There are misconceptions in distinguishing alone vs lonely. One single woman is here to set the record straight on being with your one and only (that’s you).

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As a single woman, I find the questions and concerns of family, friends, and business colleagues are ever-present on the tips of their tongues: are you lonely being all alone?

To be fair, I’m not exactly “all alone” as the adoption/rescue of my pup last year brought me more joy than I can express; however, there is a conundrum about being alone and having solitude and feeling the most abundant sense of inner peace and harmony within oneself. For many, it is a choice. For some, it can be a burden. And for most all, it raises the bar on how we care for our own personal love of self and the worthiness and value of who we are as hearts exposed to the world.

Being alone in a comfortable environment conjures up daydreaming and imaginations gone wild. It is a time to draw together manifestations and intentions through whatever medium fulfills your spirit. If the alone hours are spent in quality, there is never a sense of a need to attach or depend on anyone else. This is where the self-love comes in.

Once you are aware of who you are, what your purpose is in this world, and how to go about bringing it all together, being alone will never feel as though it’s a problem.

That’s where it could get tricky, however, in that if the person you are alone is also the same person who can be with others, then you’re on the right path. If you are acting as one individual while enjoying months or years alone, mixing it up in the dating world (or business world) as an entirely different person, something is amiss. It might indicate that loneliness has, in fact, set in and caused a lack of genuine energy to be established when out in public.

The sum of its parts is that alone has merit, whereas loneliness has grief.

To feel loneliness is an emotion like no other. Depression and anxiety have a way of creeping into the day to day. Hopelessness and victimization rise through our pores every day.

Now flip that around and think how wonderful it would be to wake up every morning, solo in your bed, doing a ritual or self-love routine, carrying through the 24 hours just as you please, and as your spirit dictates. What a precious life, and what a privilege it is to be positively satisfied with being alone. I love my alone time, but at the same time, I love other people.

It’s an introvert versus extrovert dynamic.

There is a contradictory perception about the aloneness of a person; however, if you were to ask that person how he or she feels about spending time in solitude, you might be surprised and enlightened when they are exquisitely happy and peaceful inside. The lonely person is always wishing to be with somebody. The lonely person has a constant hankering that something is missing in his or her life. The lonely person may jump at the chance to be with someone, anyone, and that could spell trouble.

The flipside to this is the person who has chosen to be alone is aware and patient and fully present in each moment. They have spent years (or months, or however long) honing their intuitive, social, and spiritual skills to show up for life each day of the week. There is no longing. There is no anxiety. There are no feelings of emptiness. The alone person has a handle on how to spend their moments. It truly is a beautiful thing to witness someone so comfortable in their skin from years of being alone.

So for those of you who choose one way over the other, there isn’t any magic recipe to what works and what doesn’t. We’re all individuals doing the best we can as human beings, and any desire of how to entertain your days must be something you accept and nurture, and make part of your experience.

As life goes on, chances are something will change in the future; you might find yourself in a whole new way of being without ever really stressing about it. That’s the pot o’ gold.