After loss and major life transitions, Christy Pruitt-Haynes shares how solo dating helped her rebuild confidence, rediscover what she enjoys, and learn to be alone without losing connection to others.

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For much of her life, Christy Pruitt-Haynes moved through the world in close connection with others. Her time, energy, and sense of enjoyment were shaped by relationships. Family, friendships, and shared experiences that gave her life structure and meaning.

Over a relatively short period, that structure shifted. The loss of her best friend, a divorce, and her daughter leaving for college all changed how those relationships showed up in her day-to-day life. What remained was a quieter, more open space than she had been used to.

In this conversation, Christy shares how that transition led her to solo dating. It started as a way to better understand her own preferences, interests, and sense of self outside of anyone else.

We explore what it means to spend time alone without distraction, how fear and social conditioning shape the way people experience solitude, and why learning what you enjoy on your own can change how you show up in every other area of your life.

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How Relationships Shape Our Experience of Being Human

Brandi Fleck: All right, Christy, I ask everyone who comes on the show, what does being human mean to you?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: It’s such an interesting question, and one that I don’t know that I’ve thought about extensively before. But I think for me, being human is all about the connections that we make. I think for me, the importance of being human is about the other humans that you connect to, the relationships that you have, the way you learn about both yourself and others when you engage with other people.

When I think about the thing that is probably most important to me in life, it is those relationships. So for me, a lot of being human comes down to how I’m able to engage with others, who I get to engage with, and the quality of those connections.

Brandi Fleck: I love that, and it totally makes sense based on what we’re going to talk about today. That’s exciting. I’m excited to see how it all connects together.

All right, everybody, today we are welcoming Christy Pruitt-Haynes to Human Amplified. Christy, welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you here. Honestly, it’s awesome to finally get to do this with you.

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Thank you. I know we’ve talked about it before, so I’m glad the timing finally aligned perfectly. I’m thrilled to be here.

Brandi Fleck: Before we jump in, can you just tell our listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Absolutely. My name is Christy. I’m a native Nashvillian, which I feel like there aren’t many of us anymore. The way I like to describe myself. First, I’m a mom and an aunt. That’s the part of my life that will always mean the most to me.

Then professionally, I am a consultant and speaker. I work with companies all over the world on their HR practices, diversity strategy, and things of that nature. The thing that I love professionally most is speaking. Put me in front of an audience and I am in my happy place.

I speak on a number of topics, including talent and development, diversity strategy, parenting, and most recently, a lot about transforming your life. What that looks like, why we all need to do it at different times, and some ways to do it that feel really authentic to you.

When Life Changes Overnight (Rebuilding After Loss, Divorce, and an Empty Nest)

Brandi Fleck: I love that. And you’re actually sort of transforming your life right now. Is that true?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: It is. I realized a few years ago that it was time to, I don’t know if I want to call it reinvent myself, redefine myself, or maybe just discover who I am at this phase in life. It’s been a ride. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s been a lot of hard work, if I’m honest, but I am enjoying every minute of it.

Brandi Fleck: As part of that transformation, you’ve been doing this thing called solo dating. I’ve been following all your videos on social media, and it’s looked really awesome, really fun. Can you tell us what it’s all about?

Black woman wearing a white shirt dress with a black belt and black thigh high boots stands outside, smiles and looks to the side

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Absolutely. I am a huge extrovert. I’m one of those people that, honestly, I’d probably go to the bathroom with the door open if it were socially acceptable, just so I could still talk to people.

So I realized that everything I did in life was connected to someone else. Then a few years ago, the people that I was most connected to started leaving. Their lives were changing, and I found myself in this really weird place of not having my person, not having the people that I had been doing life with previously.

In a matter of about 18 months, my absolute best friend in the entire world died. It destroyed my world, to be honest. It turned everything upside down. I didn’t know how I was going to move forward, and I didn’t know who I was going to do life with. He was the person I traveled with most, the person I told everything to, and in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

During that same time period, I went through a divorce. Something that my now ex-husband and I had been thinking about for a long time. We realized it was the best time to do it. I will tell anybody, he is a great person. He is just not great for me, and I think vice versa. I’m honestly really thankful we got to that point. We’re good friends now, but we knew we needed to make that change.

At the same time, my daughter left for college. Again, a happy event, but for anyone who’s a parent, you’ve devoted almost two decades of your life to this little person, to raising them. Everything that you did in your life, the way I prioritized my time, was all about her. Between the soccer field or a chorus room, that’s what I had been doing for almost 20 years.

At the same time, my niece, who is like my other baby, who played just as big of a role in my life, moved about four hours away. Again, for a great reason—she’s having a wonderful career and I’m thrilled for her. But all of the people that I was most connected to in different ways and for different reasons were gone.

So I looked around one day and realized I have to figure out what it is I want to do with this next phase of my life. To be honest, my solo dating came out of a bit of necessity. I didn’t have some of the people that I’d done things with. I still have wonderful friends here. I still have phenomenal people in my life that I do a lot of things with, but I really saw this as an opportunity to discover who I was when I was sitting by myself quietly, and I realized the last time I was really doing life on my own was two decades ago. The things that I enjoyed doing in my 20s, I didn’t necessarily want to relive in my late 40s.

So I started solo dating, meaning I was going to do different activities by myself, to show up places, all different things, new things that I had never done before. Because I like a bit of structure, I did it with ABC solo dating, meaning each activity that I do has to start with a different letter of the alphabet, and it has to be something I haven’t done.

I wanted to try new things. I wanted to experience things I’d never done or thought about doing before. And I wanted to do them by myself because I realized so often when I talked about things I enjoyed, it was in relation to others. I liked going to the movies with my ex-husband, or I liked going to wine bars with my friends, but a lot of that was about the conversations we were having, not how the activities actually made me feel.

So it was a quest to discover who I am outside of the relationships that matter most. I would love to say it’s been easy, it hasn’t always, but it has 100% been worth it, and I’m so looking forward to getting through the rest of the alphabet.

Brandi Fleck: What letter are you on right now?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: I am up to G. My next activity, I’m going back and forth, it’s either going to be glass blowing or glamping. I haven’t decided yet. I’m thinking glass blowing because, if I’m honest, I’m a little scared to go camping by myself. So I’m thinking glass blowing. It’s something that I think is just this beautiful art that seems really cool to try, and I found a couple of places here in the city that do that. So sometime soon there should be a new candy dish or bowl or something that I’m going to create.

Trying New Things Alone to Figure Out What You Actually Enjoy

Brandi Fleck: That sounds really fun. You’ve mentioned a lot of huge changes in your life that sort of started this quest. I’m just going to dive right in and ask you. What kind of emotions did you have to deal with in order to go on this quest? Can you give us a little information about how it connected to those transitions, if that’s possible?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Absolutely. First, I will preface this by saying I highly encourage everyone to do solo dating, and in an ideal world, do it before your life turns upside down. I think that makes it a little bit easier and a lot more fun.

For me, it was a moment where everything was in this point of transition. I had to figure out how I was going to move forward, how I was going to redefine this next chapter of my life, and I wanted to do it with a lot of intention and a lot of purpose. I needed to find joy, because so many of the things that had brought me joy previously were just gone for different reasons, or I shouldn’t always say gone, but they were very much transformed.

So for me, I needed to find things that I enjoyed and that I could enjoy by myself. One thing that I realized from all of those exits that I had in my life. The only person you are guaranteed to spend the rest of your life with is you. Children move, spouses sometimes come and go, friendships ebb and flow and change over time. For a number of reasons, people are constantly entering and exiting your life, but the only person that you know will be there literally at the very end is yourself.

Yet oftentimes, that’s a relationship we spend the least amount of time developing and nurturing and understanding. So I felt like I really needed to focus on who I am and what I enjoy and how I can enjoy things when it’s just me.

It came from a point of necessity, but I think the lesson that hopefully other people get from this is. Even if you don’t have all of this transition, even if you don’t see a lot of these entrances and exits in your life at the moment, the truth is things can change at any moment. The only person who you know is going to be there at the end is you. So get to know yourself, learn to love yourself, learn to appreciate who you are, because it makes all of your other relationships that much better and that much stronger.

I think the more self-aware we are about who we are and what we enjoy, the happier we are and the better we can show up for the other people who matter.

Brandi Fleck: That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. And yeah, as an extrovert, having to get into this state of being alone. I guess I say that, but you’re still with people, you’re just solo dating. What was the biggest emotion that you had to deal with to make that happen?

The Fear of Doing Things Alone and Walking Through It

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Fear. For me, initially, the biggest emotion was fear. That was a very foreign emotion for me because I am typically extremely confident. I always say God kind of double dipped me in the confidence bucket. I’ve always been one of those people who felt like I can do whatever, I can figure it out, it’ll all be great, I’m resourceful.

But what I realized is a lot of that confidence was fed by the people around me. So when I showed up for my first date. My first one was afternoon tea, the British-style tea with the fancy teapots and all the little cakes. When I got there, I was really excited to try it, but I stood outside the building for probably 10 minutes before I could even bring myself to go in.

What I kept thinking was, what am I going to do for these next couple of hours? Who am I going to talk to? When something tastes really good, who am I going to share that with?

I realized in that moment, so much of the enjoyment I get out of different activities was sharing it with other people, talking about it, laughing about it. So the idea of having to sit and be quiet with my own thoughts. I couldn’t run from myself. I couldn’t run from all of the things that are constantly in my mind. It paralyzed me for a second. I was legitimately scared.

But I told myself, at the end of the day, at any point you can get up and leave. At any point, you can walk out of here. You can go back home whenever you need to. Knowing that this is something I’m only committed to being here for as long as I’m comfortable made me feel a little more comfortable and gave me the push I needed to go through the door.

Once I went in, everyone was so wonderful and kind. I realized I can sit here quietly with my thoughts. I can just enjoy the tea that I’m drinking, the food that I was eating, or just the environment that I was in, and enjoy it just for myself.

It really gave me a moment to unpack why I was so scared in the first place and look for some of the benefits that I could get out of doing things by myself. It gave me a lot of freedom and flexibility that I didn’t have before.

Before, I was almost handcuffed to, “I can only do this if I have someone else who wants to do it with me.” There were activities that I wanted to do previously that I just didn’t do because I didn’t have a person to do them with. Suddenly, I realized I’m actually free to do whatever I want, whenever I want, even if I don’t have a person to go with me.

So it opened up this whole new world that I had never even realized was there.

Brandi Fleck: I love that, and I can totally relate to not going and doing something because I didn’t have somebody to go do it with. The freedom that I hear you talking about sounds amazing.

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Yes, it really is. I think that’s a situation that so many people are in. The other thing that I try to do is, when I am out on one of my solo dates, I put my phone down. I take pictures and some videos while I’m doing it because I am chronicling my journey, but I think most people’s default when they are out by themselves. Even if you’re just on an airplane or wherever you find yourself alone, is to bury ourselves in our phone and go through social media or catch up on emails or text other people.

So I force myself to put my phone down so I can actually experience that time and that moment. It really makes me appreciate it in a whole other way and gives me so much more freedom than I ever felt like I had before.

Brandi Fleck: When you did get into that tea room and you were there with your thoughts, what happened?

Black woman wearing red glasses, silver hoop earrings, and denim shirt holds up tea cup in her hand

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: My first thought was, I can’t believe I am here by myself. My next thought was, wow, my sister would really enjoy this. I have to come back with her.

But then I made myself focus on looking around and observing the environment and seeing what other people were doing. I had a lot of fun people-watching. I’ve always enjoyed being a spectator in other people’s lives, so I got to do that.

Then for a while, I just thought about, this tea is really good. Maybe I’ll buy some. Or what other teas might I like, focusing on the way the flavors combined with the tea I was drinking and the snacks I was eating.

Then I started thinking about what are some other things that I want to do, what are other things that I have either put off or not tried because I didn’t have somebody to do them with. It gave me a chance to get excited about this whole process because after about 30 or 45 minutes, once I relaxed a little bit, I realized I’m okay. I can do this. I can sit somewhere quietly by myself and I’m not going to fall apart, and nobody is looking at me like I’m crazy.

Relaxing into the experience was so priceless. It really helped get me excited about other things I wanted to do.

Brandi Fleck: The word “present” just keeps coming up for me when you’re talking. You were literally present in the moment, experiencing your senses, reconnecting to your body and your thoughts. It’s beautiful.

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: It is, and we don’t do that enough. Even when we’re doing things that we enjoy, oftentimes we’re thinking about the future, “I want to come back with this person,” or “Why haven’t I done this before?” or “When I leave here, I need to make sure I do this.”

We’re making all of those mental to-do lists. I try as much as I can to suspend those thoughts and really focus on what am I experiencing. Do I like this or not? Because that’s been part of it, there has been one activity that I just didn’t like. It wasn’t my thing, but I still did it and experienced it.

I don’t know that I would have really understood what I did and didn’t like if I didn’t pay attention to how I was feeling in the moment. We’re always on the go, always living life in a fast-forward mode.

I really wanted to take the time and be present and observe what am I thinking, what am I feeling, do I like this, do I not like it?

Is this something I want to do again? Is this something I want to do with others? And pay attention to those moments and pay attention to those feelings while I’m having them, because I think only then can I really learn more about me, learn more about what matters most to me, and take in some of the lessons that I’ve learned along the way.

Brandi Fleck: Yeah, and I wasn’t planning on asking you this, but I have to ask you now because you brought up what you did like and what you didn’t like and how you were paying attention to that. So many people don’t pay attention to what they like, or they discount it like it’s not important just because it’s a preference, or they like it.

What have you learned, or what do you know about the importance of following your preference?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: So often we feel guilty when we do things that we do just for pure enjoyment’s sake. I think so many of us have been conditioned, and I will say I think more times it’s women than men, it can happen with anybody. But I think particularly women, we have been raised, we’ve been taught to think of others first.

By no means am I saying go out and be selfish all of the time, but there is something to the whole idea of sometimes we have to put our own oxygen mask on first before we put it on others, and that actually better equips us to engage with others and take care of others.

But we can’t do that unless we pay attention to what we actually enjoy. What I’ve learned throughout this process is for the last two decades of my life, it was oftentimes about what does my husband like, what does he need, what does my daughter like, where is her next practice, where do I need to show up for her? Oh, I should go and be a room parent. No, I don’t really enjoy it, but it’s a great way to show up for her, so I’m going to do it.

We do these things that matter so much to other people that at some point I realized I don’t know what matters most to me. So I’ve really taken the time to focus on that and pay attention to that and to absolve myself of any level of guilt for doing things that I enjoy solely for the point of enjoyment.

There doesn’t have to be a purpose. This isn’t about making money or changing the world or whatever else. It’s just about this is an activity, this is a moment that makes me smile, and I like smiling, so I’m going to do it more.

I’ve really had a chance to take stock of what matters and what I enjoy, and again, I think doing it by myself has given me the ability to know this is something I enjoy for me. I’m not enjoying it because I see how it makes other people happy.

There are still things that I like to do just because, oh, this is going to make my niece smile or this is going to make my friends have a great time. That still matters, but now I’m developing a list of things that when I feel sad, when I need to pick myself up, I have this list of things that I know I like and I know I can just go do at any point simply to make me smile.

I think we all need that. We all need an understanding of what enjoyment feels like just for us and what we can do to recreate that when we need it.

Letting Go of Guilt and Choosing Joy for Yourself

Brandi Fleck: What did you do to absolve yourself of the guilt?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Great question. I think I just repeatedly told myself this is okay. People get the right to be happy, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

In the beginning, I really had to think of it as how can I make myself the best version of me so I can be really good for other people. So in the beginning, it was still in some ways connected to others.

I know I am a better mom, I know I’m a better daughter, a better sister, a better friend when I’m happy. So that was the beginning of it. I first had to look at it through the lens of others, but then I realized we only have one life. It is incredibly short. You blink and you miss it, and we all have the right, we all have the privilege of enjoying it.

I think so often we get caught up in if I’m doing things just for me, that’s selfish. I could be giving back, and that’s absolutely true, but I think I realized life is all about balance. It isn’t about always being in service to others 100% of the time.

I also have the ability and the obligation to be in service to myself and to make sure that I am showing up as a whole and fully functioning and fully happy individual. In order to do that, I have to figure out what are the things that make me happy, what are the things that I enjoy.

I really had to focus on what’s the whole point of being here. Absolutely, part of it is about taking care of others, but that’s not the whole thing. Everything is about balance, and I needed to find that balance.

For me, the balance is sometimes it’s stuff that’s just for me, sometimes it’s stuff that’s just for others, sometimes there’s a combination. Prior to this, I was very unbalanced. Everything was for someone else or with someone else, and I needed to restore a bit of that balance to my life.

Brandi Fleck: It sounds like, I don’t know if it was giving yourself the permission, but just knowing that it is okay to do things for ourselves helped absolve that guilt a little bit.

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Absolutely. And I will say I have always felt like guilt is the most wasted emotion that exists because it keeps us stuck. It doesn’t propel us to action. It just makes us regret things.

The truth is, regret and guilt don’t change what you’ve done. They just make you feel bad about it. So at some point, you just have to give yourself permission to do things you enjoy. You have to absolve yourself of feeling that guilt.

If you realize, you know what, I made a decision that wasn’t ideal. It either wasn’t good for me or it wasn’t good for someone else, then you acknowledge that, say all right, it wasn’t my best choice, this wasn’t my best moment, what can I learn from it, and then you move on.

To wallow in that guilt, for whatever reason that it’s there, it just keeps you stuck. The goal should always be to learn and then apply those lessons, but you can only apply them in your next step, in your moving forward. Guilt tends to keep you stagnant and tends to keep you in a backwards focus.

I always wanted to focus on what’s next. Let’s focus on forward, and you can’t do that when you’re weighed down with a lot of guilt or regret or “I wish I would have,” “I should have,” that kind of thing.

So part of it was reminding myself that the life I want to live is about moving ahead, and when I do have these moments of opportunities to learn, let’s take the lesson, let’s apply it next time, and keep moving along.

Four drag queens pose on stage with Black woman wearing a leather jacket, jeans, and Converse sneakers

Brandi Fleck: I love that you mentioned the life that you want to live because that still acknowledges that it’s okay to do the things that you want to do.

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Yes, it’s about that intention. So often we just find ourselves in situations. We accept the job, we accept the relationship, and at some point you look up and realize this is not the life I would have created had I been intentional. This is just where I ended up in this moment.

I didn’t want to do that anymore. I didn’t want to just end up somewhere. I wanted to have a plan. I wanted to know what is the X on the treasure map, if you will, that I’m working toward, and what’s the path I’m going to take to get there.

I didn’t want to float along allowing things to happen to me. I wanted to really be the captain of this. I wanted to be the person making those decisions, and that requires a level of intention that I think often we don’t apply to our lives.

That’s what I wanted to do for this next phase of my life.

Brandi Fleck: You can make the decisions. You get to make the decisions.

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Yes, absolutely. It’s up to us. It’s up to each of us, and I think the sooner we realize that and the sooner we set out on discovering who we are and what we enjoy, the better life we’re going to have.

Brandi Fleck: You’ve sort of alluded to this a little bit, but why do you think so many people actually struggle with being alone?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: I think it’s a scary place because there are no distractions from the thoughts. Both the good ones and the bad ones, that are floating through your mind. That can be scary. Also, you feel really vulnerable. There’s nobody there. If someone approaches you that you don’t want to talk to, there’s nobody there to distract you, or if for any reason you find yourself in a situation that you don’t want to be in, you don’t have another person to help you navigate out of it.

So there’s a sense of vulnerability. I think oftentimes when we see people who are just out by themselves, society has almost conditioned us to pity them. Like, oh, this poor person, they don’t have friends. It takes us back to the moment in the cafeteria when we were kids and you saw somebody eating alone. Your first thought was, oh, I feel so bad for them, this is such a sad moment. And it might be, but also it could be a choice.

So I think first I had to move past the stigma that’s attached to being alone. I think a lot of people have that. It’s just programmed in us, being alone means there’s something wrong with you, it means nobody else found you worthy of their company. But that’s not the only way to spin it.

Being alone can truly just be a choice. It can be a moment to sit with your thoughts. It can be a moment to reflect on what you want to do next. So I think a lot of people are scared of the quiet. They’re scared of that vulnerability, and we have to take a moment and look at what are the positives that can come out of this.

What can I do when I’m by myself that I can’t do when I’m in a group? For me, one of the things is when I’m alone, I can be incredibly nimble. If I want to suddenly leave a situation, I can just get up and go. I don’t have to check with everyone else. I don’t have to wait for someone else to finish their meal or decide they’re ready. I can just make that decision and then action it.

The more people that you’re around, the more schedules you have to check and align with, and that can get cumbersome. So it gives me the ability to really be flexible. Even when I go into one of my solo dates with a plan, I can get halfway through and say, you know what, I want to do something a little different. I hadn’t planned on adding this to part of it, but now I want to do that.

When I’m by myself, I can easily make those adjustments in the moment. So for me, and I think for a lot of people, you have to look for what’s the silver lining in this. What are the upsides that I can get when I’m by myself that I can’t necessarily get with a group? Then lean into those positives to help overcome the vulnerability and the anxiety and all of those things.

The Freedom That Comes From Doing Things Alone

Brandi Fleck: Yes, absolutely. And I know that you’re not even halfway through the alphabet yet, but what has this done for your sense of self-concept and identity?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: I can’t wait to see when I get to Z and I look back on the full year. I’m so excited about that. But even up until this point, it’s actually added to my confidence.

I said earlier I’ve always been a pretty confident person, but there’s a difference in being confident when other people are telling you you’re doing great versus being confident when you can just stand on your own. It gives you the ability to know that you can face and navigate the world no matter what comes your way, and that is a peace of mind that is priceless.

So it’s given me this peace of mind that no matter what changes come, no matter who enters or exits my life, I’m going to be okay. It may not always be my first choice, but I know I can do it, and I know I can survive it. Beyond just surviving, I know I can still thrive no matter what happens. That’s a peace of mind that is priceless.

I think the other thing that it’s really taught me already is this sense of freedom and flexibility of being able to move and navigate the way I want to. With each activity that I’ve done, I’ve learned something new about myself.

For example, when I did bourbon blending, which has probably been my favorite one so far, because I was already a bourbon drinker, but being able to create my own custom blend gave me this sense of, oh, I can be an artist in this moment. That’s something I’ve never thought of myself as, someone who can create things.

To have this creation that is unique to me and special to me, and to be able to share that with others and talk about that experience, really says I don’t have to be this precision person all the time. I can be creative and find joy in that.

Then when I did my flower arranging, which if I’m honest is the activity I enjoyed the least so far.

Brandi Fleck: Okay.

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Yes, that was not my thing. I don’t know that I’ll ever do it again. But even in that, I’ve learned patience. I will tell anybody, I’ve never been a patient person.

Part of why I didn’t like the flower arranging was as I was going through it and I kept looking at it, I was like, this arrangement looks droopy and it looks sad. I don’t want to take sad flowers home. But later that night, once I did get home and they’d been in the water for a while, they started perking up and they were beautiful, and their color seemed more vibrant.

So it was this analogy of life, that sometimes you’re not going to look your best, everything isn’t going to come together at the exact moment that you wish it would, but give it a bit of time and space and energy, and things will perk up and things will turn around.

It was this analogy on patience that I don’t know that I would have gotten from other activities. Literally, when I’m in the middle of flower arranging, I’m texting people like, this was not for me, why did I do this, you should have talked me out of this. But by the time I got home and looked at them again that evening, I was like, oh, I did create something beautiful, and I can still enjoy this.

I just have to remind myself to stick to the process and keep moving ahead. I think so often in life that’s a lesson we need, and I got it from arranging flowers, the most random kind of activity.

So I’ve really enjoyed the takeaways from each activity and each date that I’ve done. Like you said, I’m only up to G, so who knows what I’m going to learn by the time I wrap the alphabet up.

Brandi Fleck: It’s funny that you brought up being a creator and getting to create with that bourbon blending, because the entire time you’ve been talking about this, I’ve been thinking about how you’re literally creating experiences. You’re creating, this whole process is creative.

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: I feel like it is. Even in coming up with the activities that I want to do, in the beginning that was a bit of a struggle because I really wanted each letter to be something I’ve never done before, and I feel like I’ve lived a pretty full life.

So I am being incredibly intentional about creating new and unique experiences and curating the way I want it to feel while I’m there. It’s funny, for someone who never really thought of themselves as creative, I’ve never thought of myself as someone who creates things, but now I’m doing that.

I’m doing it very intentionally, and I know I’m going to be doing it for the rest of the year. As I go through it, I’m learning something with each and every letter.

Brandi Fleck: It’s also interesting that you brought up structure in the beginning and that’s why you chose the ABC.

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Yes. I do feel like that’s a valid point. That when you are creating, structure can give you the boundaries to create within so that you don’t get paralyzed and you’re not like, oh, I could do this or that, how do I choose?

You’ve got this sort of guideline for yourself, and that’s what I needed. Sometimes we need some guardrails to get us started, because if not, I think if someone were to say, okay, what do you want to do tomorrow, when literally there are no boundaries. If time and money weren’t an option, what would you want to do?

For a lot of people, myself included, that becomes a paralyzing thought because the more options you have, the harder it is to pick one. So for me, having the alphabet is sort of this guide of, well, I know I need to come up with something that starts with a G. It gave me a starting point and limited the number of choices, which makes it much easier to then pick something to do.

If not, I’d probably still be sitting here trying to figure out what I want to try because there would have been this endless array of possibilities. So this is really helping to give me those guardrails, to give me a bit of direction, which I really appreciate.

It’s made the selection process that much easier, and also it’s forced me to be a little creative, because for some of the letters like Q, there aren’t a whole lot of things that start with Q. So I’ve had to think outside of the box and exercise that creative muscle that we don’t always use.

It’s given me guardrails, but it’s also forced me to think outside the box at the same time.

Brandi Fleck: Just out of curiosity, do you have all of the letters already mapped out, or is it do it as you go?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: It’s pretty much do it as I go. There are a few things that I know I want to do. For example, for T, I want to take a tap dancing class, and I haven’t found one yet, so I’m still looking. Tap is one of those things that I’ve always thought was just this beautiful art form.

So there are a few things that I know for sure. I know for H, I want to take a helicopter ride. I’m a little afraid of heights, so I want to push myself. I know for I, I want to go indoor skydiving.

So there are a few letters that I have mapped out, but then there are some that I haven’t thought about yet. I’ll see what inspiration hits as I get to that point in the alphabet.

Brandi Fleck: We’ve got a little bit more time here, so I would love to ask you. How do you trust the process?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: That’s hard, especially for someone who likes structure. I typically like to begin with the end in mind, meaning I like to know what am I working toward, and that requires more structure than this process currently has.

Ideally, the stereotypical Christy would love to have all of the alphabet completely planned out. I would want to know exactly what date I’m doing everything, how much it’s going to cost. I would love all the details right now, so I had to give myself permission to go with the flow and be flexible and to know it’s okay to not have a right answer in mind.

That’s another thing about the flower arranging that was really difficult for me, because there wasn’t a right answer of what this arrangement should look like. That’s what I wanted. I wanted the instructor to just say, when you’re finished your flower should look like this, and there wasn’t that.

So I had to trust that however it comes out is how it’s supposed to come out, which again I think is a great life lesson, because we don’t always know how things are going to end, but we need a bit of optimism that as we go through the process, things will fall into place the way they need to, and it’s all going to be okay no matter what.

So again, I think this whole process is reminding me of that as I go through it, to just trust that whatever happens is okay. If I get into a date that I don’t like, I can leave, and if I get into a date that I absolutely love, I can repeat it the next day if I want to.

It’s really reminding me to look for the silver lining in things, to be optimistic about it, but to also know that however things go, I can recreate it. If I get halfway through and I’m like, you know what, I don’t like this anymore, I can stop. Nothing is forcing me to do this.

So I think it’s a wonderful lesson in we have the opportunity to redefine and create who we are each and every day. So many people put a lot of emphasis on things like New Year’s Eve or your birthday because you see that as this fresh start, but what this whole process is helping me to remember is if I don’t like who Christy is at 1:27 p.m., I can change her at 1:28 p.m.

I don’t have to wait for this big moment. We constantly get to make choices, and again I think it’s about the intention of it. If I do something that I don’t like or if I end up with a result I’m not happy with or proud of, I can just change it.

Very few things are permanent, and so often we approach life and we approach jobs and relationships and everything as if they are permanent, and very few things are. Short of death, we can change things.

I think this is really reminding me that I can constantly recreate. I am not restricted to just being a mom, just being an aunt, just being a wife, just being an employee. I can change the nature of those connections. I can change the nature of how I spend my time at any point.

I think knowing that helps me trust the ebbs and flows that are going to come with life.

Building Identity Through Solo Experiences

Brandi Fleck: Okay, that makes a lot of sense. I want to ask you, what does it feel like being alone with yourself now? I know earlier you said you have more confidence since you’ve gone through part of this process. Is there anything else?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Yeah, I think the other thing that I now know is I am capable of rising above. I am capable of thriving through whatever life throws at me.

There was a time where I wasn’t sure of that. Initially, I honestly thought losing my best friend was going to destroy me. I felt like I had to make myself breathe, when normally that’s something you do on autopilot. I felt like I had to be very intentional just to remember, take air in, let it out.

I honestly didn’t think I was going to survive that. I was convinced at any point I was just going to go to sleep and that was going to be it. I didn’t know how I could even make it to the next day.

But now I have this newfound, it’s both confidence, but it’s also this sense of resilience. That I can survive things, I can thrive through things, I can do really, really hard things, and I can sit through moments that aren’t necessarily the most comfortable.

I can come out on the other side and still find some upsides. I can still find some lessons that I can either apply to my own life or share with other people.

So while I was already confident in a lot of ways, I now have the complete knowledge. I think it’s one thing to think something, it’s another thing to know it, and going through this process has helped to solidify that.

I know I can do whatever. I can survive whatever life throws at me, and again, it’s a peace of mind that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

I will knock on wood. I hope I don’t have to use this skill all the time. Hopefully the difficult parts are behind me, but if they aren’t, and we never know what’s coming around the corner, I do know that whatever it is, I’ll still get up the next day and my heart will still beat and the sun will still rise.

Going through all of this and getting really comfortable with just me has really helped to solidify that lesson.

Brandi Fleck: Good. And you’re able to find joy. I think that’s a really important example that you’re sharing with our listeners, that after the loss of your best friend, divorce, your daughter and niece moving away, you’re finding joy.

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Yes. And I had to get comfortable finding joy, which sounds weird to say.

So often, I think when people lose someone who really matters to them or they go through a divorce or something like that, we feel guilty about enjoying life. It’s like, well, Marcus. My best friend. Marcus isn’t smiling, so I feel like I shouldn’t.

Or I’ve gone through this divorce, and people expect you after you go through a divorce to be this downtrodden shadow of yourself, and I’m not that. And that’s okay. That’s actually how it should be.

We don’t have to stay stuck in our sadness, and we don’t have to stay stuck in this sense of grief. It is still very much there. I will say grief does not go away, it just gets smaller. You learn to live with a hole in your heart, and you learn to reinvent who you are around that.

But I had to give myself permission to laugh. Especially after losing my friend, if I went and did something that we would have done together, it felt almost like this betrayal, how dare I enjoy this when he can’t.

I had to move past that, and going through solo dating has helped me do that a lot. It’s helped me find pleasure in things that I would have normally found pleasure in with other people.

So it’s reminded me that it’s okay to smile, it is okay to find joy, it’s okay to be happy. That’s how life is supposed to be. We shouldn’t get stuck in any one moment or any one emotion.

No one event in our life should define the rest of our lives. All of us are a collection of “ands.” So yes, this happened to me, yes, I got divorced, yes, my daughter and my niece moved, yes, my best friend passed away, and I am still here, and I am still allowed to smile.

…and I am still thriving and existing and growing and developing. So all of this has really taught me to embrace the “and,” when I think often we look at ourselves as “or.” I am either happy or sad, and you can be both. There are days when I am both. I am still sad that Marcus isn’t doing this stuff with me, but I can still find joy in those moments. So it’s really helped remind me to embrace the “and” instead of leaning into the “or.”

Brandi Fleck: Gotcha. And how do you let go?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: I don’t think you do. What I often say, and I think this lesson I really got from my daughter moving away and going to college. You never let go, you just change your grip.

I’m not holding on to her in the same way, but she is still very much a part of every day of my life. I’m no longer the first person she sees when she wakes up, I’m no longer the last conversation she has at night, but I’m still very much a part of her life.

So I don’t think you let go, you just change your grip. The same is true for grief. I will never let go of the fact that Marcus isn’t with me every day. I will never let go of the fact that he is not doing life with me, but I’ve changed my grip on that grief.

It no longer consumes my day. There are still moments where it pops up in a really big way. I acknowledge that, I take a moment, and if I need to get in the bed and cry for a little bit, that’s what I do, but then I move on. I don’t have to stay stuck in that.

So I don’t know that we really let go. I had to change my grip on what I thought my life would look like going forward. I thought I would be married forever, and maybe I’ll get married again, maybe I won’t, I don’t know, but I had to change the grip on what I thought my future looked like.

It doesn’t mean I let go of what I hope for. It just means that I don’t feel like I’m a prisoner to it. I don’t feel so bound to it that if that doesn’t happen, that means my life is unsuccessful.

So it’s about still having a goal, still having a dream and a vision, but not holding on to it so tightly that anything other than that feels like failure. So for me, I don’t think of it as letting things go. I just change my grip with it.

Brandi Fleck: That makes a lot of sense, and I think that’s a really good lesson there. Christy, I appreciate everything you’ve shared today. I feel like it’s really special and important. I just want to ask you before we close up, is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you think is important to share?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Great question. I love a good closing question.

I think we’ve talked about a lot, we’ve touched on a lot. I think the only other thing I would love for people to really keep in mind is you are the author of your life.

I think so often, especially as kids, we are brought up to live up to the expectations of our parents, and we need to live up to the expectations of our teachers, we need to live up to the expectations of our spouse or our friends or whomever else, or our employer.

All of those are important, but we don’t often prioritize living up to our own expectations and really embracing the idea that we get to create this life that we’re living. We are the author of our life.

So while what other people want you to do is important, that should not be your final decision-maker. It really is about creating who you are, creating the connections and the moments that really matter, and allowing that to lead you.

As opposed to using, well, my mom wants me to do this and my husband wants me to do that and my daughter wants me to do that, we very rarely ask ourselves what is it that we want.

I think when we do, and when we allow that to lead us, it gives us the ability to be this whole, fully functioning, authentic version of ourselves. It’s in that moment that we can really show up for the other people who matter, because we’re not spending time masking what we want and covering up who we are.

We can use all of that energy to really embrace the relationships that mean the most. So my parting thought would be: be the creator, be the author of your own life.

Brandi Fleck: I love it. And where can our listeners find you and your work?

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: I am across all social media platforms at Christy Pruitt-Haynes, and then you can also look at my website, which is in the process of being revamped, and the new one will be ready soon, but christypruitthaynes.com.

You can find me there. I am chronicling all of my solo dates both on Instagram and TikTok, so you can see all of the videos, you can see other interviews that I’ve had about it, and hopefully other people will join along with it.

I’m also in the process of creating a solo dating journal so other people can do this and chronicle what they learn and how they feel and how they select what activities to do. So I hope to have that finished, my sister and I are actually creating it together, in the next couple of weeks.

Whenever that is done, Brandi, I will absolutely let you know how folks can get a hold of that. But I think this is an important thing for people to think about and to try. Like I said, ideally do it before your life turns upside down. Do it before you experience a lot of loss.

The sooner you are able to really discover who you are and embrace all of those aspects of yourself, I think the better your life will be.

Brandi Fleck: Wonderful. So guys, all of that will be in the show notes for you to go check out. Christy, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Christy Pruitt-Haynes: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a great conversation.

Brandi Fleck: Thanks for tuning in. Check out more of our episodes here and at humanamplified.com. Remember to subscribe.