21/03/2025 - I projected my pain onto others.

Hello readers,

It’s been three weeks since I arrived in California, and today marked the first day of Spring. The shift in seasons feels symbolic. I’ve spent more time alone in the past few weeks than I have in the past year. Or at least, that’s how it feels. I haven’t always loved being alone. In fact, for a long time, I hated it. One day was manageable. Two or three, and I’d start feeling restless, frustrated, annoyed. I wanted fun. And back then, fun meant everything except being with myself. The noise of my thoughts, the discomfort of my emotions, I couldn’t escape them. But at some point, I realized I couldn’t live a life where I didn’t enjoy my own company. That felt like a lifelong prison sentence. I couldn’t accept that. So I made a vow to change it, not by distracting myself with books, series, games, or anything else, but by learning how to exist with myself.

To understand how deep this shift is, I have to take you back to childhood. I was a solitary kid, naturally. I had friends, but I often found it hard to connect deeply with other children. I was already consumed with questions; about the world, people, identity, purpose. A little philosopher. I spent most of my time alone or with family, where I loved being the center of attention: the quick-witted clown, always cracking jokes, usually while annoying my sister and mum. We moved nearly every year, which made friendships fleeting. I didn’t learn about attachment until much later, until Lausanne, during my teenage years. After my parents’ divorce, we settled there for three years. Long enough for me to root. I made friends, found my place within a community. It changed me.

But it was also the time my mum got sick. Her leukemia lasted a year before it took her. I felt myself pulling away from everything during that time. My light, dream-filled inner world began shifting into something darker and heavier. Being alone forced me into that space, so I avoided it.

Add the hormone shift of puberty, the dramas of teenagehood, and the constant background hum of grief, it was too much. When she passed, we moved to my dad’s house in the south of France. And things got harder. I was drowning in guilt for not having spent more time with her. I channeled it into everything else; popularity, boys, distractions. Anything that made me feel something other than the empty void inside. At home, my stepmother hated me. I tried to care for my sister, but watching her cope in her own way made me sick with sorrow. Back then, I hated solitude. I feared the quiet, avoided it like a threat.

But I was full of feelings, rage, guilt, longing, despair. I just didn’t know how to deal with them. I often seemed cold because of how easily I could cut people off. Sometimes I projected my pain onto others. My family had to carry the weight of that. We all did our best. What saved me was a flicker of awareness: This isn’t okay. If I don’t face myself, I’m going to get lost in this forever. So I left. I went to Australia. Far away, on the opposite side of the world. And there, everything began to shift.

I allowed deep, transformative conversations to happen. I began to release emotional baggage, to feel again, through laughter, through intimacy, through simple joy. I changed. I softened. I grew.

I was still mostly surrounded by people, but I didn’t rely on them to hold me up anymore. I began forming friendships that felt safe and spacious, where I could show up exactly as I was. I discovered the gifts of intimacy, of vulnerability. And that was just the beginning. I spent years traveling, healing, unpacking more and more of my childhood pain. Until one day, I reached freedom. And from that place, I decided to confront one of my oldest wounds: my resistance to being alone.

I began slowly, taking myself on solo dates, to the beach, restaurants, museums, even weekend trips. At first, it felt awkward. I craved someone to share the moments with. But then something shifted. I started to see solitude as a form of self-respect. A ritual. A sacred duty.

And in those quiet moments, I let things unfold. I journaled. I meditated. I moved through yoga, dance, breath. I embraced the feminine energy of stillness and receptivity. I started to alchemize pain into insight, emotion into movement, stillness into art. That’s when I realized: creativity is the heart of solitude. To me, creativity is the epitome of what solitude is meant for. It’s the result of inner transmutation. It’s how I release, how I reclaim. It’s a natural state, a magnetic force that calls us back when the distractions fall away. In stillness, we remember how to create, not to perform or impress, but to connect with life itself.

As a child, fun meant pure creation, letting my imagination wander without bounds. But as I grew older, that imagination began exploring darker corners, and I grew afraid of it. I placed limits on myself. I shifted toward physical, external fun: romance, sex, travel, highs. And yet, I couldn’t find joy just within. Now, I’m circling back to that child. I’ve returned to fun as something quiet and internal, more subtle, but no less magical.

Which brings me to this moment, writing on a soft sofa in California, jazz playing in the background, the fire crackling in front of me. I’ve spent the week mostly alone. And while yes, I scrolled mindlessly at times, I also leaned into the discomfort of my own presence. I let thoughts rise, I looked out at the horizon, I wrote and wrote and wrote, integrating everything I carried from Verbier and beyond. I believe life is cyclical. Doing, moving, experiencing are essential. But so is sitting, resting, absorbing. And solitude gives us access to that slower rhythm.

When I choose to distance myself from the action, from the chaos, the adrenaline, the pulse of life, I retreat into stillness. And there, I finally hear what’s been waiting to speak. When I arrived in California, I resisted again. I chased stimulation. It took me days, weeks, but I made it through. I found stillness. I found serenity. Just like the fire of chaos and the air of momentum bring excitement and drive, they can also burn and scatter. The weight of earth and the pull of water slow us down, sometimes uncomfortably, but they ground and heal. One stirs things up. The other brings us back.

I need all of them to feel balanced and whole. And I believe we all do.

With love, Loune.