43. Solitude - Working alone, Healing together

In the wake of betrayal or emotional upheaval, solitude can feel like the last thing you want, but it might just be the thing you need most. In this episode, I explore the quiet power of being alone with your thoughts and emotions. He challenges the myth that healing only happens in conversation with others and shows how true transformation begins with the conversations you have with yourself.

Whether you're avoiding your emotions or outsourcing them through validation or distraction, you're likely missing the healing that comes through self-connection.

Key Takeaways:

• Why many people fear solitude, and how to reframe it for growth

• How avoiding emotions or seeking external validation blocks healing

• What internal dialogue really means and why it’s vital post-infidelity

• How solitude helps reconnect you with your needs, values, and identity

• Why healing starts from within, and how to create space for it daily

💬 Reflection questions:

Have you ever sat with your pain instead of running from it? What did solitude teach you?

Connect with Luke:

• Website: www.lifecoachluke.com

• Instagram: @mylifecoachluke

• Email: luke@lifecoachluke.com

Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity

Episode Transcript:

The After The Affair podcast with me Luke Shillings is here to help you process, decide and move forward on purpose following infidelity. Together we'll explore what's required to rebuild trust not only in yourself but also with others. Whether you stay or leave I can help and no matter what your story there will be something here for you.

Let's go. Hello and welcome to the After The Affair podcast episode number 43 with myself Luke Shillings. If there's one thing that's pretty clear to me when it comes to people and their emotions is that we all handle them differently.

We have all had different experiences, different upbringings, different support groups. Our parents have influenced us, the people that we admire have influenced us and in some cases the situations that we experienced when we were younger. Possible traumas or significant life events that have all come to shape the way that we are now and although there are many ways in which people can handle their emotions there are still some common patterns that emerge.

It's not unusual to see people avoid their emotions. They look elsewhere, they try and shut them down, they compartmentalise them, they pretend they're not there, they just carry on regardless. It's maintaining the stiff upper lip.

It's the keep calm and carry on, be strong, don't worry and everything will be fine. Then there are the people who look externally to handle their emotions. They seek validation, that constant approval that they've made the right decision in their relationship and that they are able to feel justified for their decisions and their emotions and their behaviours.

That reinforces their desire to avoid looking internally and instead they blame, which might provide some short-term relief but it's rarely a helpful behaviour. These two methods of handling emotion seem quite different. One is dealing with it themselves in only the way that they know how to.

They're just following the strategy of keep calm and carry on. This message, interestingly enough, which was coined in Britain at the beginning of World War Two, was intended to encourage citizens to maintain sober restraint when faced with adverse situations, and of course in this case going to war, and not to react. I suppose you can see how this mindset might be a practical way of handling all kinds of challenges.

It's fascinating to me as a Brit that although this message can be found printed on endless mugs and t-shirts and souvenir shops across the UK today, the original message, although printed, was never actually used in the war. There was a paper shortage and the almost two and a half million copies that had been printed were recycled. It was only with the discovery of an original print found in a Northumberland bookshop in the year 2000 that it then started to be reproduced and popularised in the way that it has been today.

It does however complement the largest socially accepted idea that we just shouldn't display our emotions. At the other end of the spectrum is this reliance on anything external to make us feel better, whether that be people or situations or chocolate or alcohol or drugs or porn or whatever it is to distract you from experiencing the emotion. Obviously the thing they have in common is that neither of these approaches enable the processing of the unwanted emotion.

They're doing everything they can to get away from it and in both cases there's just no internal dialogue going on. There's no internal communication about how the individual is feeling and how they're really thinking. On the one hand you are compartmentalising it, shutting it off, turning a blind eye, facing the other way, and therefore there's no internal conversation happening.

And on the other end of the spectrum there, well, it's just all being outsourced. So in this case the communication is all outwards. It's not really self-reflection.

It's not really internal. It's just seeking validation and support. In both cases they're failing to communicate with themselves.

Ultimately all healing comes from within. Yes, support networks, friends, coaches, therapists and many other resources can all be and are in fact essential in many cases to help you on your healing journey, but it also requires you as the individual to put it into action. It's only you that can make that change.

With this it brings up a word that perhaps isn't normally associated with healing, and that word is solitude. It's easy to associate it with feelings of loneliness and social failure, but solitude can be a powerful and really transformative experience if done correctly. It provides us with an opportunity for self-reflection to get a better understanding of ourselves and ultimately move us step by step forward on the self-healing journey.

So by consciously choosing to spend time alone we can navigate some of the difficult parts of our emotions that we had previously been trying to avoid or outsource. It's important to note I'm not suggesting that you self psychoanalyse. I'm talking about having a simple conversation with yourself at first.

What is it you want? It's amazing how many people live their lives not knowing what it is they want from their lives. And what are their dreams? What are the things that are preventing you from getting you what you want? What are you afraid of? In most cases most people are afraid of feeling. There's been times you heard me speak before I'm sure.

We have these internal dialogues and as we're starting to rebuild self-trust, well part of that journey is making sure that the different parts of us, different parts of inner beings, our inner cells if you like, are actually talking to each other. We have this one part, this inner part that wants to save face. It wants to keep calm and carry on.

That wants to focus on the future. It wants to ignore the past. But then there's also this other part that's resistant to that because it's hurt.

It's hurting and it's been damaged and it's afraid and there's fear building up around it. And it can store that within your memory, within your soma, within your body. And if that's triggered again in the future through some unexpected event then it can all come flooding back really quickly and then overwhelm you.

You haven't learned how to handle the difficult emotions because you've always avoided them and then you end up being stuck. And this is what causes these problems. There have been at least three fairly significant occasions in my life that have led me to reassess my situation.

The first was when I was the landlord of a pub restaurant in my home village. I had spent the previous four years working 80 to 100 hour weeks but through the lack of hindsight, contributing factors like the smoking ban in the UK in 2007 and the financial crisis of 2008 and the ever decreasing profit margins, I was left ultimately with no choice but to declare myself bankrupt. The second came a decade later when I discovered my wife's affair which resulted in separation and then divorce.

And the third was as I was laid in a hospital bed with various pipes and machines attached to me following abdominal surgery about 18 months ago. My body wasn't responding as it should have so I was being provided nutrients through a PICC line and I was in a pretty bad way for a few days to be fair. All three of these situations had some commonalities.

They were situations I had never previously anticipated let alone experienced. I was unable to predict them, at least not with any level of accuracy. They also left me questioning my own reality.

Oh and they were actually pretty scary. Each involved a period of extreme uncertainty and I remember wanting it all to just go away and for me to bury my head in the sand. Each time included moments of hoping that someone else had the answers.

I knew however that the only person that could do anything about my situation was me. During these three pivotal moments I was forced to confront my emotions head-on rather than avoid them or outsource them despite the temptation. It was during these times of extreme hardship let's say that I truly understood the importance of that internal dialogue of facing the full depth of my emotions even when it was painful, even when it was inconvenient and just just not pleasant.

In the face of bankruptcy I had to reassess my whole work-life balance including my living arrangements and and all of my finances and the final financial decisions I'd made up until that point and moving forward. I had to face my feelings of failure and insecurity. I'd been working towards something really really hard for what seemed like such a long time and it kind of came to nothing or at least that's what it felt like.

It felt like a failure. Then the infidelity that brought feelings of betrayal and loss and anger brought right to the surface and I had to understand these emotions to be able to find forgiveness for myself and for for my partner, my ex-wife and and move on. And during my short-term health crisis let's say I grappled with fear and again uncertainty and had a deep sense of vulnerability probably more so than at any other point in my life.

I felt like I had the least amount of control in that moment because I was so dependent on the doctors and all the medical staff to be able to hopefully you know keep me alive which really prompted me to re-evaluate my health and just my life overall probably deeply more deeply than I ever had before. Each time it was solitude that allowed me to face these emotions. I took the time, forced in the last case, to sit alone with my thoughts and to listen to my inner dialogue without the noise and the distractions of the external world.

I let the different parts of myself communicate even when they didn't agree with each other. The part that wanted to move on and the part that was hurting. I allowed myself to feel every emotion, to understand where it was coming from, exactly what it felt like in my body and to really let it run its course.

Instead of suppressing it and storing it away, instead of keeping those emotions hidden or relying on external validation, I acknowledged them and I listened to what they were trying to tell me. And that's the power of solitude. It allows us to have those crucial conversations with ourselves, to get to know our wants, our fears, our dreams and our blockages, our challenges.

It gives us space to confront and process the difficult emotions instead of running away from them. It's really essential to take that time to reconnect with who you are. Who you are as an individual.

It only takes short but intentional periods of solitude to allow you to separate yourself from the noise and the expectations from others and really focus on what it is that you want, what your expectations are, what standards you want in your relationships, both current and future. It offers a really safe, isolated space where you can explore your values, truly rediscover your passions and redefine your boundaries. But more than that, solitude empowers you.

It reminds us that we have the power to change, to grow, to heal. It's an integral part of self-discovery and healing. So next time you're going through a tough time, remember the power of solitude.

Listen to your inner dialogue, confront your emotions, allow yourself to feel. Seek support from others, of course, but remember, healing truly comes from within. You have the power to change, to overcome adversity and to create a better life.

Thank you for joining me again today on the After The Affair podcast. It's a journey, it's not easy, but remember you're not alone. Stay strong, embrace solitude and keep moving forward.

And as always, if you want to explore your situation further, would like to get some clarity and some guidance, then reach out. Visit lifecoachluke.com and book your free 30-minute discovery call today, where we can talk through your situation, get you a clearer understanding and hopefully move you forward in your recovery journey. In the meantime, I'll speak to you all next week.