Today I am sharing my experience being alone, single and celibate over the past four years, and some of the things that I've learned over that time.
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Full transcript:
(this is a raw, unedited transcript - a slightly cleaned up version is coming soon!)
hello and welcome everybody about four
years ago just over four years ago my
last relationship ended and not long
after it ended probably a month or two I
I dusted myself off I went through the
initial kind of messiness and drama and
grief uh immediately after the end of
the relationship and then I wanted to
start dating again I wanted to find a
new person I was just really Gung ho to
get out there and meet new people and
find a new
partner but before that could get going
the world shut down it was early 2020
when I was just starting to like
approach that um that Prospect of like
really putting myself out there and
worldwide lockdowns happened and
immediately when that started and my
work shut down and I was you know facing
the likely reality of having to spend
months in lockdown by myself in a little
apartment um I initially had like a very
Primal mating Instinct like some part of
me just immediately wanted to find
someone to shack up with basically but I
didn't do that uh for whatever reason
there was another voice in me another
force and um I ended up just like you
know I I downloaded Tinder and um and
yet by the time everything locked down I
was just like man I guess I'm not going
to be hanging out with anybody anytime
soon and in fact it was very much the
opposite what end up ended up happening
is I just was completely alone in the
initial phase of the
lockdown and the first chunk of that
was pretty painful I I was alone with a
lot of feelings of grief that were the
residue of that relationship that I had
gotten out of I was just confronted by
everything that I probably would have
just glossed over by jumping into
another woman's arms and instead I was
just like painfully alone with whatever
childhood wounds that the dissolution of
that relationship had triggered um and
honestly
that was kind of perfect it was very
beautiful to just be with those feelings
and what I started doing during the
lockdown was going for long walks in I I
live near a forest so I would just go on
hours long walks every day to get out of
my house and move and be somewhere
beautiful and so I would feel all this
grief and sadness go for a long walk
with it by the end of the walk I would
usually feel a lot better and what also
started happening during that initial
phase of
solitude is I started writing and um I
quickly escalated some
scribbling uh one afternoon alone in my
apartment into deciding I wanted to
write an entire book and I got into a
very productive fruitful creative Zone
and I ended up staying in that zone for
the next 9 months until that book was
like fully complete had probably been
reworked through like a dozen drafts
like there was a first draft and then
probably 11 or 12 more drafts after that
and then finally nine months later it
was done it was edited and it was
published um and during that period I
kept on giving myself little ultimatums
because this whole time I still really
wanted to find another person
and once I started writing and I got
into this really productive space I kind
of lied to myself but I thought it was
true I thought I was telling myself the
truth the truth but I gave myself this
promise and I said Miles when you done
your first draft of this book you can
start dating again because by by now
that initial lockdown has had calmed
down and I could I was going for walks
and I was seeing people clearly on dates
it was like dating was a thing again and
you could do that if you wanted to but I
had tapped into such a fruitful creative
space I thought it would be absolutely
insane to destroy that by getting
infatuated with a woman because I my
last relationship had been very dramatic
and intense and I knew there was no way
on Earth that I would be able to sustain
the kind of creative focus and Clarity
that I was in writing this book if I
were to fall in love with another person
immediately cuz my last experience of it
was totally ungrounding and
destabilizing and it was beautiful and I
was grateful for it I am grateful for it
but um I I just I knew myself well
enough to know that if I wanted to see
this project through I probably should
stay with it and there was something
about it that felt like being in love I
mean it didn't feel like being in love I
was in love and I had all or many of the
physiological symptoms that I would
experience when falling in love with a
woman like this glowing Euphoria and
this constant daydreaming about in this
case the the writing and where I was
going with it next I wasn't thinking
about about how I kissed somebody the
other night or the conversation we had
or how much I want to hold her or
whatever I was thinking about the
writing and oh my I can't believe what
came through me today and I wonder where
it's going next and um yeah it was just
this like passionate Exquisite love
experience that was also quite painful
and arduous and harrowing just like a
lot of
relationships um anyhow so when I
finally finished the book that once
again I told myself okay now I'm going
to start dating again but immediately
after publishing it I realized I had to
figure out how to Market this thing I
had created this book and a handful of
people who knew me um bought it and some
of them really really loved it and they
wrote reviews and they sent me messages
and it was very touching and
heartwarming but I realized I had a huge
Mission ahead of me because I'd been
living like a Hermit not just for the
last 9 months but really for like the
previous like seven years I had been on
this very kind of like solitary Monkish
phase of life um so I pushed it back
again I'm like well miles bad time to
start dating don't don't do that right
now you got work to do and I kept on
doing that again and again I would kind
of give myself these empty promises of
oh you you can start dating again once
you've finished this once you've gotten
to that and eventually I just stopped
making those silly promises cuz I think
I started to realized like something's
different now
like at at the start of that lockdown I
was like really wanting to fill my life
with another person whereas now I've got
some things that are very exciting and
beautiful that are filling up my life
first it was the writing it was also
developing more of a relationship with
nature cuz I was going for walks in the
woods every day and over time over a few
years that slowly developed into this
very beautiful intimate connection of
like studying the plants and the seasons
starting to harvest certain certain
things for medicine and rekindling this
deep spiritual intimacy with the land
that I had had uh in a previous chapter
of my life
and then I started reconnecting with my
family who I had not been in contact
with for years and that was a very
intense and awkward um undertaking to
kind of walk back into some
relationships that I had walked away
from and um yeah it was no small
undertaking and it felt like I was much
more present to that again because I had
all of the space in my life to focus on
these things um and again that was it
was a difficult thing but it was
absolutely necessary and beautiful and
just just so incredibly important to
return to those relationships to heal
those relationships cuz it just felt
like getting myself back um and yeah so
during this period which now has
stretched on for four years eventually
um I
stopped I
guess putting off dating and and
eventually got to a point where I was
like okay I think that what is happening
is my life does have a lot of love in it
so I don't have the same kind of
crushing crashing neediness clawing for
another person to fill me up and also
maybe even more significant than that is
like over these years I've
been working on myself in very practical
ways sometimes um figuring out who I am
discovering my voice my purpose and
getting rooted in that and a part of
that has been I guess having this space
to really
reexamine what I want as a relationship
ship because there have been things over
these past few years there have been
wonderful people who have come into my
world where there was chemistry there
was certainly could have been an
opportunity for us to explore something
but in each of those instances there's
been some voice in me that was
like I I don't think so Miles like this
person is amazing they're a wonderful
person but this this voice in me is
telling me very clearly I think you you
should just be friends with this person
that's in fact my gut would tell me like
I know I should just be friends with
this person and I've just decided to
listen to that when I hear it because in
the past I've not listened to it and I'd
rather stay focused on this one path
than not listen to myself and get all
tangled up and messed up because again I
know that how I love and I think that's
um I guess it feels significant because
I don't feel like I've given up on
partnership or intimate love or romantic
love or or whatever you want to call it
I feel like I've actually started to let
myself dream much larger than I've
allowed myself to dream
before because I have nothing to
lose I've already been through the kind
of pain of withdrawal getting to the
point where I'm comfortable with myself
and I feel all of this love throughout
my life and so I don't have a sense of
desperation for intimacy or or love from
a woman would it be amazing to
experience that oh my God would ever be
amazing I know how good it feels to to
connect with somebody um I guess I've
just allowed myself to yeah like dream
towards something that feels really
amazing and do do the work on myself
like work on my life and get myself
together and I guess prepare myself for
that kind of commitment and yeah I guess
all of this is to say I don't have
cynicism in my heart after these four
years of aloneness singlehood celibacy I
don't feel more cynical I actually feel
more
idealistic and in a way that's practical
hopefully that's practical and grounded
um
because I understand that I'm never
going to be perfect so if I think that I
have to like work on myself and fix my
life and get it all together that's a
bar that I can probably continually
raise you know so that's a bit of a trap
to feel like I have to like get it all
together before I'm ready for another
person in my life um and same goes for
looking for a partner nobody's perfect
and I'm certainly not interested in
anybody that's perfect because that
would be really annoying to be around I
would constantly be judging myself it
would be much better to be with another
human with all of our beautiful flaws
and complexity the things that make us
beautiful right um
anyhow uh I'm getting a little rambly a
little off track so maybe I'll try to
try to wrap this up but
essentially I I think one of the most
important things I've learned is
um don't stop finding ways to experience
or express love and connection and
communion it's really important because
for me there is an energy in me and it's
a very Amorous energy it's very intense
and it needs somewhere to go it needs to
live it needs to go into writing a book
it needs to go into the painful
Labyrinth of figuring out how to find an
audience for that book or it needs to go
into a deep reverential magical
connection with the natural world and
needs to go into um just the kind of
like stoic aspects of Life having to
work a job and having to show up and be
kind to people and um be you know try
to be generous of spirit out in the
world world and connect to the beauty of
strangers um yeah friends family all
these different forms of connection have
been what has made life so beautiful
over these past four years and uh
there's definitely been hard times there
have been times of devastating
difficulty
um but that's just life and that's some
times that's what makes it interesting
right that contrast the the highs and
the lows um anyhow I write about all of
this in my books if you're interested in
checking them out links in the
description or the show notes there are
Audi books narrated by me there are
paperbacks ebooks and yeah just raw
personal authentic stories about love
loss finding power stumbling around in
this beautiful challenging World um yeah
check him out if if you're interested
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