What are you searching for?

[tconnor]

Relationship Tip #181
What are you searching for?

Is the grass really greener on the other side of the street? Do the people over there that you observe day in and day out have more fun, better relationships or fewer problems? Are they content or are they looking at your side of the street wondering the same things you are? If you switched sides would both of you be any happier? Have less stress? Find your soul-mate in the backyard?

I guarantee no matter which situation you find yourself in: whether you are single and alone and happy that way, single and searching for love or your true love mate, single and involved in a committed relationship, married and miserable or married and blissfully happy, that there is something else you would like in your relationship. Not necessarily another person but some missing benefit that you long for, some trait or quality in your partner that you feel you deserve or can't live without. What exactly are you searching for? When will you know if you have found it? If you never find it does that doom you to an unhappy or unfulfilled life.

Most people are searching for only four or five things in life. I believe the significant ones are: to be loved and to give love, acceptance for who they are and who they are becoming, appreciation, validation and to connect with at least one other human in a meaningful, unconditional and spiritual way. All of the other stuff you and I want and the list is far too long to share here is often an illusive dream.

Suffice it to say that you will never get everything you want in another person or in a relationship. The perfect partner for you does not exist it is a myth. Sooner or later you and I have to settle - not in a negative way but in a realistic way. Settling is not about the other person's traits, personality, willingness or ability to give you what you want or need but solely about the reality of your expectations.

What are you searching for that you don’t have in your life? Let’s take a brief look at a couple of these:
Love: Everyone wants to love someone and be loved by someone. It is a deep yearning in every heart, the desire for real and lasting love. Not romantic love, not egotistical love, not superficial love, not manipulative love just real unconditional love from the heart.
Acceptance: I believe everyone wants to feel like they are o.k. just the way they are, that they don’t need to change anything, according to your expectations, to be accepted by you. I can be me and it's o.k. You don't have to like it but you can learn to accept it or live with it.
Appreciation: Real appreciation, given from the heart with no agendas or expectations is one of the real needs of the human spirit. Appreciation says you care, are aware of what other's do, are interested in showing them that they matter. Everyone does something every day for their partner, I guarantee it, that they feel should be appreciated. I am not saying here that that you should spend every waking minute giving appreciation to someone who is insecure. No matter how much you give them it will never be enough or for the right reason.
Validation: There are so many ways we invalidate people. We interrupt them, we forget to do things for them that we promised we would, we don’t listen to them, we do all of the talking when we are with them, we don’t give them credit for having anything worthwhile to say, feel and we take credit for their ideas. We constantly say to them: you should, why won't you, if you loved me you would - this list my friends is endless. One way to know if you are with an invalidator is: how do you feel when you are around them? Do you like yourself more or less when in their presence. When we invalidate others we say to them you don’t matter.

One way to know if you are an invalidator is to see if people you are around are really honest and sharing with you or reserved and tend to hold back.

I would like to share with you what I believe are the four stages of loneliness. When people don’t get one or more of the above they tend to feel alone in the world.

Loneliness: A state of feeling: alone, a mental place of desperation: fear, abandonment, mistrust, rejected, unloved.

Aloneness: A transition stage between loneliness and solitude. It is taking control, taking responsibility for the quality of your life, it is a time of reflection, looking back for the lessons and looking forward for the growth.

Solitude: It is a time of personal growth. It is special time for you to be with you. To discover, to learn, to unlearn, to grow and to feel. You look forward to your special quiet times.

Connected: This is the highest form of loneliness. It is when you have grown past the selfish needs, desires, hopes, dreams and wants of your own and have risen to a plane where your alone time is spent for the benefit of man, life, the future, the universe and the desires of your soul and heart.

Where are you in the spectrum of loneliness as you move through the moments and days of your life and relationships?