Jemma Spike

We regulate through venting and conversation or through distraction or validation.

We get our sense of identity from what other people think of us.

We let our lives be directed by their desires.

When you leave that, even temporarily, your brain dies.

is going to recalibrate to a crazy extent.

And it's painful at first.

There was a 2014 study, very famous, that found that amongst these participants, the majority of people would rather mildly electrocute themselves with an electric shock than spend 15 minutes with their thoughts.

That is how uncomfortable solitude is for us.

But

Choosing to voluntarily step into solitude will literally change your internal wiring so fast if you choose to do so.

It will give you such a power surge, such an identity boost on such a sped up timeline.

In the first like 24 to 48 hours, you're going to feel really uncomfortable.

There's going to be this deep urge to reach out to somebody, to go get dinner, to go on social media, to like fill the silence.

Then your brain starts to basically realize that that's not an option and something starts to change.

Something interesting happens.

Research by neuroscientists essentially show that your brain starts to be like,

oh, I'm actually very, very interesting.

It starts to really uncover new facets of what you're doing.

It's called constructive internal reflection.

Essentially, your brain's default mode network is activated.