Table for One: Successfully And Victoriously Going It Alone

By Brenda Huger Hazel

Definitely a must-read for solo single or single-again, living alone! When was the last time you took you out somewhere really special with "you"? Has there been any time where you made reservations, dressed in your finest, and took "you" out to fine dine, for example? That's right. You in the sole company of you and that's absolutely great! We're not talking narcissism here-an unhealthy obsession with oneself. Quite to the contrary. Imagine being alone with you as your only choice of company, for large portions of time and being absolutely comfortable with it-and you're not an introvert. Table for One, please . . . and thank you! For the hundreds of thousands of individuals who just happen to live alone and also happen to find themselves, at the end of the day, most often alone, this life-changing book may well be the spark that will turn your life around. Reflect on the redemption of aloneness. Get ready to break down the barriers to success and victory often found in subconsciously accepting the many misconceptions that come with being/living alone. This book will dispel many of the myths that have been held through the years regarding what is or is not solo person appropriate. Who made up these rules anyway? Table for One will draw you away from the bondage of certain societal impositions to a brand-new freedom gained from the knowledge that you're not "by" yourself; you're "with" yourself. Find the beginnings of this freedom in the initial chapter "Debunking the Myths of Aloneness," and spend a little extra time on the chapter on "Getting Up from Down." It's a place that's likely to be visited from time to time but using the tools provided, going forward, the visits can be shorter lived. This book is a guide to successfully and victoriously going it alone, claiming your space, and feeling really, really, really good about it! Be sure to engage the thought-provoking "Quiet Time Queries" found at the end of each chapter and allow them to steer you to places within that you have been looking for, perhaps for a very long time. Be transported deeper and deeper into a revelatory premise that can revolutionize your life! Prepare for the paradigm shift toward success and victory by learning how the "going it a loner" undergoes a thinking readjustment from "by myself" to "with myself." You may want to check out the two scripturally-based messages found in in the appendix, adding just the right punch in providing very practical and spiritually-oriented steps for needed changes in our thinking process. Table for One: "Successfully and victoriously going it alone" is one of those books that you'll want to keep nearby to refer to again and again as you make the journey to inner peace with the words "I'm with me."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781641408745

Book preview

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Table for One

Successfully and Victoriously Going it Alone

Brenda Huger Hazel

ISBN 978-1-64140-873-8 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64140-874-5 (digital)

Copyright © 2018 by Brenda Huger Hazel

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

To all, by choice or by force, who travel the solo road

To the One who begun a good work in me and is faithful to complete it

To the life I have been given, the life that I am blessed to share

To the solo dwellers who read the work in progress, Alisa Cupid, Roberta Montgomery and Vickie Nichols (Thanks, Alisa, for your detailed review)

To my family and friends

Introduction

The Redemption of Aloneness

Fifteen years after marital separation and divorce, I slept in the middle of my seriously cozy, superbly comfortable, queen-sized bed. It’s not that I had ever even thought about my nightly sleeping arrangements or had consciously limited myself to sleeping on my side only. On that night, however, a night no more or less special than any other (up to that point anyway), I happened to look at the turned-down side of the bed where I sleep. While looking at the pillows piled up on the opposite side, bursting into my thought space in an epiphany-like moment, my newly illuminated mind declared, Brenda, you can sleep in the center. The entire bed is yours.

Soooo … on an extraordinarily ordinary night, I fully claimed my personal space, and it felt good. It felt really, really good. I mean really, really, in an all capital letters, shout-out kind of way—

really, really good

!

Within a year’s time, a substantial number of cursory interviews with always-been-single and single-again individuals brought forth a unique discovery. They, too, utilize only half of their full, queen- or king-sized bed space. Hmmm? Is this an acquiescence, on a subconscious level perhaps, to some kind of notion that a bed larger than a twin requires at least two users? The bulk of the interviewees were surprised at their own sleeping habits in this regard, like the once-again-single me, having never noticed nor applied any kind of thought to the daily/nightly process.

Living fruitfully and victoriously alone calls for the claiming of untold number of life spaces, every facet of life, be it in the home, work, or at play. For men and women whose lives are characterized by going it alone and yearning for success in living it out well, therein may be found the following benchmark. Successfully going it alone is about immediately (or ultimately) claiming your space, the one, or the many, and feeling really, really good about it. This book is about those spaces—recognizing them, claiming the abundant space within them, and owning them.

It would be a total falsehood to give the impression that there exists a direct, point-by-point, step-by-step, linear tract or smoothly to-be-traversed pathway, to arriving at said space. Quite the contrary, the road is often filled with the ups and downs common to humanity. One can even expect watershed moments wrought with fear, joined by copious tears, of the actual shed variety or not. Yet please take it from a co-traveler of the passageway, arrival at an exciting, fresh, and welcomed new place along the pathway of life is well worth the journey. While no two roads are the same, the processes to be encountered, overcome, and surmounted do have enough similarity to be of direct guidance and help to fellow travelers. To put it most succinctly, this writing should be considered a simplified treatise on the redemption of aloneness. The use of the term redemption is quite intentional. Cultural mores and societal norms have, for centuries, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways pictured aloneness—i.e., the state of being alone, in less than positive light. In reversing this premise, both in mind and in action, the hope is of a new season for those who indeed, go it alone, as a way of life. The redemption of aloneness is inward power manifested outwardly by overturning the negative connotations to one’s state in being alone.

Championing the alone individual is in no way antithetical to the need for community. Alone is neither seen nor spoken of negatively, as in heralding isolationism or supplying support to the seriously reclusive among us—the rest of the world, be damned, as it were. Not at all. People do need people. The practice of community, to engage and be engaged by and with others is very important, and arguably necessary, for full and vibrant life expression. What the going it a-loners discovers, often through chance, is that community may exist differently for them by the spatial reality that encircles them. Grabbing hold of the possibility of experiencing authentic and emotionally satisfying community with the on-site presence of only oneself may appear to be a far reach to some, but that is the premise of this writing.

As an over twenty years, single-again, decidedly Christian woman, my worldview is God-oriented and many of my words will reflect that state of being. There will be an appeal to more than a Scripture verse or two, even a chapter on Biblical Views on Aloneness. This writing, however, isn’t just for people who share my Christian conviction. Though I may marvel at the thought, neither is it a discourse to get anyone to convert. The audience is the woman or man who via circumstances find that they are most often quite alone in navigating their life’s journey. This is to say that such an individual is without a partner in life and is generally not found to be in the frequent, regularly occurring company of friends/others. This person, generally, lives alone. This person arrives to her, or his, living space greeted by no other human breathing soul at the end of any given day’s foray.

It is also important to state at the outset that being alone is not always limited to the literally single adult. Sadly, there are hosts of married individuals who are equally alone in their journey, if not their home space. Even a quick glimpse at the divorce rate in the Western world speaks volumes to the lack of union in many of today’s marriages. Ideally, a mate or spouse is a person with whom you can fully share your life and life experiences—pursuing dreams, embracing joys and sorrows so that you may happily live and grow together, emotionally, physically, and most of all, spiritually. I do believe this is what God has in mind and is best found within the covenant of marriage. Perhaps a greater emphasis on learning to practice the positive concepts of being alone would seriously enhance the practice of living in union with another, should that be in one’s future.

I am not sure how long it took me or exactly when I arrived at a definition that characterized my single-again alone life, but somewhere on the way, it was discovered or, perhaps, revealed. Alone is a simultaneous coming together of one’s inner being and outward surroundings. It is a state in which an individual is regularly choosing to apply either a negative or positive voice to its existence. Aloneness is a construction of the inner being, the soul—born from within and experienced without. More than the quantifying identification of outward circumstances but also in collaboration with it. For many, the word alone conjures up negative images so much so that there is sometimes an instant denial of it by the very individual who is living—alone. To a very real degree, every person faces the possibility of being externally alone in life. Just ask the widow or widower who has lost his or her long-term spouse or listen to the voice of the single parent whose circle of life has been altogether reordered now that the children are grown and on their own. Consider also that adult child, after departing the rearing household, goes on to discover a real absence of what, at the time, he or she may have been quite motivated to leave—albeit, often rightly so. Do speak gently with the one who has simply outlived family and/or friends of former seasons. You are