190. Fall in love with your own company

even think it's a controversial one. I want to talk about why I believe so deeply that one of the best things we can do in our twenties is fall in love with our own company, and I want to talk about why that is, but more specifically, how we can do that, especially in a world where we are more addicted to social contact and engagement stimulation than ever before.

When I think actually having a moment of true solitude is increasingly rare, it's still very much possible, and I think it's a necessity if you want to deepen the relationship that you have with yourself and as a result,

the people around you. Honestly, I think every aspect of your life becomes more defined and sharper and intentional when we value our own free time and our own company, and we see that space and that time being alone with ourselves as a source of peace, as a source of contemplation and growth, rather than just as empty space that we need to fill with social commitments, with work,

with anything of the sort. I think it comes back to that very core foundational philosophy we have on the show that the relationship you have with yourself is your biggest and most important investment, and when you neglect it, I think everything else in your life tends to suffer as well. No one can sustain you can know you like you know yourself, and so you have to make that relationship a priority, even when it's not easy, even when it's not convenient, even when it doesn't come naturally

to you. So I have always had, I think, a really complicated relationship with loneliness, just to get vulnerable for a second. And I think it really stems, quite honestly, from being bullied as a child. I was a really strange kid. I didn't have many friends. I was always kind of made to play like the villain character when we were playing make believe. I was a bit shy. I was just a bit different, which is something that I love now because I think weird kids turn into

interesting adults. But because there was this whole period in my young dad years, in my formative years, where I never quite felt like I belonged. I knew what it felt like to be quite lonely from a young age, and I did get really comfortable with my own company. It was like kind of a bit of a superpower for myself. As sad as it sounds, right like, you know, I get that, it's very kind of get sad, like you didn't have enough friends, so you had to be

your own best friend. And I really actually valued that about myself. But when I got to UNI, I've spoken about this before, but I really met my people. I got to meet the people I still call my best friends even now, And of course it was like the best thing ever. This is what I always wanted. But because this was such a new experience to constantly have people I wanted to be around who made my life so much better, who were really tied to me at the hip, for a long time, I kind of forgot

how to be alone. You know, that survival skill that protective mechanism. I developed a valuing my own company was no longer useful in this situation, so I neglected it, and eventually it was something that I had to relearn, especially as I transitioned kind of out of my early twenties when I was at UNI and I was surrounded by people all the time to the situation I'm in now where I was working full time. I moved to a new city where I didn't have as many friends.

I was suddenly single as well. It felt so similar to how I had felt as a child, but I had lost my coping skill. I had lost I think the reverence and the joy I felt in my own company, and I really kind of began to notice that the reason this was so difficult this transitionary period was because for the last three or four years before that time, I hadn't really put any effort into the relationship I had with myself. I was always prioritizing time and experiences

with others, and it eventually came at my detriment. I think as a generation, all of us included, we have a hard time spending time alone for a few reasons. The biggest contributor is fomo. The infamous fear of missing out, and the fear of missing out is twofold. Firstly, it involves a perception followed by compulsion, So we really tend to exaggerate the quality and the fun we think everybody

else is having without us. So in those moments when we're not present, we really tend to expand what we think other people are experiencing, and we tend to make it seem a lot bigger and more golden and colorful than it actually is. And this results in us never wanting to miss an event, never wanting to be without plans or excluded, which is a compulsion, right. We are kind of compelled to constantly be engaged and constantly be involved, almost as a way to soothe that fear that we're

missing out. Now, it should be noted that this term fomo was first introduced in two thousand and four, that is the same year that Facebook launched, and it began to really take off in the early twenty tens as a direct consequence of this increasing uptake of social media and the opportunities it provided for people to constantly see what others were up to and to compare that to their own days and their own lives now more than ever.

At this point in society, we are exposed to so many details, intimate details about what others are doing, and that means that we're faced with this continuous uncertainty about whether we're doing enough, whether we are getting enough social connection, whether we know as many people as we should, whether our friendships are as successful as we would want them to be. So I think it kind of makes socializing

quite competitive. And if our aim is to always be as busy as the next person and never let those negative feelings of fomo into our lives, then we do really deprive ourselves of the opportunity and the beauty of cherishing our alone time. Researchers also believe that fomo makes us particularly attuned to feelings of social rejection, whether that

social rejection is perceived or real. And we know that on a psychological and emotional level that the pain of rejection really mimics the same kind of discomfort we feel in response to physical, physically painful stimuli and injury. So we want to avoid it. But missing out on plans won't ruin your life. It won't immobilize you the same way that a broken arm or a fraction leg will.

If you are someone who freaks out at not having plans on a Saturday night or spending even a single evening alone, I think it's really time to consider whether this is actually genuine loneliness, whether you actually need more social connection, or whether it's fomo and you just need to reframe your relationship with your own company. I think it also comes down to the fact that as a society we just don't have a healthy relationship with loneliness.

We see it as something to avoid, We stigmatize it, we fear it, rather than actually holding space for it in our lives and recognizing what it firstly has to teach us, secondly how universal it is, and thirdly how it can actually help us cultivate a richer and I would say deeper in a world. Loneliness, let's get this straight. Like it is just a cue from your body, the same way that hunger is telling you it's time to fuel, it's time to eat first, is telling you it's time

to drink. Fatigue, tiredness is telling you it's time to rest. Loneliness is telling you that it's time to connect, or it's time to sit with yourself and figure out why it is that you feel that way. It's also important to note that the more we excessively socialize, the higher our threshold for satisfying social connection becomes. The more we need kind of think about it this way. Right at high school, you saw your friends every single day, most likely,

and one day apart felt really strange. When we get into our twenties, especially our later twenties, our level and our capacity for seeing other people naturally goes down a bit.

But if you have become if it's become very difficult for you to spend time alone, if you're so used to having people around you constantly, the more that you sustain the urge to like book out your calendars, to always be around people, to never have a moment for yourself, the less you're able to tolerate the times when you

do have to enjoy your own company. You know there will be periods in life where you are lonely, but if you have never given yourself the opportunit to feel that way, to adjust to that situation, to embrace being a bit of a loner, a happy loaner for some time, when you do eventually find yourself in that period in that chapter, in that season of loneliness, it's going to

be so much more difficult. I think on a more general level, we also fail to kind of appreciate the value of our company because of societal and cultural expectations that really emphasize the importance of social connection. And it is really important, right. This isn't like a denial of the value of friendship or the value of having somebody to talk to or having somebody to catch up with.

It's more so that with our increasingly busy lifestyles and the constant barriage of like stimulation from technology, it can make it really difficult to slow down and actually enjoy solitude because we have and we tend to equate being alone with being bored and being unproductive, which are things that as humans we're not quite you know, we're not very good at managing. Those are not feelings that we're

readily going to accept as part of our lives. So this really leads me to my main point really at the center of all this, at the core in this day and age, when distraction is the easiest thing you can do, when you really never have to experience silence or solitude if you don't want to falling in love with your own company is one of the most radical acts of self compassion and growth that we can find.

It isn't the easiest thing to do. It isn't you know, the funnest thing to do always to like stay in and journal or paint or read on a Saturday night, to go to the movies alone, to go for a walk on your own. It does require sacrifice and it does require discipline, let's not deny that. But the way you get to know yourself, and I mean really know yourself when all the screens are off, when it's just you and your own space, I think that's really quite profound.

And it is awful at first as you kind of work through the discomfort, and then it's magical and you'll just find that you're kind of addicted to your own company, that it actually is your first choice most diets. And I think that it's then that we really get to see the benefits. And I want to talk about those

for a second. So when a group of researchers sat down to have a look into this, they wanted to observe people who actively spent more time in their own company compared to those who either shy away from it or who just don't have the opportunity these people have kids. Another example was people who worked in the military or in the navy, so they go away for like three six months at a time, they're constantly surrounded by others, people in door rooms. Those are just a few examples.

And then they compared them to the people who, like we said, really prioritized just able to spend more time alone. So the people who had more space and time for themselves displayed a greater level of introspection, they valued their independence more, and they were more creative. The creativity aspect is actually something I'm really drawn to. I'm really attracted

by that element of this argument. I remember when I was going through this period of loneliness and isolation I was just speaking about, especially when I first moved to Sydney. I had never been more creative. I was painting on my nights off. I was journaling like crazy. Some of my most beautiful entries ever were then were written in those moments of solitude, because there really was only so much like TV I could watch, There was only so much scrolling I could do before I actually wanted to

do something productive and expressive. You have this uninterrupted focus when you value your own company, you have also the mental space for daydreaming and for letting your imagination run off. It's why so many authors go on like these solo retreats or trips to finish their manuscripts, to finish their books, because alone time is so important for our creativity to thrive. So that is the main argument. I think, more introspection,

more independence, more creativity. The other huge benefit of falling in love with your own company is that you don't let others define you and the experiences that you have. I think when we become to reliant on others for a sense of validation or excitement to fill the empty space we have in our days, perhaps out of a fear of boredom or loneliness, it actually gives them a lot of power over us in our decision making. Now, it's not that they are necessarily going to exploit that power,

it's not that they're manipulating it. It's just that, involuntarily they have an impact on our emotions because of how much we tie our sense of self and our mood to when we're able to see people and their availability

and the access that we have to them. If we don't see people enough we can really notice huge changes in our emotions and in our kind of mental wellbeing, Whereas when we value our own company, it doesn't really matter if people cancel plans, it doesn't matter if they're busy or they're caught up with work, because hanging out with ourselves is like an equally good alternative. The other aspect of this is our ability to do things alone.

There are a lot of things that we have in our bucket list, a lot of things that we wanted to that, let's be honest, we would never consider doing by ourselves. You know, traveling solo is a big example, but then on a smaller level, going to the movies alone, going to a gig by yourself, going to that new restaurant. Those are things that we often want the company of others to do, but there is so much joy in

having those experiences by yourself. I also think that when we can't tolerate doing those alone because we're I don't know, maybe embarrassed or whatnot, often that means that we miss out.

We don't see those things, we don't have those experiences, we don't go to those places that we want to go because we can't do it without somebody else there, and therefore it's kind of like your experience is are determined based on somebody else's presence, and unless you are blessed to have a lot of yes friends, I think that you know, if you're always waiting for somebody else to think it's a good idea or to come with you, or you're trying to sell them on it, what you're

actually doing is determining your experiences, yet again, based on whether somebody else can come with you, rather than based on whether you just want to go, rather than based on just whether you know that you're going to have fun and you can do it alone. I think the final reason that we have to learn to fall in love with our own company, especially in our twenties right now,

is because it is so protective. Now. I spoke about this a little bit before, but there will come a time when you are alone, when a relationship ends, when your friends are all busy or away, and if we have never practiced being happy in those circumstances when nobody else is present, those times in our lives can be particularly agonizing because we don't know what to do with ourselves.

I often think that our fear of being alone and our inability to appreciate the freedom and joy of our own company sometimes keeps us in relationships we know aren't working, just because we are so reliant on others to make us feel seen or to fight off our fear of solitude or boredom. But you know, the thing is is that when that relationship is failing, when you know that you can't be with that person, when the spark is gone, when the romance is gone, what if we can't leave

because we're just too afraid of being alone? You know? I often think people question like, why do people stay? Why don't they just dump him? Why don't they just move on with their lives? I think a fear of being alone and all of that empty time and empty space is what's keeping us in those relationships. It's kind of like, what kind of thoughts am I going to have when this person isn't there to drown them out? What have I been ignoring in my life that is

going to come to the surface. What fears do I finally have to confront when I am laying in bed alone, when I am sitting on my couch on a Friday night and there is nobody there to distract me. The antidote to that fear is knowing that you're never going to be alone in your own mind. You have millions, billions, kadrillions of neural connections and pathways and memories and secret corners to experience that are always accessible to you. You have this rich inner world that is just for you,

and that is so wonderful. You can make yourself laugh, you can bring yourself immense happiness and joy. You can be curious and kind to yourself. You can make life interesting on your own and it's fascinating. Actually. Just to bring in another psychological theory here into this, that we often tend to value the things we own or which are ours, more than the things that we don't when it comes to our material possessions. So it's a bias

called the endowment effect. To say, for example, you have a pair of shoes that you absolutely love, and you bought them for seventy dollars, but for you they're worth like one hundred, right, So somebody could be like, I'll buy them for eighty, which is more than you bought them for. But for you, because you own them, because they're special to you, they're worth more. But our brain is so weird. It acts one way in one circumstance

and then contradicts itself in the next. We don't seem to value our own company as much as we value others, right, So it's kind of like, Okay, would you pay fifty dollars to hang out with yourself or one hundred dollars to hang out with your friends? People are always like, well, I want to hang out with my friends, even though our own company is the thing that we should feel

is the most valuable. Once again, though, you can rewire your brain into prioritizing those solo experiences, that alone time through like intentional behaviors and practices. So that's what I want to discuss next. What are the actual ways, practical, tangible ways we can fall in love with our own company and really embrace all the things that we can give ourselves. Well, we're going to talk about all of

that and more after this shortbreak. Whether our alone time is voluntary so we are intentionally prioritizing our solitude or involuntary. You know, you really wish you were hanging out with people, but you found yourself alone for the evening or in a period of disconnect, you're not going to come out

of the gates. I think enjoying your own company. If it's not something that you're used to, you have to treat it like a ritual, like an almost kind of like a spiritual experience, or a thing that you do for your well being. The same way that you find time during your week to see your friends or you find time to exercise, you need to find time to

be alone. The easiest way to do this is to choose either one evening or like a chunk on the weekends, a morning and afternoon that is reserved just for you. It's like you have a stand up meeting with yourself each week that you can't shift, sorry to everybody else you have plans. It's non negotiable. For me. I normally take Monday evenings to myself because I feel like my social battery has already been like spiked by the weekend.

Mondays are normally my busiest day because it's when I record podcast literally what I'm doing right now, and so I take the night for me. I have an established routine. I always go to the gym and then I listen to my favorite podcast is American Life. They drop the new episodes on Monday, so I listened to that. Then I go to the sauna, which, okay, I'm gonna be honest. The sauna at my gym smells at the moment, and

there's like a cockroach infestation. But you know, after a while, I can't tell whether it's your sweat or somebody else's, so it's not that gross anyways, okay, Tangent. I then do my everything shower, I make myself like my favorite meal, it's like the sweet potato salad, and I watch Modern Family or whatever show I'm on at the moment. And at eight o'clock, this is crucial, I switch off and I choose to do something that is going to fill my cup that is not passive normally. That is something

like reading or journaling or painting. And I put music on my record player and I just let myself sit there for a bit, you know, if I don't need to be like constantly writing or reading. Sometimes I just honestly sit on my couch and just stare into space, and I let myself daydream and I let my mind wander. There's no one waiting on me, there's nothing to do, there's no one I need to call, because this is like the time that I've reserved for me within that.

What you may have noticed is that everything I do is something I actually like doing. It's my favorite podcast, my favorite meal, my favorite show, my favorite activity. That's because enjoying your own company, as simple as it sounds, means actually doing something you enjoy while you're at it,

and equally doing something that is actually nourishing. You might think that you're spending alone time and enjoying your own company when you're doing your laundry or at the grocery store, and it is still really valuable time, but it's not necessarily, you know, meaningful time. It's labor, it's chores, unless you're

someone whose hobby is cleaning. I think there is a difference between really like consciously being like, this is going to be a time and an evening where I feel my own cub and this is just like an activity that I just have to do alone, so let's just call it my alone time. I think the same way that you would really want to spend quality time with your friends or your boyfriend or your girlfriend, you need

to do the same with yourself. If your entire relationship, you know, with your partner, for example, consisted of sitting in front of the TV or lying in bed and scrolling mindlessly on TikTok next to each other. That is not quality time with your partner. Your relationship would suffer. You never would really connect or deepen your bond because you're distracted, you're doing something mindless. So why do you expect the relationship you have with yourself to not suffer

if you're doing the same thing. If every time you have a moment to yourself or an afternoon with no plans, you spend it in a way that is quite passive or draining. Now this isn't to say that sometimes we don't benefit from just brain rot. Like my boyfriend calls it scratching his lizard brain when we just we've had a hellish day, work has been really tough. We just want to switch off for a second and watch like

some garbage TV. That is honestly so valuable. But if that becomes your norm, the status quo of how you spend time with yourself, I think you're missing out on some of the other really rich and deep experiences and things that you can do during that period that would be maybe more valuable. So this brings me to this exercise. This idea, this concept of ritualizing your alone time so

that it's something that you are looking forward to. I have a friend who does this really, really well, and I have to give them a shout out in this episode because everybody that I have in my life, they spend their alone time the best. They love their own company the most. And the way that they have kind of learnt to do this because they weren't always like this, was to have a date night with themselves once a month.

They choose a different Italian restaurant in Sydney. They get a glass of wine and they get a bowl of pasta, and of course they dress up for themselves because it's date night. You have to look nice, you have to play the part. And then they sit there on their own and they ask themselves the same five questions in like a specific journal they have just for this purpose. The five questions are what did I do today? And

how am I feeling about myself? What's something I'm looking forward to, what's one thing that I've been proud of recently, what's on my mind? And what is one thing I want to change in the next month. I think that this is such a sweet practice to do to really like find time one evening in the next thirty days that's just for you where you were at the center.

You are consciously thinking about your life. You are consciously dating yourself, spending time with yourself, being intentional about where you're going, but also kind of finding a way to I don't know, not worship yourself. I think that's successive, but celebrate who you are and your progress and what's

going on, and it's just fun. Like it's actually really fun to just have this like little ritual that you do all for yourself, to dress up for yourself to go and just like kind of splurge on a nice meal the same way that you would do that for others. Right when you're dating people, when you're going to see your friends, you know you make time for them, that is quality time, You look nice for them, You spend more money than you want to for them. You can

do that for yourself. Another way I think to really sync deep into your own company is to just do stuff alone even if no one wants to come with you. Now we spoke about this before, but if you want to see that movie, if you want to go to that comedy show, if you need to buy a New Janes. If you want to go out for breakfast and no one's around, great, you're around, You're free, Off you go.

I think this feels quite awkward at first, especially when we become so accustomed to the presence and the noise of others in our lives. But I think that one thing that really does hold us back is thinking that we're going to be judged as well. I promise you no one is looking that closely, and even if they are, human memory is very fallible and it's very short, they

aren't going to remember you. And to just add to that, the only time I think I've ever noticed people who are doing things alone, like at dinner alone, or at a cafe alone, at a movie alone, is when I've been thinking about how much I admire them for something that it's taken me years to do. I'm like, wow, you must be a really cool person, Like there's some really amazing power in this action that you're doing, in

this choice. When you do feel the twinge of loneliness that I think is only human and natural, sometimes I think that it's important to take a moment to just notice it and to observe it, and I mean, make your loneliness like a physical presence, like a little character in your mind, or a butterfly in front of you, and just watch it move through your space. This like fluttering object. That's your loneliness. It's not going to hurt you.

It's just there. It's just fluttering about. You don't have to respond or react, and eventually it will fly off and bother somebody else. If we squash anything that makes us skittish or fearful or uncomfortable, we shut off from a lot of the world. You lose out, like you genuinely do if you're always motivated by something that you fear, and that means that you avoid circumstances that would activate

that fear. For example, you're afraid of feeling lonely, so you never take the risk to, I don't know, go to that country by yourself, or go out for dinner on your own. That's not doing the thing that's best for you. That's doing the thing that fear wants you to do. So Finally, instead of the fear of missing out, I think we need to switch to the joy of missing out. I'm sure you've heard this phrase before, but it's a concept that I love. It was originally introduced

to me by Tanya Dalton. She's an author who wrote Like the Ultimate Guide on this. If you look her up, her book is amazing and Jomo the Joy of missing Out is basically like the emotionally intelligent and like mature antidote to FOMO, and it's essentially about being present and being content with where you're at in your life, focusing on what you gain by saying no to plans, by switching off, what you gain by ignoring the needs of others, and the need to compare and think about what you

know everyone's expecting from you, and just really noticing how much peace it brings you to just do what you

want to do. I think the older we get, the more we understand the joy of missing out, like as a concept, you know, we understand the joy of a friend canceling the plans that we made when we had a lot more energy, And we understand the joy of getting to set our own agenda, to choose what we want for dinner, what we want to do with our evenings, to choose to reply to messages when we want to, rather than feeling like we always have to be engaged

and clocked in and locked in with other people. There is immense beauty in that, and there is also a lot of freedom. I think sometimes we think that if we're not constantly present with others that they'll somehow forget about you. Trust me, they weren't. They weren't a few missed evenings, a few rescheduled plans, a few times you say sorry, I can't make it. I actually think that it's going to do more for your friendship, right because the time that you do spend together is very much

quality time. You're really engaged. You feel like your own cup is full, rather than kind of running on empty and feeling very much at the behest of your plans, feeling very much responsible to others rather than to yourself first and foremost. So I think the final reminder, the final thing to take from this is the relationship you have with yourself is your biggest investment, because it is the only one you will have alongside you your whole life.

You are spending every single second with yourself. That might feel like quality time, but sometimes you really need to have a check in and be like, Okay, do I like where I'm at? Am I enjoying who I am when nobody else is around, can I find the fun in my own company? And my hope is is that firstly you see that that's a valuable thing, and secondly that you do find the joy and the love in your own company. So thank you so much for listening

to today's episode. I actually hope that you've got something out of this. I hope that it's convinced you or persuaded you to adopt these rituals and this technique and this appreciation for yourself, because you're a lot of fun, and you can have fun with yourself, and you can laugh at yourself, and you can bring joy to your

own life without needing other people. As always, if you did enjoy this episode, share it with a friend and make sure that you're following along by hitting that follow button on Spotify or Apple podcast wherever you are listening. It really does help the show grow, so as leaving a five star rating, it helps other people find us, it helps expand the community, and it helps me out.

So if you do get joy out of this, if it is part of the ritual that you have for spending time alone or just part of your daily life, I would really really appreciate it. And as always, we are always looking for new ideas, episodes, suggestions, feedback, discussions, contributions. Over on Instagram, you can follow us at that Psychology Podcast. We would obviously love to hear from you, and until then, until our next episode, stay safe, be kind to yourself, and we will talk soon