Sam Harris said it well, "We spend our entire life seeking out pleasure and avoiding pain." In my opinion if you are going into solitude for avoiding pain - the pain will continue. Like others here have posted: your heart (emotions, thoughts, etc) follow you.

There is a show on Youtube by BBC _Extreme Pilgrim_ that is pretty good first hand documentation of solitude in 3 different traditions or flavors. Think the guy spends 3 weeks in each location in solitude.

I believe if I were to start this sort of exercise I would attend some sort of Vipassana retreat. This way I would have some framework for managing thought. I could not imagine going out into nature and having mind relentlessly "work its way through things".