this is something your soul is pointing you toward.

Where is your spiritual knowledge? Have a conversation with your spirit, and learn about your true self. Not the wants, but something deeper. You may have to invent a new language or create a new way of perceiving. Perhaps your spirit has its own unique way that cannot be easily explained or thought of in mere words, relationships, and images. You may be surprised that who you are in your daily life is not at all the spirit within. And that is fine. This experience is just learning, and discovering your spiritual knowledge, your true self.

If it helps, release yourself from the pressure. Sit in silence, and do not pressure yourself to go in any direction. Do not question and interrogate yourself and judge yourself. Just let yourself flow out from yourself, like a river, a stream. Pour out, and stop holding it all back.

Our human ways in modern society are walls, dams, holding back our spirit’s way. So this may be a journey for you, a new path that you need to set on.

A Universe of Thoughts

As I continue with I. C. Robledo’s Thoughts, writing a post every day, I have been left feeling that I have a Universe of Thoughts inside me that are not fully known even to myself.

And this has made me realize that we probably all have a Universe of Thoughts within us, and it seems much of that is left unexplored.

Perhaps much of our Thoughts are left dormant, like seeds that never germinated and never amounted to much.

What I mean by a Universe of Thoughts is that just as you have a rich life of behaviors and feelings and desires, we tend to forget that there is also a whole universe of thinking happening in our minds.

In writing out my Thoughts, sometimes I feel that I am arriving at new ways of thinking, processing, and figuring things out. This is usually how writing our thoughts works.

Yet, much of the time, I feel that these Thoughts were always within me somewhere, just waiting to be expressed. And of course, my thoughts are not fully my own, as they result from all I have learned, my experiences, and my interactions with people.

Today, I want you to consider what Universe of Thoughts you hold inside you that perhaps you are not even aware of.

Surely, part of what I am getting at here is what is referred to as the subconscious mind. There are parts of the mind we are aware of, which we are conscious of, and parts which we do not fully know the subconscious side.

When I write these posts, I have been entering into a mode of flow, where the words flow out of me as if I am tapping into a Stream, as if these were thoughts that were always in me, simply dormant and waiting to be expressed.

I’m not sure that I express my thoughts, record them, or even “think” them so much as I am capturing them. Imagine a radio signal - the radio isn’t thinking and speaking to you. It is just capturing the message.

Rather than looking outward at the world around me, I am exploring inward. I am turning the focal lens of my mind onto itself. I am seeking to explore the boundary between my subconscious and conscious mind. The parts that were perhaps once subconscious, I aim to get into words and express them for your benefit.

Clearly, we all have hidden sides of our minds that we are not fully aware of. Yet if we search enough, we can actually explore these subconscious parts of ourselves and make them conscious.

This type of exercise, where you capture the uncapturable and express the inexpressible, is similar to recalling a forgotten memory. Have you ever done that? Have you ever “forgotten” or not thought about something in many, many years, then suddenly it came to you? You took something hidden in a dark cloud inside your mind, and you brought it to light.

If you have done something like this, you know it is possible to shine a light on hidden parts of the mind. Just because it is difficult to do at first does not mean it cannot be done.

When you explore your mind and yourself enough, you can eventually intertwine your conscious, subconscious, and full mind together, start to flow like a stream, and then capture that Stream, which is your Universe of Thoughts.

The Universe of Thoughts is just your conscious and subconscious minds put together. Once you see these Thoughts, your next challenge will be to understand and articulate what you see there. And what you will see are your full conscious and subconscious experiences and all that you have ever seen, known, experienced, and felt.

This is the Whole self that is you, not the fragmented parts that we normally think up. We categorize and label ourselves to try to make sense of ourselves. But there is a part of us that is Whole and cannot be categorized. It is the True You.

Isn’t it interesting that we can see an image of the actual Universe while knowing very little about what happens in it? Similarly, you can see an image of your brain (which seems to house your mind), yet you can know very little about what is happening there. Sometimes seeing visually isn’t enough. You have to learn to “see” with your mind in new ways that were never taught. With this new kind of seeing, you may learn about your own mind.

What is inside your Universe of Thoughts? There are Thoughts of Truth, Wisdom, Understanding, Intuition, and Feeling, and Love.

I believe we all have volumes full worth of knowledge and books, or videos, or any media stored in our minds. It is all there, usually uncaptured, untapped.

How can we actually explore our Universe of Thoughts?

This is not a skill that is ever really taught. It is intuitive for us to explore the world around us. We learn to read, watch videos, perform any actions we need to, think about what is in front of us, or even concepts discussed in a book.

But how good are we at exploring inward and seeing the thoughts, feelings, and experiences happening internally? Because these are not easily captured in a book or video or some measurable way, we forget about this experience inside. We may even take it for granted or feel that it is not especially important. Keep in mind that reading or learning about someone else’s experience is not the same as fully understanding your own unique human experience.

There is great difficulty articulating your inner experience, as we may not even have the words to capture the experience fully. You may find yourself inventing words or concepts to properly articulate your inner mind and life.

At the end of the day, our Universe of Thoughts is just scratching the surface. It is just one single part of our Personal Universe of Being that we have access to (which would include Thoughts, Feelings, Behaviors, Experiences, Desires, Beliefs, Values, etc.).

Consider this: If you don’t have access to your own mind, life, thoughts, experiences, and beliefs in a fully conscious fashion, then what does all the rest matter?

If we do not know and understand ourselves, how well can we possibly understand something outside of us?

Everything expressed in today’s post was something that was forever inside my mind and had not been expressed. All of this flowed from my inner mind (or a part that is intermixed with conscious and subconscious thinking), so I know that it is not fiction, that it is coming from my True Source of Being.

If you want to access your Universe of Thoughts, start capturing (or recording). You can do this in a journal, audio, video, or even just by talking them out with a friend or family member. Don’t allow yourself to stay stuck on the surface of things. If you find yourself having conversations that run the same course as they always do, then you have not gone deep enough.

When you start tapping into your Thoughts more deeply, you may explore uncomfortable ideas or memories, or you may realize that you had stifled parts of yourself to appease someone or society. You may wonder about a lot of assumptions you made in your life. You may begin questioning more.

For example, why is it that every time I hear this particular word, I get angry? Or I get sad? Why would a single word have that effect on me? If you haven’t had such thoughts, you may relate to having a particular negative or even positive reaction to someone you only just met - why would that be?

What is it about You (e.g., your thoughts, beliefs, desires, experiences, values, etc.), that makes You this way?

But rather than just accessing memories, or ideas, or regrets, you may eventually tap into your own way of seeing the universe. You may start to understand yourself and why you think a certain way, why you believe a certain thing, why certain things are meaningful to you and others are not. You may explore deeper and deeper until you can eventually read yourself as a book.

Eventually, you will have volumes of your own Thoughts and Being inside your mind. They may also be in physical form as if reading a book right in front of you because you will be tapping directly into the Stream or Universe of Thoughts.

You will start to see that there is a Universe inside of you that you can explore at will. You will move beyond the surface, and dive into the Deep.

Eventually, you can break down your own mind, and when you deconstruct it, you can reconstruct it to be whatever you want or need it to be. Discover the rules that make your mind what it is, and you will be able to see that things could be different than what they are.

None of this is easy, and I don’t know how to teach you to get There other than to write this post that has been written. First, it was written into my mind. Then I tapped into it. Then I wrote it here for you to see.

I am not the Source – I just managed to capture the Thought.