Soul Kadee

This article by Joie Davidow, describing the advantages of the single life, for women who are blissfully single by choice, literally took the words out of my mouth. She describes the way I think, feel and live my life, almost exactly as if I wrote it myself.

…the advantages of unmarried life seem perfectly obvious to me: I never have to do anything to accommodate the “other.” I cook dinner if and when I feel like eating it, and only if I’m in the mood to cook.

I stretch out all over my queen-sized bed. If I wake up in a good mood, I don’t have to contend with someone who wakes up in a bad one — and vice versa.

It’s nobody’s business but mine if I spend too much money on clothes or makeup. I don’t have to put up with anybody’s boring friends or annoying relatives, or listen to the football game blaring from the den.

If I decide I’d like to vacation in Mexico, I just do it. I could go on for pages without exhausting the list of petty annoyances inherent in a good marriage, without even beginning to address the miseries of a bad one.

Oooh, love all that! But one thing I appreciate most about being single is not having to clean up after another person, and being able to find things exactly where I left them when I get back home.

Whether or not you can be happily single boils down in part to how you regard solitude, notes psychologist and relationship guru, Dr. Michael Broder. Ah, the bliss of solitude! That supremely, self-indulgent state of aloneness.

“People who are not happily single turn solitude into loneliness,” Broder says. That and self-loathing are the main emotional issues in being single if you’re the type who has a hard time living life without a mate.

If you find yourself single and struggling with loneliness, Broder encourages you to learn to enjoy your solitude — it is after all a precious thing — and to reject the clichés about being on your own.

My own battle with loneliness ended the moment I decided to transform my relationship with myself. To be my own best friend, and accept myself as perfect, whole and complete - just the way I am. Perhaps you’re meant to be single, or meet someone later in life. Either way, says Dr. Broder, it’s healthy to have had a lot of alone time in which you’ve developed some independence.

If you do eventually find a mate and give up the single life, the lessons you learn from solitude - to be independent, to enjoy your own company, have your own goals, your own friends, and give your mate his space, will ultimately allow you to bring more to a relationship and make it healthier in the long run.

But, the most beautiful thoughts on a healthy togetherness and marriage were penned by Kahlil Gibran, when he wrote that:

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

Popularity: 6% [?]

One of the reasons women end up ruining a beautiful relationship is that they are desperate for a commitment or a proposal from their man.

But believing that marriage is going to make you happy is like a thirsty man running towards a mirage in a desert. It’s a false belief that will quickly evaporate once you reach your destination.

After my last post, “Are You Marriage Material?“, I came across a great bit of advice on marriage and relationships by a guy called Dr. Neder, author of “Being A Man In A Woman’s World.”

I so totally agreed with the points he made that I thought all women should read them. Dr. Neder explains exactly why your flawed thinking about marriage is keeping you from the happiness you deserve.

First of all, marriage isn’t a “relationship”, it’s a FORMAT of a relationship. So is living together, dating exclusively, dating non-exclusively, triads, quadrads, those with kids, those without kids, those with pets, etc., etc., etc. There are literally thousands of different relationship formats out there. None is more “valid” than any other.

Second of all, being married doesn’t give you any more security than not being married. He can leave you just as well as he can now.

Third of all, men and women view marriage as very different things. Women see marriage as security (false, as I’ve already explained), future, family, status, and many other things. Men on the other hand see marriage as responsibility, stress, loss of freedom, loss of choice, having a business partner to share in all of their decisions, and many other negative things. With this understanding, it’s a wonder that any man gets married in the first place!

Fourth of all, if being married is so gosh-darn important to you, what are you waiting for? I’d bet you can find someone in the next 30 days that would marry you if you just ask enough people. Then, you’d finally be happy, right? Everything would be just fine because you’re married and you wouldn’t have to go through all of this, right? Of course not. Marriage has little to do with happiness. Trust me on this.

Fifth of all, consider that 1/2 of all marriages end in divorce. Of the 1/2 that survive, how many of them do you think that the people in them report as being “happy”? Do you think it’s 90%? Do you think it’s 75%? Nope: only 30% of married partners claim that they’re “happy” inside the marriage! That means that 15% of all marriages are happy. Those aren’t very good odds!

I’m not trying to paint a bleak picture here of marriage for you, but I’m trying to help you change your focus. Marriage isn’t the goal - having a good, solid, happy relationship; where all people involved (even your kids) should be the goal. Whatever form that relationship takes to make it this way is the one you really want, right? Frankly, if you’re that focused on the marriage and are willing to give up all the other things that are so important, as I’ve already said, you’re really missing the boat here.

FACT: If you’re miserable when single, you’ll be miserable when married. As long as you keep believing that you need another person to “complete” you, you will be chasing a mirage of happiness, and end up disappointed every time.

In fact, the easiest way to drive away a man is to make him responsible for your happiness. If your happiness comes with a price tag (I would be happy if only he did this or that) he’s not going to stick around for long. And he’ll be right to leave, because no one needs that kind of pressure.

Understand that happiness is a choice, and your happiness depends on only one person - YOU. All misery is the result of either living in the past or worrying about the future. By worrying about the future of your relationship, you are ruining a perfectly good present.

When you learn to live in the moment, you will be free to enjoy your partner’s company and appreciate what he contributes to your life. Not 2, 3 or 5 years from today, but now, in this very minute.

Our limiting beliefs about marriage (that if he doesn’t propose in 2 to 3 years it’s time to call it off) are what prevent many women from staying in what would otherwise be happy, fulfilling relationships. But who makes these rules? And where do these beliefs come from? Family, parents, society, conditioning.

To be truly happy and content is to be free of these limiting beliefs that govern our lives. When we stop judging, compartmentalising and labelling our relationships according to the dictates of culture and society, when we learn to take life as it comes, we’ll be able to see our partners for who they truly are - fellow travellers on a journey called life.

Popularity: 12% [?]

One should always be in love.
That is the reason one should never marry.
- Oscar Wilde

Why do I relate so well to this quote by a famous gay writer? Perhaps because, with the news filled with reports of Hollywood-style break-ups and disastrous marriages, it rings true, now more than ever.

It’s like there’s a celeb filing for divorce almost every other day - Jessica and Nick, Britney and K-Fed, Jude and Sienna, and (the real shocker) Reese and Ryan!! And the awful stats on marriage and divorce make you wonder why people bother getting hitched in the first place.

Kids, that’s why! Most people get married when they want to start a family and give their kids legitimacy. Britney clearly had that on her mind from day one. Now that the packages (read, babies) are delivered, K-Fed has become Fed-Ex.

But was it necessary to go through the indignity of a very public marriage and divorce to be a mother? Adoption is, after all, the latest celebrity fad. Instant babies, minus the stretch marks and flab!

You don’t even need two biological parents to care for a child nowadays. An extended family can nuture a child in the absence of one or both biological parents. A grandparent, uncle or aunt can replace the male or female role model, if necessary.

So is marriage becoming an outdated concept in a world of divorces and disposable spouses? As the commitment-phobic man would say, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” Of course, women have their own version, which is, “Why buy the whole pig when all you want is a little sausage?”

Then, there are those like Alyque Padamsee, the much-married ad-guru of India, who think that marriage should be a 10-year contract (sort of like a US Visa), and be renewed only if both partners wish it. Guess he’s not a long-haul kind of guy.

I think everyone should try marriage at least once! Twice, if they can afford it. Empathizing with the problems married couples endure, and having a repertoire of “married” jokes, is a social skill everyone should acquire.

Marriages are made in heaven. But so are thunder and lightning.
- Clint Eastwood

Personally, I loved being married. Like all couples, we had our share of problems, but we adored each other. It helped, of course, that we fell in love in our teens, when neither of us was very picky. Back then things were much simpler, love came easy, and life was very different from the fast-paced, stressful life that we live today.

But, I think the real reason divorce is hitting an all time high, and belief in marriage as an institution is waning, is that the new generation (and young women, in particular) have far more choices open to them today, than their parents ever had.

And by choices I mean the ability, means, and legal sanction to:

- Leave an abusive relationship. Whereas most women of our parent’s generation would have chosen to stay in an abusive relationship (and still do), young women today have much greater support from parents, society and the law, and when faced with that choice, they are more likely to opt out (with good reason).

- Pursue happiness agressively. And whether that means choosing to leave an unfulfilling relationship because of “irreconciliable differences” or career choices, young people have much more legal and societal support than their parents did.

While the aim of being in a happy, fulfilling relationship is worth pursuing, I know how much work and sacrifice (not to mention loyalty and commitment) it takes to make a go of it. And today’s youth are far less committed to their relationships, and less tolerant of differences.

After all, why bother, when it’s so easy to end something that isn’t working and start over with someone new? What they don’t realise, however, is that the issues that plagued them in their old relationships are likely to follow them into the new relationship as well.

My nonchalance about marriage has more to do with the fact that I’ve already fulfilled my biological purpose of providing my parents with a lovely granddaughter they adore. Freed of the need to procreate, I can afford to stay single for the rest of my life, if I so choose. I know, I’m spoiled for choice!

For most young people however (and women, in particular), the pressure to settle down and have kids makes many of them rush into marriage without assessing the suitability of the person they’ve chosen as a life partner.

The question, then, is not whether marriage is an outdated institution, but whether YOU and your partner are marriage-material. Do you both have what it takes to make a good marriage? Are you truly ready for marriage and all it entails?

Here are some things to consider if you’re in a relationship or planning to take the plunge.

Know What You Want

It’s smart to date until you have the MATURITY and CLARITY to know what you want from yourself and your partner, before you decide to settle down. Dating allows you to learn more about the opposite sex, teaches you what sort of people to avoid, and helps you understand how to deal with problems that crop up.

Don’t Rush Things

Instead of giving in to the heady emotion that accompanies “falling in love” and rushing into a commitment you might regret, take the time to get to know each other for at least TWO TO THREE YEARS (anything before that is a risk) before deciding whether you want to spend your lives together. Ending a relationship can be painful, but it’s much less painful than a divorce, especially when there are kids involved (ask Britney and K-Fed).

Live In The Moment

Instead of keeping one eye on the goal (marriage) and pressuring your partner into a commitment, learn to live in the moment, appreciate your partner for who they are, and enjoy your time together. Take every relationship as a learning experience, because that’s exactly what it is.

Educate Yourself

Learn what it takes and doesn’t take to build a great relationship together. Is the opposite sex a mystery to you? You can learn how they think and feel from self-help and relationship books. I learned a great deal about men and relationships from the books I’ve read (I recommend some on my site). Check out this selection of books on relationships and marriage.

Get Your Act Together

If you have problems handling your emotions, have codependent tendencies, or addictions (that can be lethal to a relationship), approach a counsellor and learn healthy ways to communicate with your partner, manage anger, deal with disappointment, stress and sexual needs. These skills will stand you in good stead when your marriage hits the inevitable bumps along the way.

Deserve What You Want

I’m reading an ebook of that name by Scot McKay, and highly recommend it if you’re widowed/divorced and looking at getting into the dating scene the second time around. It shows you how to take charge of your own dating life and attract a good partner by (surprise, surprise) becoming a great partner yourself (I wrote an article on this here). You can download a preview of Deserve What You Want here. I also recommend Be the Person You Want to Find : Relationship and Self-Discovery by Cheri Huber, a Zen teacher.

I’m the first one to admit that I’m definitely NOT marriage material right now. For one, I’m fiercely independent and focused on my home and career. And second, my plate is too full for me to take on the additional responsibility of caring for another person.

That might change in the future, but for now, I’ll just take my own advice, live in the now, be my quirky self, and appreciate the love and abundance in my life.

‘Do not dwell in the past, Do not dream of the future.
Concentrate your mind on the present moment’.
- Buddha

Popularity: 8% [?]

We are spiritual beings having a human experience. But what does spirituality mean to you? Only you can answer that.

To me, being spiritual is not about believing in some esoteric philosophy that 90% of the world cannot access or understand.

Spirituality does not come from a holy book. It is not a complex set of ideas only meant for monks and priests. It’s not about following rituals or having beliefs that exclude other cultures or communities.

The kind of spirituality I believe in is the kind I practice in everyday life. The thoughts I think, the words I speak, the actions I choose, the way I conduct myself when alone or with others, the work I do, the choices I make - the little things I do every day of my life.

To me, all these things are an expression of spirituality:

• Eating food
• Bathing
• Nurturing myself
• Making love
• Expressing gratitude for the abundance in my life
• Expressing love to myself and others
• Setting goals or intentions for my life
• Sharing belly-laughs with a special friend
• Giving a massage
• Watching a sunset
• Being a mother
• Reading a book
• Watching a movie
• Listening to music
• Singing
• Dancing
• Exercising
• Meditating
• Taking a walk
• Planting a tree
• Writing this blog

The information at Heal Past Lives has a lot of concepts that resonate with my own ideas of spirituality. This article, titled Hallmarks of the Spiritually Advanced Being, has a list of 12 simple standards to measure your level of spiritual advancement.

• #1: LOVE - The Spiritually Advanced are models of unconditional LOVE
• #2: JOY - The Spiritually Advanced find JOY in every moment
• #3: TRUTH - The Spiritually Advanced are seekers after TRUTH
• #4: COURAGE - The Spiritually Advanced draw strength from COURAGE
• #5: TRUST - The Spiritually Advanced TRUST unconditionally
• #6: PURPOSE - The Spiritually Advanced are living their PURPOSE in life
• #7: ABUNDANCE - The Spiritually Advanced manifest ABUNDANCE
• #8: CLARITY - The Spiritually Advanced are CLEAR channels for God
• #9: SIMPLICITY - The Spiritually Advanced unfold in SIMPLICITY
• #10: GENTLENESS - The Spiritually Advanced act with GENTLENESS
• #11: GRATITUDE - The Spiritually Advanced are always GRATEFUL
• #12: BALANCE - The Spiritually Advanced maintain BALANCE in living

So how many of these qualities do YOU possess?

Popularity: 7% [?]

Three Simple but Extremely Powerful Practices That Raise Your Vibration

Higher vibrational frequency is the name of the game in experiencing joy, ease, peace, true wisdom and total Love. The higher we rise in frequency, the closer to Source we are vibrationally, and the more we experience the God-knowingness and true power of Source.

Your frequency is correlated with the amount of Life Force you have flowing freely through you, so maintaining alignment with Source and allowing full and free flow of Life Force is crucial to experiencing the sublime realm of higher frequency. Here are some key strategies for staying aligned and moving Life Force through you:

Radiate Love unconditionally. When you stop tying your Love to people and other entities, your ego will find less reasons to withhold Love and pinch off the flow of Life Force, also known as Love, through you. Ego will always find reasons why someone doesn’t deserve your Love, or will shut down or diminish the flow if it thinks the object of your Love isn’t open to receive it, etc.

If Source € demonstrating the highest vibrational frequency € considered whether or not we were open to receive Love before allowing Love to flow, Creation would collapse! So, instead of loving someone or something, make it your practice to simply love, period!

Loving, no matter what, just as Source does, is the key to maintaining higher vibrational frequency. And you can trust that your Love is always received€it is received by the receptive aspects of Source, thus completing the grand cycle of Love going out from, and returning to, Source.

Be impeccably honest. Honesty maintains you in the Flow of Life Force and Love. Dishonesty is of the ego, therefore, being dishonest necessarily removes you from the Flow. In order to be dishonest, which is an ego-manipulation strategy, you step out of Love and into the lower vibrational realm of duality, the misery matrix, the place where ego exists.

While your ego may tell you that being dishonest is a survival strategy, it is telling you an untruth. Because there is no Life Force in duality, being dishonest depletes Life Force€hardly a survival move!

Honesty is not only the way to stay in the Flow, or to step back into it if you’ve fallen for ego’s misguided manipulations, your honesty provides an invitation back into the Flow for everyone connected to you. Of course, being completely honest with yourself is the first step.

Make joy your #1 priority. Joy is your emotional response to higher frequency, and your guide to whether you’re in or out of the Flow. When you feel joyful, you are in the Flow. When you are feeling less-than-joyful, your ego has choked off the full flow of Life Force through you. When you’re in the Flow, your frequency is elevated due to the increased Life Force moving through you, and you experience joy and its constant companions, ease and peace, the state of being we all long for.

The longing for joy is the carrot the Creator installed within us to assure that however far we dipped in frequency, we would always desire to come Home to the frequency level at which we were designed to thrive. When you make experiencing joy your first priority, your life aligns around that, and supports your staying in joy. When you are in joy, whatever you create is in alignment with joy, so joy begets more joy!

Contrary to popular belief, joy is not just the result of some sort of mystical coming together of favorable factors, but is the result of continually choosing to be in vibrational alignment and in the Flow.

©2006 Julia Rogers Hamrick

Julia Rogers Hamrick has been a spiritual-growth facilitator for over two decades, and is the author of Recreating Eden: The Exquisitely Simple, Divinely Ordained Plan for Transforming Your Life and Your Planet. Julia writes about and leads seminars on proactive joy, and the relationship between frequency and experience.
http://www.recreating-eden.com

Popularity: 32% [?]

I’m a Quirkyalone - someone who’s content to be on her own and doesn’t feel the need to go on endless dates or be part of a couple.

I admitted as much to Debjani Ray who interviewed me for an article on Quirkyalones in Mumbai for the Sunday’s edition of DNA (Daily News And Analysis). If you can’t access it at that link, download it here.

The article erroneously put my age at 37 and my daughter’s at 6. Actually I’m 36 and she’s 7. Minor detail. Here’s one of the photos they took of me and Sara, outside Infiniti Mall in Andheri.

I enjoyed reading the opinions of the other quirkys quoted in the article, and especially agree with the guy who thinks of relationships as a way to grow and enhance our lives, not a way to escape from loneliness.

You can be lonelier in a bad relationship/marriage, than when single. Better single and happy, than married and miserable, I say. And I see a LOT of “married and miserables” around me nowadays. One more reason to remain single.

Another reason I like being single is because (as I said in the DNA article) I can’t think of sharing my personal space with another person. It would mean too much adjustment, and I don’t need that.

I love my freedom and independence, and am not willing to give that up for anyone right now. I believe in being with someone because I CHOOSE to, not because I HAVE to.

Some people might call that commitment-phobic. But marriage is a lifetime commitment. And, having been in a marriage (which, for the most part, was happy), I take commitment much too seriously to get involved with a man who doesn’t meet my standards of what I want in a partner.

Besides, I don’t know anyone who gets married thinking, “Oh, it’s not going to last anyway, so we might as well have fun for a few years and then, when we’re bored with each other, we’ll get a divorce.” I know Hollywood celebs do it all the time, but do we really need to complicate our lives for the sake of a piece of paper?

It’s not that I’m against marriage. I’m just against marrying for the WRONG reasons. And that includes:

• Feeling lonely or unloved: This comes from a lack of self-love. It’s something no one can give you but yourself. Applies to both men and women.
• Financial security: Women are guilty of this one. But, unless you have a trust fund or a rich dad, being financially independent is essential for a women. So stop letting your brain cells degenerate with those saas-bahu soaps, ladies. Put that education to use and get yourself a career.
• Respectability: No longer a valid reason to get married. Single people and courting couples now get as much respect as smug marrieds. Even in India.
• “My biological clock is ticking”: Having kids is not a good enough reason to get married nowadays. Thanks to celebs like Sushmita Sen, Madonna and Angelina Jolie, single parenting and adoption are now respectable options.
• Fear of old age: Having a spouse to take care of you or be a companion in old age is no reason to get married. Like the lady in the DNA article, I’d rather pay someone to take care of me than marry for that reason. Having a lively social life and a few good friends of my age is all the companionship I need, thank you.
• Wanting someone to “keep house”: This is the #1 reason many of you mama’s boys choose to get married. Shame on you, guys! If you want hot meals and a clean home, learn to do it yourself or pay someone to do it. Your wife is not your servant.

But I think one of the main reasons I’m so content being single is that I have no illusions about Prince Charming coming along on his white horse to save me. In case your mother forgot to tell you, THERE IS NO PRINCE CHARMING coming to save you. Not now! Not ever!

Not like I need saving anyway. We Aries women (think Scarlett O’Hara) are quite capable of saving his highness’ princely ass, as well as our own, thank you very much.

Sure, I believe in love, but not as an emotion. For me, love is a practice, a way of living and being. Romantic love is far too restrictive to encompass the beautiful expression of caring, giving and compassion that I call love. In a relationship, love is something that grows over time. It happens naturally and can’t be forced.

Nor am I against being in a relationship. I see relationships as a path to personal and spiritual growth. I believe that people are mirrors, reflecting back to us what we need to change in ourselves. In a relationship you learn things about yourself (and others) that you can never learn on your own.

Our partners are sent to us when we have something new to learn. When we act from our higher self and learn our lessons well, we go on to the next level of consciousness. If we choose to act from ego, the lesson will be sent to us again, till we learn it. That’s the reason patterns keep repeating in our relationships (like when you keep attracting abusive men or losers).

I cherish all my relationships, because I’ve learned and grown with each and every person I’ve encountered. And I don’t mean only lovers, although I’ve probably learned much more from them, and am grateful for every precious moment.

I believe that more and more people will choose to become quirkyalones, cohabit, or wait for marriage until they find the right partner. So is marriage a dying institution? I’ll write more on that later, but do leave your thoughts till then.

As far as being a Quirkyalone goes, like the slogan says, “I’m loving it!”

Popularity: 10% [?]