Wildheart Club | sitting with solitude

Podcast notes and journal prompts for S9E7

Welcome to Wildheart Club! For those who enjoy our podcast, these posts include notes on each episode, alongside journal prompts to deepen your exploration of the words and themes we chat about.

Today’s post relates to Season 9, Episode 7: Solitude. We recommend listening to the episode first, before exploring the notes and prompts below.

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This week’s notes

Why is the idea of solitude so relevant right now?

As a time of going within and seeking soul wisdom, winter can be more focused on the individual self than the other seasons. However, at the same time, this middle part of winter in particular is also often a time of celebration and gathering, which can feel uplifting or alienating depending on your circumstances. Sometimes we find ourselves overloaded with social commitments and longing for a way to create more space for ourselves, and sometimes we feel starved of the deep connection we crave.

While often joyful, narratives around the festive period have the capacity to bring up painful feelings of sadness and isolation if our own celebrations (or lack thereof) look different to those we see or hear about online, on television, or through friends or colleagues. There can be so much pressure and expectation, which in turn creates space for comparison and disappointment if your reality differs from your ideal vision of a ‘merry Christmas’.

With this in mind, we thought it might be helpful to explore the idea of ‘aloneness’ through the specific lens of solitude, to see if there’s any comfort that can be found there.