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Joel Rachelson, Ph.D.
Founder, Conscious Singles
Unfortunately, being single today is not easy. Understatement,
I guess in light of the many single ads, books, services
and yes even websites which attempt to address this
life status.*
Why is this?
There are two fundamental problems here. First, for
a number of reasons, it is difficult to be at peace
internally with being single. It is a basic human
need to be connected and partnered. Because being
partnered is a basic need there is pain when we are
alone. Not always felt but always lurking. Further,
to not be in a primary relationship is semi-stigmatized
and felt on some level as a failure.
Second, it is difficult to meet other singles, in
most any environment much less a healthy environment
or process. And this search for other singles is made
much more difficult when trying to find others who
are conscious and like minded as well.
“Conscious?” You say, “What does that mean exactly?”
In dictionary terms it means “perceiving or noticing
with a degree of controlled thought.” In regular words,
it means to have the capacity for a divided awareness
or self observation. This means that one can step
back in their awareness of themselves: in their awareness
of themselves with others; in their awareness of themselves
in relationships; in their awareness of themselves
to tasks, objects, the world, etc. Being co-conscious
means that one has the capacity to observe internal
processes and external behaviors and then make adjustments.
I call this the capacity to become self fluent and
self competent.
Certainly, being conscious is one of the hallmarks
of our humanness and is in fact becoming a growth
industry, both in the amount of it (thank the creator!)
and in the kinds of things that are by-products of
it. Also, being co-conscious means being aware of
the different levels of consciousness. And once this
awareness of different levels happens, there is usually
a desire to cultivate the higher and deeper, more
spiritual levels. This awareness of the essence that
underlies the form of reality or existence, as someone
on the Discussion Boards wrote, is a very healthy
positive pursuit.
Those that are conscious and who are cultivating deeper,
more spiritual levels of consciousness are wonderful,
kind, loving and committed. For someone who is conscious
it is actually something akin to a compulsion to be
present, to pursue higher and more spacious states
inside of us or outside. This yields more joy in the
experience of life and the capacity to view from a
broader, more awe-based perspective. This is what
makes grace possible. Also, those who are conscious
seem to share interests in healthy, holistic living,
personal growth, spirituality, metaphysics, recovery,
social issues and the environment. (They are indeed
members of this website.)
The ironic thing here is that this higher level reality
that is cultivated and experienced is the level of
consciousness that connects us, yet there is a still
a difficulty in connecting to someone from our singular
existence. Even though this singular or separated
existence maybe an illusion, it real enough or even
more pointed when going to bed at night alone as a
single person.
Hence, the purpose of the articles of this website
is to illuminate, validate and assist those that are
conscious and single.
Being conscious and single means that one can be aware
and fluent and become more skillful with this ironic
thing--that being single for those who are aware that
we are all connected is difficult and sometimes painful.
The suggestion here is that the thing to do with the
awareness of the pain of being nonpartnered is to
make friends and work with it. The purpose of becoming
friends and working with our desire/longing to be
connected and the accompanying discomfort is to find
and maintain the right stance or right Zen in regards
to being single.
Again, the challenge of being single is how to find
the right stance, the right Zen, toward this lack
that causes the ache. We can then better tolerate
this unmet longing and discomfort and not feel compelled
to unhealthily fill the hole or numb it out of our
experience. This article and most all the articles
on the site are about how to find the right singles
Zen.
After befriending and acceptance this unwanted state,
finding the right stance requires working on it. Masterful
and comprehensive self work has both inner and outer
aspects. What I would like to do here is use the categories
that I am experimenting with in sorting the article
section of this website as way to catalog the inner
work aspects for finding good singles Zen.
The Internal Approaches
So, following the framework of the Conscious Articles
section one can use an Eastern approach, a Western,
a New Thought, or a psychological approach to doing
inner work. The Eastern approach
uses meditation/mindfulness to observe and detach.
This approach is embodied in the message: pain is
inevitable, suffering is optional.
The Western approach suggests surrender
to a higher power and uses prayer and a trust in God.
Their approach is embodied in the message: let go
and let god. The New Thought approach
suggests one pivot away from the bad feelings and
thoughts and focus on the feeling of having what is
wanted. Their approach is embodied in the message:
what you focus on you attract.**
The idea is to use these approaches to work with negative
feelings to feel better and or to feel better when
having negative feelings. This is the point of working
through your stuff.
The psychological approach involves
working through family of origin/historical wounds
and issues that cause or contribute the negative beliefs
and feelings we have about being single. Sometimes
this working through means going into the pain of
a wound and expressing it and sometimes this means
finding or creating an antidote for the wound. Sometimes
working through means looking at and redoing the underlying
historical issues/programming.. Usually it means working
with someone therapeutically because our personal
history may interfere with our capacity for awareness
or capacity to healthily respond to our feelings and
needs.
In regards to being single, our imbedded programming
can be affecting how we feel about being a single
person, how we search, who we search for, what our
expectations are, and even how successful we are.
What negative feelings do you have about being single
right now and what feelings do you have about meeting
your beloved? If the negative feeling is something
other than mad, sad, scared, happy and it is has a
repetitively nonpositive outcome feel, then it is
related to a negative piece of programming. And the
specifics of the programming language is in the self
talk associated with these feelings. The goal here
is to recognize this as negative script, loacalize
it and therapize it. We can do some of this together
on the boards and help each other.****
The goal of therapy, with oneself or with a professional,
is to learn how to be your own therapist and internal
parent/grownup. The aim of the psychological approach
here is to learn how to self sooth or self parent
in regards to bad feelings and unmet needs. To become,
using psychological based methods, self fluent and
more self competent.
In terms of being a conscious single, it is imperative
that we have a healthy relationship with ourselves
before we can have healthy interpersonal relationships.
If someone is too needy for a relationship in order
for them to feel Ok about themselves or to get their
basic needs met then they can subtlety and not so
subtlety push or scare people away. This neediness
issue is one of the reasons why people do the "urge
to merge need to flee" dance. So it is important
to learn how to get to an Ok place about being single.
(This is made a little harder because of all the cultural
pressures and stigmas.) It is important to learn how
to meet most of your own basic needs so that relationships
are the icing not the cake.***
The External Approach.
The outer or external aspects of working with this
unwanted state is to do something. In terms of doing
something, the right Zen is not to be too attached
and clutching or too detached. Being too attached
usually and anxious is about being too needy and intolerant
of this negative feeling as described in the previous
paragraph. Being too detached and inactive is also
a problem and could be from either a defense against
being hurt and disappointed or a hopeless/cynical
resignation. The goal of good Zen is not to be too
forward or too rearward psychically or literally.
The external focus is the development of successful
behavior strategies for meeting others and how to
healthily go about dating. This can range from how
you put yourself in a position to meet others, to
evaluating your expectations, or to maintaining the
basket theory of dating (as in don’t put your eggs
in just one). Having playfriends that may or may not
become more is an important way to keep the Zen in
this search.
And Conscious Singles just happens to give lots of
opportunities to do something. Whether it is editing
your profile, doing a search, adding to the discussions,
praying with for yourself with us, getting and giving
affirmations…..and oh yeah, upgrading your membership
and sending someone a message. You can do it here.
Finding someone is not easy but you don’t have to
feel bad about it and you don’t have to be out of
your Zen in what you do. In some ways it needs to
be approached as the attempt to reach a very important
goal. Perhaps the most important goal in your life's
enrichment. So approach it as a mission, possibly
a long-term venture. Patience, proactivity and persistence
pays.
*In a law of attraction sense,
maintaining that something being hard is not good.
However that being single is difficult is reality
from my personal and professional perspective. The
goal in a law of attraction sense is how to hold this
reality. Abraham-Hicks has many suggestions about
the law of attraction, one of the simplest being not
to focus on what is but on what one wants and to feel
the feeling of it happening. And this is indeed what
the purpose of this article is about.
**For a much more fleshed out description of these
approaches, please see the Conscious Article section.
AND, I would be really please if someone want to add
to the section in terms of how these approaches specifically
address being single.
***I was less brief on the
psychological approach because it is my cup of tea,
so to speak.
*****Help is usually required for recognition of the
negative scripting because many times this stuff is
out of our awareness and even not so verbal. Ask me
about Psychic Astronomy
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