"We might continue in hurtful relationships until one day we feel 'That's it! I've had enough,' and we close the shutters of our heart and cut ourselves off from people. However, this withdrawal may be a necessary and creative time, if we are able to use the space behind that barrier to do some soul-searching and discover what is really happening...We periodically need space from others to reclaim what we may have projected onto them, and, equally, to shed what may have been projected onto us" (Reinhart, 2009, p. 156).
For some of us, periods of separation and isolation give us the necessary reprieve to make sense of our own projections. The world serves as our mirror for we will draw in people, places, and things that open our wounds. Through our mirrored projections, we are called to the Chironic experience of tending to, and cleaning, the wound that has been asked to be opened and thus healed. All the players in our play of life serve as the openers of the wound, and we have the responsibility to heal and suture all unfinished business.
For others, there is a great fear of separation. The silence equates to loneliness, not solitude. There is an absence of wisdom in these situations which drives the person deeper into the sludge of their own mind. They are obstructed by these intellectual cobwebs and forget that separation (and then solitude) brings us closer to our Divine essence within, which is where all the inspiration and answers live.
Only through my desire to stop the bleeding of my own pain did I find my way into solitude. Silence used to scare me because it meant I would have to sit with my overactive overthinking mind. Eventually, though, the constant torture of displacing my wounds out into my external environment reached a combustion point. I truly couldn't take it anymore. My unconscious projections were creating a cycle of torment. I consistently drew in the same kind of unnerving energy in everyone and everything that entered my life. My wounds were begging to be cleaned. Even as a Jungian therapist, I still wasn't able to figure it out. It was easy to slip into victim consciousness because I still had no clue how I was creating my life (and suffering!). Therefore, I got stuck in seeing others as the problem which justified my attacks.
Pulling the reins back and taking a break from our own unconscious patterns can serve us well in times of despair, desperation, and exhaustion. The merry-go-round must stop, and we're the only ones that can make it happen.
Quieting the noise opens us up to the space of zero where inspiration is birthed. Embracing the separation fosters solitude of deep reflection and inspires the creative stream of answers to begin flowing from our heart that our mind insatiably searches for, but will never find.