SinglesByChoice.com

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting my pet dragons. It was a mixed pleasure, of course. Realizing what thoughts perpetuate my internalized singlism was somewhat frustrating (I thought I was over these!) but it was also good to see them clearly. After all, unidentified dragons are difficult to tame. “Dragons” are self-defeating thoughts that come up over and over again as repeating themes, sometimes with variations but usually easily identifiable on close inspection. Calling these thoughts dragons helps create enough distance to analyze them more carefully (although as Timothy Wilson points out that might be an uphill battle).

The dragons I identified are (notice that they are quite interrelated):

• I am not lovable.
• I am worthless without a partner and/or lots of friends.
• I am incomplete as a single person.
• There is a soul mate out there for me. I have to design my life so that I can find him.

These dragons are rather familiar to me and, I suspect, to many others as well. The difference now is that I realize how much they are driven by internalized singlism and our culture of coupledom. Essentially, these dragons are undermining my sense of self-worth and preventing me from fully accepting myself as a single person.

REBT offers some useful approaches for addressing these thoughts. The following dragon taming tools are adapted from Paul Hauck’s book Overcoming Jealousy and Possessiveness, two self-defeating emotions that stem from self-worth issues. Self-worth issues do not have to lead to full-blown neurotic jealousy to create problems, so they warrant taking a closer look. The idea behind REBT is that our emotional pain “comes from our own words, our thoughts, our self-talk” (46). We create the painful statements ourselves; the dragons are home-bread. Hauck continues:

Those painful statements can give you great emotional pain, such as feelings of depression, guilt, inferiority, anger, fear, or jealousy. [...] Thinking logically and rationally can protect you from any of those emotions every time you decide to think sensibly instead of hysterically.

Dragon Taming Tools

These tools can help us think logically and rationally whenever we have created painful statements and the dragons are causing mischief.

Dispute your beliefs that you are not lovable and thus worthless
While it is very nice to be loved, Hauck points out that as adults we can survive without love. It can be our preference to have people in our lives that love us. To avoid feeding the dragons, we need to take care not to turn this into a demand (”I must have love!”). Furthermore, nobody has the right to judge our worth, including ourselves. We are worthy simply by the fact that we have been born.

Learn never to blame, rate, or judge
Blame leads to anger either against ourselves or others. To avoid this destructive feeling - anger - we need to learn not to blame ourselves and not to blame others (50). Hauck gives these details:

By self-blame I mean rejecting faults in yourself and also rejecting yourself totally as a human being. That leads invariably to feelings of (1) guilt, (2) inferiority, and (3) depression.

Other blame occurs when you reject unacceptable behavior in others and then reject them as human beings. That act leads to feelings of (1) anger, (2) resentment, (3) hatred, and (4) often superiority and conceit.

To overcome this blaming-game, we can learn to not judge ourselves or others but rather judge only our actions (60). We might have done something bad (or self-defeating), yet this does not make us a bad person. Also, reminding ourselves of the following can help:

Everyone in the world has a perfect right to be wrong, stupid, inconsiderate, and imperfect. That’s not a nice way to be, but people have a right to be human. (49-50)

We all do things that we later regret. That’s unfortunate but it’s simply human. By stopping to beat up ourselves and others over this, we can move beyond self- and other-rating.

Start your life now and stop waiting for a soul mate
Modern society has created the myth of the soul mate. There is no perfect match out there, so move on and start enjoying your life - with or without a partner (and there’s no soul either: when you die, you’re dead, so enjoy life while you can!). This myth perpetuates the idea that we are incomplete without a partner, not a full adult. It also suggests that we cannot truly be happy unless we find “our other half.” What nonsense! (as Albert Ellis would probably say). Happiness requires work on our part, not a cure-all partner. To expect a magical change in our lives simply from one person is absurd and puts too much of a burden on that person. Kay Trimberger identified six building blocks of a happy life as a single (or for anybody, really). Leading a satisfying life can be a helpful anti-dote to the dragons.

The most important suggestion Hauck has, slightly adapted: We have the right - even the obligation - to accept ourselves despite all our dragons that have set up camp feeding us self-defeating thoughts. It will take some time and lots of thought disputing to tame those dragons and turn them into pets. They will still try to hijack our thinking, so we need to remain vigilant. The payoff is immense, though: self-acceptance is the foundation of a happy life.

(Please note that this post is a copy of the post on my main blog, which will replace this blog later this year).

I have decided to consolidate my two blogs. I would like to put my energy behind building one blog: My main blog at www.rabe.org.  I have transfered most posts to a page on my main blog, including comments.  There are a few kinks to work out (mostly how to get the more tag to work on that page) but it’s functional.

My reasoning for this consolidation is that I would like to integrate all sides of me: There is no reason for me to separate my secular humanism and atheism from my singles-activism. And, of course, it costs money to put out a blog…

This blog will still be around for  while but I will not actively add to it. So, please check out the section of my blog devoted to singles new blog.  Of course, please feel free to snoop around the rest of the site, too…

Once I have figured out all the kinks with subscriptions by category, I will offer that as well.

Part of choosing to be single included for me a conscious commitment to myself and my life. Too often, my life had been hijacked by a relationship and every time I was left to rebuild my path. Well, actually, sometimes I even had to find that path all over again. I half-heartedly had decided to do this before but ended up in yet another detour relationship. So, I decided that this time, I needed to go out all the way. Sasha Cagan talks about marrying herself in her Quirkyalone book. I didn’t quite feel like having a marriage ceremony but I thought I could steal some ideas. I got a cheap ring to wear on my left hand’s ring finger (after all that’s the commitment finger, isn’t it?). I put the ring on every morning while repeating my vow to live authentic to myself. I also spent some time writing up my mission - really more of a statement of intent of where I’d like to see myself in a few years. I found this rather difficult because I was stuck with the idea that I somehow needed to discover my mission, that somehow I had an inborn mission that I simply needed to uncover. Well, despite reading a lot of self-help books that uncovery seemed to be impossible. It seemed no matter how much, I dug, I couldn’t find my mission. It wasn’t until I read Eric Maisel’s Van Gogh Blues that I realized that I had the option of making my own meaning, of deciding on my mission. That shift - from seeking to making - helped a lot and I was able to move forward with writing a mission statement for myself. In the meantime, I stumbled on a silversmith who engraves rings, among other things. I decided that I was worth the expense and engraved a short version of my vow on a ring, which I now wear on my left ring finger.

I am finding that staying true to myself is a continuous experience - it weaves through everything from what I write about to what books I read and, of course, the people I associate with. But it helps me to feel more grounded. It also helps me to figure out my priorities.

I have since discovered a couple of books that might be helpful for others who would like to create their own commitment: Patricia Lynn Reilly’s Promise Yourself, which actually guides you through developing your own self-commitment vow and Mary Goldenson’s It’s Time, which helped me let go of things and start building my own life rather than waiting for Prince Charming.

If you’re quirky and single, celebrate IQD in whatever quirky way you want (including ignoring it…)!

February 14 us International Quirkyalone Day, not Valentine’s Day - Hallmark has it all wrong! To read more about it, check out the Quirkyalone page. Sasha Cagen, the woman who wrote the book about quirkyalone and started the movement, gives these tips for the celebration:

Ten Ways to Celebrate IQD

International Quirkyalone Day is rapidly approaching. Here are ten ways to celebrate.

1. Explore a new part of town—be a tourist in your own city.
2. Get yourself a lovely aqua Singelringen—Swedish for “the Single Ring”—as a visible reminder that you’re complete whether you’re in a relationship or not.
3. Buy yourself new underwear (throw out all the old ones from the 90s.)
4. Rearrange your furniture.
5. Be creative, doing whatever it is you like to do (write, paint, sew, upholster furniture, surf, make art of out dryer lint).
6. Be creative with friends. Have an arts and crafts party or cook a meal together.
7. Buy yourself or a friend a bunch of daisies. Daisies are the official flower of the quirkyalone movement.
9. Volunteer for a cause you believe in.
9. Get cozy in bed with a book. Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics would of course be a good choice.
10. Come to or host a quirkyalone party!

I would add:

• Buy yourself some yellow roses (after the daisies)
• Make some truffles and share them with friends
• Send a love note to yourself - this is the most traditional way of celebrating this day.

Any other ideas?