Being single Is Not
a State of Lack
You have the impression that society classifies being single as a temporary “incomplete” state while waiting for you to be in a relationship, and this weighs on you.
Or perhaps you suffer from being single and would like to live your celibacy better. Or finally, you love your celibacy and at the same time miss being in a relationship. In eight years of coaching I can reassure you that this is a completely normal feeling.
This episode aims to break down this sense of lack that you may feel in your celibacy and show you how to live it better.
Free Yourself from the injonction to Be in a Couple
The first source of the lack you may feel can come from the societal influence that still doesn’t place couples and single people on equal footing. It’s as if being single were not a chosen state but an endured, temporary one while waiting to enter a relationship.
If you are single and wish to be in a relationship, there is also a whole series of injunctions that make you feel the problem comes from you — that you are too demanding, too complicated, too much of this, too much of that… I go into more detail on this with the real single woman in episode 43. Remember here that your self-questioning only concerns the 50% you bring to a relationship, and the other person is always co-responsible for the success or failure of a relationship.
And finally there is family pressure, or pressure from those close to you to settle down and be in a couple while you’re already suffering from your celibacy. I share my advice on managing this pressure in episode 46.
The common thread in all of this is that these are injunctions — labels that dictate what you must be or do to conform to others’ expectations.
The problem here isn’t whether you wish to be single or in a couple, but the effect of these injunctions on your well-being and the feeling that something is “missing”.
To become aware of this influence, you can note the moments when you suffer from being single and ask yourself what happened just before: what you read, what you saw, what was said to you. You’d be surprised how much of a sponge you are for what you expose yourself to!
My advice in this case: limit your exposure time to these injunctions; this can mean consciously choosing the accounts you read and follow on social media, avoiding women’s magazines for a while, choosing your friends carefully, and choosing which conversations on the subject you agree to tolerate.
Even if you work on your mindset and learn to detach yourself from others’ opinions, there is a limit to the detachment you can achieve given your level of exposure to these injunctions.
Watch my webinar on how to finally be happy in Love!
You Can Love Your Celibacy and Still Need Affection
The second source of this lack is the natural need to receive affection and relate to others. You are a social animal, and feeling loved is an essential need for the survival of every human being.
The lack is often created when you think the ONLY way to meet this need is through a romantic relationship, when this need can also be met by taking time to deepen your existing relationships.
This doesn’t mean it’s “bad” to want to be in a couple, or that your other relationships can fully meet this need — simply that you have other options to meet this lack, so it weighs less on you.
Finally, I invite you to see “the lack that remains” as an emotion conveying the message of what matters to you in life.
A Couple Will Not Make You Happier
The last source of lack often comes from the feeling that your happiness will only start once you reach the goal, that is, when you are in a couple.
“If I were in a couple, I could finally start a family, or buy my dream apartment, or travel around the world.” Unfortunately, I hear this sentence far too often.
It’s not because you haven’t found your “other half” that you are incomplete, or that you must put your life on hold.
It’s dangerous to think that once you’ve met the love of your life, your life will be complete.
Why?
- Because you delegate your happiness outside of yourself — to the relationship — instead of trying to be happy with yourself and in your life.
- Because if you don’t know what makes you happy outside the relationship, you’ll tend to forget it within the relationship, which guarantees this relationship’s failure in the long run.
- Because this unconsciously puts a certain pressure on your future encounter.
For me, a happy couple is two independent people, happy in their own lives, who have decided to enjoy a cherry on top called couple life. Couple life isn’t the cake, just the cherry.
So how can you savor your celibacy more
Build the Life of Your Dreams Starting Now
No need to wait for THE One to build the life of your dreams — on the contrary, build the life of your dreams and your dream man or woman will come and fit into it:
- If you were waiting to be in a couple to visit certain countries, go there — you might meet them there.
- If you want to become a homeowner, buy something within your budget — you can always resell it later.
- If you want children, it’s your right to wait for the right person to have them with, but you can already exercise your mothering talents by babysitting your friends’ children, becoming a godmother, or supporting children through sponsorship.
To this end, ask yourself: if you were to meet the love of your life in only 3 years, what would you change in your life starting now?
Become the Man or Woman of Your Life
As Nathalie Lefebvre puts it so well in her book “I decided to marry myself,” take advantage of this celibacy to learn to know yourself, appreciate yourself, and set off on a journey of self-discovery.
We often define ourselves based on what others think of us, particularly what our family and parents think. Being single is the best time to discover yourself and explore what you’re passionate about by experimenting with what you like or dislike, because you are completely free of constraints.
It’s a way of showing that you are committed to yourself, to your own happiness.
See the Good Side of being single
There are plenty of good sides to celibacy. I am a mother, but personally happy to have started my family at only 37, because I was able to do many things beforehand that would be difficult for me now — such as traveling for a long time, living in an ashram, training for a mountain race, moving abroad, and resuming certain studies. If you doubt the good side of being single, ask your friends who have been in couples for a long time, and I’m sure they’ll find plenty of advantages to be single for you.
Celibacy Is the Stage That Allows You to Be Happy in a Couple
Here are some reasons why living your celibacy well matters so much for being happy in your couple afterward:
The more you appreciate your single life, the clearer you’ll be about what you like, what you don’t like, what you want, what you don’t want.
The more you appreciate your single life, the less ready you’ll be to accept just anyone, under any conditions, to be in a couple.
The more you appreciate your single life, the more you’ll be able to be in a couple without losing yourself.
The more you appreciate your single life, the more you’ll increase your chances of meeting someone — because there is nothing sexier than someone flourishing in their life.
The more you appreciate your single life, the less you’ll hand over the responsibility for your happiness to the relationship.
Which Doesn’t Mean You Do Nothing for Your Future Couple
You can appreciate your single life and, at the same time, invest in your future couple.
If you don’t experience celibacy as a state of lack, you’ll simply feel relaxed about how long it takes.
This doesn’t mean you should do nothing:
- You can start relationship coaching to identify, understand and change the love patterns that keep you from meeting the right person
- You can take time to get to know people without putting pressure on yourself
- You can dedicate enough time to meeting someone, because your partner isn’t going to come looking for you at home.
For you
FREE Webinar "HOW TO FREE OURSELVES FROM THE PATTERNS THAT PREVENT US FROM BEING HAPPY IN LOVE?"
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Going Further
If you want to deepen the subject and identify your own love patterns, you have my book Opening up to love, available in all bookstores.
And if you want to do the work on your love patterns through the body and transform your love life, there’s the Opening up to love program. You can take the Day of the Past option, a day of Somatic Deprogramming: a psycho-corporal work to deprogram nervous system automatisms and establish new relational reflexes.
Sandy Kaufmann
is a somatic therapist and coach, based in Switzerland. She is the author of two books published by Éditions Eyrolles and has accompanied more than 600 people. She is the creator of the Somatic Deprogramming method and hosts the podcast “S’ouvrir à l’amour“, ranked in the French top 50 in the relationships category.
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