Today I reflected on the way modern society looks at “finding someone.” How disproportionately the emphasis is on pursuit of other compared to pursuit of self. There’s a holiday for celebrating your romantic partner, but none for celebrating your relationship with yourself, which is infinitely more important and integral for the relationship with the former to be a success.

I’ve found that my perspective has changed over the last few years (obviously…that’s constantly been happening if you’ve read along 🙂 ). The shift is in a way that many people will never come to, at least in this life. It is likely no surprise, but I’ve found comfort and peace in prioritizing ‘being ok’ over meeting a romantic partner.

In younger years, when at the mercy and skating on the periphery of the programming that finding someone to spend life with should be an ultimate goal, at times I felt inadequate because I had so much trouble finding someone I even liked. I buzzed between entertaining that something may be wrong with me and something may be wrong with the expectation that I should be able to choose someone so easily. Everyone else was doing it somehow?! I spent years trying and then having people abruptly karate chopped away from me by the universe, especially when I would try to date someone I knew deep (or not so deep) inside was the wrong person.

If I had heard what it was saying to me at the time, it would be something like that wasn’t it, be patient.

If you’ve begun your own journey towards complete self-awareness and wholeness, you’ll likely have experienced what I’m about to share. Being ok with yourself and with whatever happens in your life gives you access to the potential to be the best partner possible. You don’t need anyone and when you don’t need anyone, you don’t need anything from them either. You also don’t need them to be anything other than they are. Your irritations, triggers, pains, etc. are yours to deal with. It is not the other person’s job to change to keep you away from your fears or pains of the past; to keep you comfortable and safe. You are your own safety.

You become more than ok with this; you actually start enjoying that you can be with someone and through them, see so clearly where your triggers still lie and how you can unwind them peacefully within the relationship you’re building.

And even more, you can see clearly the person before you and appreciate everything they bring; you can have fun meeting the ‘wrong person’, because you can see clearly they are coming at the right time. On the way to being seated in yourself and unattached, people will come in, trigger you a bit, and then move out, leaving space for the next opportunity to experience exactly what you need to take your own growth to the next step.

And on top of that, you have the power to ask for what kind of experience you want. You aren’t at the mercy of the universe, unless you choose to be by remaining unaware of yourself. You can choose to surrender so that whatever you need comes to you or you can ask the universe to send you an opportunity to work on your [insert trigger] in the context of a relationship.

Either way, it’s time to see meeting the ‘wrong person’ as the right person. To find the same motivation and enthusiasm for meeting yourself as you do for a romantic partner, and to put equal or greater energy into doing so. This is the pursuit of wholeness; of being a spirit living a human life for the experience. Everyone that comes plays an integral part in your growth.

Each partner will come naturally, but you have to choose who you want to be (or allow who you are to come through), and by doing that, you’ll also choose whether the partner that comes in is a difficult lesson or a teammate who you grow in beauty with.