Loneliness vs Solitude: Learning the Difference Through Loss

When I lost my wife, Lani, everything changed.

The house got quieter.
The small talk disappeared.
And I was left with space — too much of it.

Lani and I had spent almost every day and night together since we first met.

We moved in after a month.

We travelled together.

We ran a business together.

We worked out side by side.

We built a life that was deeply intertwined — in the best way.

So when she died, it wasn’t just the love of my life that I lost.

It was the rhythm of my days. The shared jokes. The sense of being known.

At first, what I felt was loneliness.

Deep and suffocating.

That kind of silence hits hard when you're used to sharing everything with someone.

But over time, I noticed something shift.

Loneliness is painful. Solitude is powerful.

In the beginning, I did everything I could to drown out the quiet. Podcasts, scrolling, background TV. Anything to avoid feeling the void.

But it wasn’t the silence I was running from — it was myself.

So I tried something else.

I left my phone behind when I walked the dogs.
I drank my morning coffee in stillness.
I sat with the silence. Sometimes for five minutes. Sometimes longer.

And bit by bit, I stopped fearing it.

Solitude wasn’t about isolation — it was about reconnection.

Not to anyone else.
To me.

Grief had stripped away everything familiar. But in that raw space, I started to hear what I hadn’t been able to before.

Solitude gave me room to feel.
To process.
To get honest with myself.

It wasn’t comfortable — but it was real.

I still feel lonely. But I don’t fear being alone anymore.

I’m not here to say I’ve got it all figured out. Some days still ache. Some nights still feel empty.

But I’ve learned to stop confusing being alone with being lost.

Solitude is where I’ve started to rebuild.
Not by distracting myself — but by learning to sit in the discomfort.

If you're walking through something similar — I see you.

This stuff is hard.
It’s real.
And it takes time.

But in the quiet, if you can stay with it, you might find something you didn’t expect:
A clearer voice. A deeper strength. A bit of peace.

You're not broken for feeling the weight of it all.

You're just human.
And solitude might be the first step back to yourself.

A Practice for Moving from Loneliness to Solitude

One thing that’s helped me is learning to sit with myself — on purpose. Not just being alone because I have to be, but choosing moments of solitude to build a relationship with myself.

Here’s a simple exercise I try to do daily:

The 10-Minute Sit

• Find a quiet space — no phone, no music, no distractions.

• Sit comfortably. You don’t need to meditate. Just be.

• Notice what comes up: thoughts, emotions, resistance.

• Breathe into it. Don’t judge what you feel — just let it move.

• Ask yourself: What do I need right now?

• Then sit a little longer.

This isn’t about productivity or fixing anything. It’s about learning to be in your own company — and eventually, making peace with it.

In the early days after losing Lani, silence felt like a threat. Now, sometimes, it feels like a doorway. Not always. But enough that I keep walking toward it.

— Chris Spring
The Rebuild Lab