I discovered that I loved silence. I found that I didn’t need anything to entertain myself. I wasn’t distracted by conversation, flirtation, or expec… - Jay Shetty

Insanity is doing the same thing again and again, expecting different results.” (This quote is often attributed to Einstein, although there’s no proof that he ever said it.) How many of us do the same thing, year after year, hoping our lives will transform? Thoughts repeat in our minds, reinforcing what we believe about ourselves. Our conscious isn’t awake to make edits. The narration playing in your mind is stuck in its beliefs about relationships, money, how you feel about yourself, how you should behave.

We must use the time when we are single or take time alone when we are in a couple to understand ourselves, our pleasures, and our values. When we learn to love ourselves, we develop compassion, empathy, and patience. Then we can use those qualities to love someone else. In this way, being alone — not lonely, but comfortable and confident in situations where we make our own choices, follow our own lead, and reflect on our own experience — is the first step in preparing ourselves to love others.

We may feel empty, lost, broken, and hurt, but the soul is unbreak-
able. The Bhagavad Gita spends seven verses talking about the indestructibility of
the soul. “That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestruc-
tible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul. The soul can never be cut to
pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by
the wind. This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither
burned nor dried. It is everlasting, present everywhere, unchangeable, immovable
and eternally the same.