"How to enjoy being single when I really want a relationship?"
When you really want a relationship, enjoying being single can be something incredibly challenging. In today's Q&A style episode, I’m diving into how to enjoy being single when all you really want is a relationship.
WHAT WE’LL COVER:
Owning your desire for a loving, healthy relationship
Being grateful in the present
What it means to actually enjoy your life being single
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Use the code PHOENIX for $150 off the Higher Love Course for a limited time only.
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
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You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship Coach Stephanie Rigg and I'm really glad you're here. You hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. Today's episode is a Q and A episode and I am answering the question of how can I enjoy being single when, if I'm being honest, I really wish I was in a relationship.
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So I know a lot of people are in this situation of being single and deep down actually just wanting a relationship and probably coming up against a lot of advice on social media and elsewhere, telling them to enjoy being single and really savour in that experience and make the most of it. And you should be really happy that you're single. And while I think that advice is coming from a well intentioned place, sometimes it can be frustrating when that's just not how we're feeling and we can almost feel like we are deficient or we can feel some shame for our true desire, which is to be in a relationship. So I'm going to be talking through that and giving some reframes and perspective shifts and permission slips that will hopefully help you to navigate this period of your life, this season of your life, with a little more self. Compassion and in a way that allows you to have both.
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To own your desire to be in relationship while also enjoying your life as it is today. So that's what we're going to be talking about in today's episode. Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements I wanted to share the featured review for today, which I've actually taken from Spotify. You might have heard me say recently, Spotify now lets you leave little comments under Episodes. And so to try and be fair to the people who are Spotify listeners rather than Apple, who haven't historically been able to leave reviews, I'm going to start drawing from the Spotify comments in addition to the Apple podcast.
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Reviews in the review of the week So today's is I discovered your podcast by chance while going through the hardest time in my life and I can't express the profound impact it's made. You taught me the wise and gave me hope for the future that I couldn't see. Thank you so much. That is such a touching and humbling review and I'm so, so grateful for you and I'm grateful that you found me and that you were able to find your way back to hope. If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierig.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my Master classes.
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The other quick announcement that I wanted to share in keeping with the theme of today's episode, which is around being single and wanting to be in a relationship. My Higher Love Course, which is a breakup course that I created last year, is currently available for $150 off. So if you use the discount code Phoenix you can save $150 on the price of that course. It's a fully self study course where you get access to the full thing upon sign up and you can take it at your own pace. The reason that I'm mentioning that today is because in addition to helping you process a breakup, which the first half of the course is around, it also really allows you to embrace not only your life as a newfound single person, but to really own your desires and cultivate a level of clarity and confidence around your desires for future partnership in a way that feels really empowering rather than desperate or needy or any other negative label we might put on those things.
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So if you're someone who has been through a breakup recently and you are looking for some support or maybe it's not all that recent, but you think there's still some processing to do and some grieving to do around a previous relationship and you're looking to really anchor into greater self worth for the future. My higher love course is a really great option I've had. I think upwards of 300 students go through that course and it always gets really beautiful feedback. So that might be something to cheque out and I will link that in the show notes. Okay, so let's talk about this.
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How can I enjoy being single when I actually really just want to be in a relationship? So without knowing anything about the person who asked this question, I'm going to frame the discussion in terms of anxious attachment because I think that most people who have this experience probably will fall closer to that end of the spectrum in terms of their attachment patterns. I know that makes up a bulk of my listeners in any event. So I think that we have to start by just owning what we desire. And I alluded to this in the introduction.
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I think that we can feel almost pathetic. We can be really judgmental of ourselves for the fact that we want to be in a relationship and I think that that isn't helpful. As I always say, if you're feeling some sort of primary emotion like sadness or longing or grief or whatever else, anxiety even and rather than having compassion for that and seeking to understand it, we just put some judgement over the top and we criticise ourselves and make ourselves wrong for the way we're feeling. We are invariably making it worse. We are just adding fuel to the fire.
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We are adding more tension to a system that is already under stress. So it's really the opposite of what we need is to make ourselves wrong for a desire and I would say particularly for a desire that is as beautiful and pure as wanting to be in a healthy, loving relationship. I think that that is something that we should absolutely own and be proud of and be confident in. I don't think that that makes us desperate or needy or pathetic or any other thing that we might put on that I think we can just throw that kind of thinking in the bin. So my big permission slip for you at the outset of this episode and if you are someone who struggles with this, is you don't need to pretend not to want a relationship in order to enjoy being single.
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And indeed you are absolutely encouraged to own that desire, if that is your heart's desire to be in a relationship. Now, with that being said and holding that in one hand, can we find a way to hold in the other hand, enjoyment of life in whatever season you're in rather than making those things an either or? I can't enjoy being single because I want to be in a relationship. I think that this kind of thinking, this once I am there, then I can be happy. Once this other thing happens, this very conditional approach to our joy and contentedness and peace and satisfaction in life and it's really, really easy to get stuck in that because we can find ourselves, without even realising it, moving the goalposts on ourselves forever and ever and ever.
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It is this carrot dangling thing of once X-Y-Z thing happens, then I will be happy. Once I make this change about myself, then I will love myself, then I will accept myself. That is a real slippery slope and it's not actually conducive to happiness and fulfilment. Anyone will tell you, anyone who works in this space, teaches in this space, will tell you that the trick is to be grateful in the present for what you have while knowing what it is that you desire and being able to hold both of those things at the one time. So saying I really want to be in a relationship, that is my heart's desire and I'm not going to sit at home and shrink or not enjoy my life in anticipation of that thing or unless and until I have this thing.
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Because that is really placing way too much responsibility on a relationship to create our happiness or to be the sole source of our happiness and fulfilment and enjoyment of life. And what I would say to you is, and I talk about this in my higher love course, the calibre of relationship that you are going to attract as someone who has already created this beautiful, big, full, satisfying life, you are going to attract a really different calibre of person and relationship from that place, rather than the place of lack and emptiness. And I need some person to make me feel happy, to make me feel worthy, to make me feel pleasure and satisfaction and enjoyment. So I think that the more we can cultivate that as our baseline, as our starting point and really commit to building this very beautiful life with many pillars to it. Rather than just feeling the immense lack that can come with wanting to be in a relationship but not being in one, the more we focus on what we don't have that can really drag us down and probably lead us to indulge or engage in connections and relationships that
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aren't actually meeting.
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The bar that we would like to set for ourselves because we are coming from this place of anything is better than nothing that tends not to lead to the greatest relationship. So I think that the more we can enjoy our lives as single people, what we're really trying to do there is enjoy our own company and enjoy our work and enjoy what we spend our time doing and enjoy our friendships and really build out beautiful community. All of these things mean that we have many pillars to our lives and the relationship just becomes this beautiful addition to that landscape rather than the only thing propping up our lives and making us feel worthy and okay and giving us a sense of meaning where otherwise we would be plunged into darkness. That is an over indexing on a relationship and expecting it to solve all of your problems. So I think when people talk about can you enjoy life as a single person?
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It's not to say make the most of it, go out and sleep with a bunch of people because you can or you have to enjoy the process of casual dating. I don't think that that's what people mean. And if they do mean that, then if that doesn't resonate with you, again, you can chuck that in the bin. You don't have to take that on. And if it were me, that certainly wouldn't resonate with me because that's just not who I am.
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So I think that rather than hearing that advice around being single as meaning you have to enjoy dating lots of people or having those casual interactions, it's more can I see this season of my life as an opportunity. To really upgrade, to maybe do work on my own inner world, on my parts, on my woundedness and really all of that energy and attention that I'm accustomed to devoting to other people and focusing on them. Can I? Focus some of that back on me and use that as a way to nurture my relationship with myself and upgrade that relationship so that I'm ready to meet someone from a really grounded, secure, self respecting place in my next relationship. And can I trust that that will pay such dividends when the time comes rather than waiting and feeding stories of low self worth and of shame and of everything else and expecting that to yield a relationship that's going to solve all of my problems?
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I hate to be the one to tell you, but that almost invariably doesn't work. And so the more that we can use those transitional periods as opportunities to spring clean so to speak, that is a beautiful, beautiful time and it is a beautiful opportunity and as I said tends to pay huge dividends in terms of what we then make ourselves available for in another relationship. And even as I say that, I'm reminded to make the point that it's not like you are doing all of those things for someone else, you are doing them for yourself first and foremost. And that is an important reminder for anxiously attached people who tend to orient everything as being about someone else, to attract a partner or to make someone else happy or to get someone back or any other kind of agenda. It always tends to be other focused.
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And so as much as possible use this period of time where you don't have an other to orbit around as is your default to really tend to that relationship with yourself because that is your work for all anxiously attached people. That is your work is to build up a relationship with self that feels nourishing and self sustaining and allows a level of independence that you can then go to relationship from a place of choice rather than need and desperation and unsafety needing the relationship to make all of those fears go away. So I hope that that has given you a bit of a paradigm shift on how to relate to being single and also given you, as I said, a permission slip to want to be in a relationship because there is absolutely nothing wrong or shameful about holding that desire. But I suppose the takeaway being can you trust that this season is a beautiful opportunity to prepare for that and to really lay the foundations for the next relationship to be a really nourishing one and a really healthy one. And that the healthier you are going into that the more secure you
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are, the clearer you are, then that is going to be a really, really beautiful next relationship.
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So the work that you do in preparing yourself for that is certainly not going to be wasted. If you've enjoyed this episode, as always, super grateful. If you can leave a rating or a review, make sure you hit subscribe and follow the show. No matter where you're listening. Share it with the people in your life, share it on social media.
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All of that good stuff is hugely helpful in continuing to get the word out. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again soon. Thanks guys. Take care. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment.
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If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.