Single? Embrace your desire – and other spiritual ‘rules’ for living a fulfilled life

We all know happiness is only to be found within ourselves, never in anyone else. But it doesn’t always feel like that, especially when you’re single. Sometimes doubt and loneliness can get the best of you. How do you prevent your desire for love from wearing you out? 

These are four spiritual ‘rules’ for living a happy and fulfilled life – with or without a lover.

1. Embrace your desire

There’s nothing wrong with longing for love, a buddy, arms around you. If you try to repress that feeling, it will not disappear, but goes underground and will put a haze over your life. So: feel that desire. However, the trick is to focus on how desire feels in your body. Make sure it doesn’t get to your head, where it tends to transform into depressed thoughts, regret or resentment. In your body, at worst, desire gives you a cramp: your stomach’s in a knot, there’s a pressure on your chest. Focus on this feeling, lovingly and acceptingly. Examine it, welcome it. Embrace the desire. Accepting your desire doesn’t mean you give in to the temptation of drifting away. It means you take your desire seriously, in reality, as a source of energy.

2. Contribute

What is it you can contribute? Whatever it is, this talent is what you live for – not the partner you might not have. If you haven’t found your gift yet, the search for it is your priority. Keep in mind, every day, that you’re alive because you have something important to do. Something the world can’t do without.

3. Be connected to your body

Loneliness can only come up when you’re estranged from your body. As long as you’re in touch with your own body, you feel connected to nature, to people around you, to life itself. For singles, it’s even more important to maintain contact with their body. Pay attention to it every which way you can. Meditate, practice sports, do tai chi or any other  physical exercise. Dance. Spoil yourself at the spa, get a massage. Garden, be in touch with nature.

4. Solve your own problems

If there’s a conflict bothering you, perhaps you feel like you need a lover to support you. Or perhaps you believe you’ve put on an armour of cynicism, because you’re alone: if you had a loving, understanding partner, you would dare to be more vulnerable in life. In fact, you’re looking for a babysitter, a handyman, a coach or a father figure. But there will never be someone solving your problems for you. Best case scenario: you’ll find a partner who wants to save a needy woman or man, and you’ll be doomed to be needy forever, just to keep them satisfied.

Stand on your own two feet. It makes you happier and more attractive.  Sooner or later, love might just knock on your door again – Amors ways are unfathomable, and you’re never too old to fall in love. Then you’ll find that these four spiritual rules will remain in full force during a relationship.

Text: Lisette Thooft – Photo: Nick Beswick