When I am alone, do I enjoy the company?

Kim Levings
Jun 10
5 min read

Knowing yourself, showing up well, and choosing to grow.

I didn't plan for a week alone in the African bush; it happened incidentally, but when I faced a week of solitude at Ngwenya Lodge — on the edge of the Kruger National Park in South Africa — I decided to lean into it rather than feel disappointed.

The first day, I detoxed from the voices of others. The expectations (explicit or imagined), the input, and the noise of the past year of disruption and change. The second day, I turned on myself — confronting my own internal critic, the self-imposed standards that had quietly taken up residence in my chest without ever being invited. By the third day, something shifted. The voices became whispers. The whispers became silence. And in that silence, I drew closer to God — and, perhaps more surprisingly, closer to myself.

It reminded me of how I feel in deep prayer: fully present, unhurried, and entirely enough. Jesus doesn't place demands on me. He simply loves me — in this moment, as I am. That kind of unconditional presence has a way of loosening what the world has tightened.

Most of us don't get a week in the bush (although I highly recommend getaway retreats!) - but we all carry the weight of expectations — from others, from ourselves — that quietly shape how we see ourselves and how we move through the world. Today, I want to walk through three questions that I believe sit at the heart of healthy self-leadership:

Who am I? How do I show up? And how am I growing?

Part 1: Who Am I?

Here's a truth worth sitting with: who you are today is not who you were a year ago — and even less who you were ten years ago. Yet most of us are still running the same operating system we installed in our youth. We are living today with the operating system of our past. Same reflexes. Same filters. Same defense systems. Same old story about what we're worth and what we're capable of.

Recognizing how you've been reshaped — by experience, by loss, by love, by faith — is a deeper level of self-awareness than most people ever reach. It's not just knowing your strengths and weaknesses. It's being genuinely curious about how you process the world: your inputs, your internal responses, your outward reactions.

A few honest questions to start:

What do I believe to be true about myself — and where did that belief come from?
What expectations am I trying to fulfil, and are they still relevant to who I am now?
Where am I living from my authentic self, and where am I performing for an audience?

Healthy, grounded leaders — and healthy, grounded people — know their core self. Not perfectly. Not completely. But enough to recognize when they've drifted, and enough to find their way back. That self-knowledge is not a destination; it's a practice. And like prayer, it deepens the more you show up for it.

Part 2: How Do I Show Up in the World?

We are not designed for isolation. Every day, we step into spaces that require us to engage with others — with their personalities, their expectations, their needs, and their mess. And here's where things get interesting.

When we arrive at any interaction already decided about how things should go, we set ourselves up for frustration. When reality doesn't match the blueprint in our heads — whether that's a difficult colleague, an unexpected setback, or just a Monday that refuses to cooperate — the gap between expectation and reality breeds anger, and at times, resentment. And anger, if we're honest, is usually rooted somewhere in pride. In the quiet assumption that the world should arrange itself around us.

It won't. It never has.

The most liberating reframe I've found: you don't have to change the world to show up well in it. You just have to choose how you respond. That gap between what happens to you and how you react? That's your power. Don't waste it.

My challenge to you: get curious before you get angry. When someone frustrates you, ask — what is this revealing about me?

When a situation derails you, ask — what expectation was I holding that just got exposed?

Curiosity is not weakness. It's one of the most sophisticated emotional skills a leader can develop.

A few things worth observing in yourself:

Is your default response to new people and situations trusting or skeptical?
Do you walk into a room focused on what you can give, or on what you might receive?
How do the people closest to you say you show up — and are you genuinely open to hearing it?

Two important cautions here. First: don't put on a coat. Molding yourself to fit every room, every person, every expectation is not emotional intelligence — it's self-erasure. Do it long enough and you lose the thread of who you actually are.

Second: don't disengage. Pretending the needs and expectations of others don't matter is its own kind of pride. The people in your life — your family, your team, your community — deserve your presence, not your performance and not your absence.

The sweet spot? Showing up from a place of love rather than obligation or resentment. I've mapped this out in a practical framework that unpacks three distinct responses to others' needs and what makes each one healthy or unhealthy. 👇🏻CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD IT

Part 3: How Am I Growing?

A church I attended in California had a saying I've never forgotten: "Come as you are — but for God's sake, don't stay that way."

It made us chuckle, but it also made us think. Because it captures something true about faith, about leadership, and about being human. Showing up as you are is the starting point, not the finish line. Grace meets you where you are — and then invites you forward.

Every day you engage with the world is an opportunity for you to do it a little better than you did yesterday. Not perfectly. Growth rarely looks like a straight line. But over time, small, consistent choices compound into genuine transformation. That's true whether you're working on your patience, your listening, your self-awareness, or the way you speak to yourself in your own head.

Here's a simple rhythm to practise:

Observe. Watch your own responses without immediately judging them. What pattern do you notice?
Reframe. When you catch a reaction that doesn't serve you or the people around you, ask — what would a better version of me do here?
Practise. Then do that. Imperfectly, repeatedly, faithfully.

The goal isn't to become someone else. It's to become more fully yourself — the self that was always there beneath the noise, the expectations, and the old operating system. The self that, in the quiet, you already know. That's the work. And it's worth it.