My creativity bloomed when I gave myself permission to be alone

mybackyardlab
3 min readJun 14, 2022
A picture of a sketchbook with a drawing of a half mandala and a half sunflower.
Photo by Swati H. Das on Unsplash

I never imagined myself doing it, but I tested a different way to live a few months ago. I went to my room and closed the door to the world around me. I only came out when absolutely necessary.

I have always needed more alone time than most people I know, especially after being around a large crowd. The only way for me to center my mind and body after heavy stimulation was to isolate myself from the world and let my body heal before going back out again. I did it reluctantly and with much guilt, because none of my family members or friends needed that much time to recover. There have been plenty of times I have been judged for taking extra time to re-energize myself. I bought into the guilt and hid in embarrassment. As a result, I have pushed myself to the boundary and drowned in my own fatigue. My burnt-out mind and body yelled out loud that they will not and could not take it anymore.

So I let it be. I gave myself permission to be human and allow myself to fulfill my basic needs. All these years, I allowed myself to have alone time, but I did not allow myself to fully enjoy it. I felt that I needed to be sick to deserve this time. How did I develop this mindset? My culture has a lot to do with it. I live in an Indian household with other family members, both young and elderly. Indian society is very heavy on prioritizing the family unit over the…

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mybackyardlab

A life-long learner, a mom, a volunteer, an educator, a citizen scientist, and an engineer. Support me by becoming a Medium member: https://mybackyardlab.medium