I told you that I did some very drastic things for love and after my last “relationship,” I stopped and thought about things. I decided that there was something about me that everyone else seemed to see but I didn’t; a kind of blind spot that had developed while I was trying to find love. I decided to go on a dating hiatus. I wouldn’t date for a year: twelve months, no dating!
I moved out of my house (which was supposed to be my ex-fiancé’s and mine), moved into my own apartment on my own without television, very little internet, and just my cell phone. I went through the whole range of emotions including feeling extremely lonely and doing nothing on my couch in the evenings. At first, I lost a lot of weight and stared at my television. Old habits died hard. Then slowly, I discovered many things about myself, things that were crucial to being where I am now.
Here are the steps I took to find my way to love:
1. Admit that you have a problem. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? The trouble is, most you don’t see that you have a problem. For me, I just thought if I kept on meeting more men, I would eventually find one that was compatible with me, forgetting that I didn’t even have a great relationship with myself. I had a problem because in my search for love I felt deep down inside that I didn’t deserve it.
2. Live on your own. This one can be very difficult. Even if you live on your own, are you spending time with yourself? How much of your life is spent with just distractions? I lived on my own when it was financially difficult and I chose to do so when I could have lived with my family or with roommates. I discovered so much about myself from my home décor style to my loneliness threshold. It is so easy to say that you know yourself and just gloss over this step, but you need to experience yourself. Think your own thoughts, move through life as you and learn to hold that aloneness with serenity, or even, dare I say it? Pleasure.
3. Cultivate kindness and appreciation for yourself. Now you can’t even do the previous step if you don’t develop a foundation in being kind to yourself. If you don’t like you. How will anyone else? Being alone will allow you to discover who you are and I’m sure that you will find out that you’re not so bad. Enjoying your own company will go hand in hand with living on your own as will bizarre things like finding out you desperately need to call your dad as you haven’t heard his voice in ages or that you really don’t like too much furniture, who knew you were a minimalist? But at first it will be boring, you will want to scream, call everyone do anything to fill your evenings, but being kind to yourself and maybe even behaving lovingly to yourself will help. Even stranger things will happen such as wanting to look good and exercising more, eating good food, and smiling at yourself in the mirror. Okay I exaggerated the last bit, but it’s a goal to work toward.
4. Find out what really matters to you. As you may have noticed most of the advice so far has been centered on yourself. There is so much work that you have to do and taking drastic steps can help. Once you’ve found out about yourself as well as started to treat yourself well, you can finally begin to learn what is really important to you. I discovered that I really loved making my own all-natural cosmetics. I wanted to teach and enrolled in teacher’s college and finally I wanted to enjoy being in the company of others. This is where you begin to strip down all of your superficial needs and think about your deeper needs, those things that feed your soul.
