Solemate

by Lauren Mackler

  To begin, you’re going to need a journal. That’s one of the first things I tell my clients to do at the start of every coaching program, and it’s the first step to mastering the art of aloneness: Go out and buy yourself a journal. Buy a beautiful card to go with it and write a loving message on the card. It’s a way of thanking yourself for investing time, money, and energy in yourself. Have your journal gift-wrapped and bring it home; then consciously allow yourself to receive it and enjoy the gift. This journal represents your commitment to mastering the art of aloneness, and it will become indispensable on your journey. It’s where you’ll watch your self unfold. It’s where you’ll keep your notes and the results of the exercises you’ll find in this book. It will become your reference for achieving an understanding of who you are and where you want to go.

  CHAPTER 2

  EMBRACING

  YOUR ALONENESS

  Today, in one out of four American households, someone is living alone.1In 2005, America reached a milestone. According to the American Community Survey released by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2006, for the first time in history fewer than half of all American households—just shy of 50 percent—consisted of married couples.2And, for the first time, more American women were living without a spouse than with one.3This means, on average, Americans now spend half of their adult lives outside of marriage.4These are major shifts that have been brewing for decades, and yet people’s attitudes about being alone have changed remarkably little during those years.

  Aloneness is still associated with a variety of negative emotions. As an example, at the start of every Mastering the Art of Aloneness workshop, I ask participants what they think of when they hear the word “aloneness.” What words and feelings come to mind? I hear the same responses over and over. “Lonely.” “Depressed.” “Unwanted.” “Afraid.” “A loser.” It’s no surprise that most people think of aloneness as a negative state, something to avoid rather than embrace. From early childhood, we’re conditioned to associate aloneness with emotional pain. We’re taught that it’s a condition to pity, something to be ashamed of. That attitude manifests itself in all kinds of ways. Parents become anxious when their children don’t have enough play dates. Teenagers base their self-esteem on how many friends they have. And, all too often, adults measure each other’s well-being according to whether or not someone is married or in a committed relationship. For most people, being alone means being unhappy.

  With this book, I’m not suggesting that being alone is something we should aspire to or that it’s the ideal lifestyle. Mastering the art of aloneness doesn’t mean living in isolation or never needing the love, support, and involvement of others. It means creating and living a life in which you feel whole and content as an individual on your own; a life in which you can take care of yourself emotionally and financially. Mastering the art of aloneness is a process. It involves developing the self-awareness, life skills, and emotional intelligence you need to share healthy relationships—and to live a rich, full, gratifying life whether you’re living it alone or with someone else. That process involves thinking about aloneness in a radically different way—making a conscious and deliberate change in the way you think and the way you live.

  Strength in Numbers

  The simple truth is: if you live alone, you are not alone. More and more American adults live single lives. In the United States today, there are 95.7 million single adults.5That number has risen steadily over the past 30 years, and it now represents 43 percent of all U.S. adults.6Of course, these figures include couples living together outside of marriage. But a large proportion of these people are divorced, widowed, or never married, and living alone.

  This shift reflects a number of trends, including the cultural changes catalyzed by the women’s movement. For one thing, people are marrying later. Thirty years ago, 64 percent of American women ages 20 to 24 had already married. Today, most American women in that age group (73 percent) have never married, and among women ages 30 to 34, 22 percent have never married—up from only 6 percent 30 years ago.7

  These trends aren’t restricted to the United States. In 2002, researchers in the United Kingdom reported that more people were living alone or as single parents than in traditional nuclear families.8And throughout the European Union, by the year 2000, a growing proportion of all private households were reportedly one-person households—representing at least 30 percent of all households in most northern European countries.9

  Given the high divorce rate and the fact that women outlive men by an average of seven years,10it’s likely that a married adult will go back to being single at some point in his or her life. Roughly 50 percent of U.S. marriages end in divorce. Nearly one-quarter of all single adults in the United States are divorced, and another 14 percent are widowed.11Yet, whether they’ve never been married or are going back to life on their own after a committed relationship, many people find being single a source of loneliness, shame, and distress.

  Society and the Media

  Although living life as a single is more widely accepted than it was 30 years ago, there is still a pervasive mindset that if you don’t find a mate—especially by the time you’re in your 30s—there must be something wrong with you. Most people still believe that marriage is the favored lifestyle, and we’re barraged by media messages reinforcing this notion. I find it curious that, in television commercials, most adults wear wedding rings; that in TV ads for nighttime cold medicines, couples are typically shown in a double bed, while in ads for sleep aids, singles are shown struggling to find their way to sleep. In her book Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, Bella DePaulo shares a litany of examples—ads for everything from luggage (How to solve the pesky problem of “Which bag is ours?”) to home improvements (“Is your husband good with tools?”). DePaulo also reminds us that in Sex and the City, a show devoted to the subject of four strong, independent females living on their own in New York, the final season ends with four romantic couplings.12

  Popular music and movies all tell the same story: Romantic love is the answer. Without love, we have nothing. All you need is love. Although some contemporary songwriters write songs about standing strong and happy on one’s own—particularly female artists such as Sarah McLachlan, Paula Cole, and Alanis Morissette—the mar-ket is dominated by songs that tell us you can only find true happiness when someone loves you and wants to be with you. It’s difficult to even imagine a movie or story that ends with the hero or heroine living joyfully and contently alone instead of living the fairy tale version of happily-ever-after with a mate. The classic line in the film Jerry Maguire—“You complete me”—reinforces what many singles believe: If I could only find my soul mate, I would feel whole and my life would come together. And if I can’t, I’m in deep trouble.

  Romance sells. It’s fun. It’s entertaining. What’s trou-bling, though, is the pervasive message that a romantic relationship is a cure for whatever ails you. Of course, many people don’t have to look beyond their immediate families to get that message. Many of my clients complain that they’re pressured by their parents to find a mate, marry, and have children. Once they hit their 30s, people who remain single often experience feelings of abandonment, sadness, low self-worth, and shame as their single friends dwindle in number. They feel increasingly surrounded by married couples—many of whom, they find, no longer extend invitations to them simply because they don’t have partners. It’s not surprising that people who are alone feel bad about it.

  Gender Differences

  Despite the classic stereotypes of the swinging bachelor and the old maid, my experience suggests that both men and women find it difficult to create happy and satisfying lives on their own. Although more women than men participate in my Mastering the Art of Aloneness workshops and coaching program, I suspect it’s because women are just more comfortable reaching out for professional help. From infancy, boys and girls are treated very differently when it comes to aski
ng for and getting help. Boys are conditioned to be more self-sufficient, to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, and to avoid expressing their vulnerability and feelings.13In contrast, girls are conditioned to rely more on others. As a result, it’s less threatening for a woman to reach out for support.

  It’s important to recognize that, while men may be less inclined to share their feelings of insecurity and emotional pain with others, that doesn’t mean they’re not experiencing the same feelings and situations as their female counterparts. When men attend my workshops, they describe the very same frustrations and challenges that women face: feeling lonely and unhappy in their single life, continually picking the wrong people for relationships, a fear of growing old or sick with no one to rely on, and the feeling that their inability to sustain a healthy and lasting relationship is a sign that they are somehow defective or a failure.

  A Vicious Cycle of Negativity

  If you’re alone and you believe, either consciously or unconsciously, that “there must be something wrong with me because I’m alone” or “I can only be happy if I’m in a committed relationship,” it will have an enormous impact on how you see yourself, how you feel, and how you live your life. You may actually be setting yourself up for loneliness and rejection. How? First of all, when people feel bad about themselves, they tend to project that onto others. Just as confidence inspires confidence, negativity invokes negativity. Other people are less likely to be attracted to someone who lacks a sense of well-being. If you’re walking around slump-shouldered, feeling sorry for yourself, it’s easy for other people to be put off by your demeanor. To make matters worse, feelings of low self-worth may cause you to withdraw from the world, cutting yourself off from the very people and activities that can enrich your life. If you avoid other people, withdrawing into yourself because you’re afraid of being judged or rejected, loneliness becomes a self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling prophecy.

  Even more important, if you feel bad about yourself, you’re much less likely to take good care of yourself, which can take many shapes and forms. When you’re feeling depressed, you’re less motivated to exercise regularly and you may not sleep well. People with a low sense of self-worth often seek comfort in ways that are unhealthy. Some overeat, indulging in food to ward off their bad feelings. Others try to numb their feelings with alcohol, drugs, or nicotine. Still others escape from their emotional pain through distractions like compulsive shopping, sexual promiscuity, or workaholism. Everyone is different. But the bottom line is: if you believe that you can only be happy if you have a partner, you inevitably fail to fully live your life, waiting instead for someone to come along and rescue you from what you see as a miserable existence. The challenge is to break these patterns—of thought and behavior—that are holding you back from living your life to the fullest.

  A New View of Aloneness

  If you want to live a more satisfying, happier life alone, first you have to start believing that you can. You have to decide to think differently about aloneness. And, at the same time, you have to start doing things differently.

  So the first step to mastering the art of aloneness is changing your perceptions of aloneness. Instead of viewing it as a shameful condition associated with loneliness, pain, and emptiness, you need to begin to think of it as one of freedom, growth, and opportunity. At first, this isn’t easy. Changing these deeply ingrained preconceptions about aloneness—especially before you’ve changed your reality—is the hardest part of the process. It requires a leap of faith and relentless perseverance. But, simultaneously, you’re going to start changing your behaviors.

  Here’s why: Our perceptions produce our emotional responses. Our emotional responses drive our behavior, and our behaviors create our reality—the quality of our lives and the circumstances in which we live. Put another way, we are what we think. If you think of aloneness as a source of loneliness and misery, then the simple fact that you’re alone can make you feel sad and lonely, and that can lead to inertia and depression. So, instead of having the energy to go out and do something that will make you feel good, energized, and inspired by the world around you, you end up sitting around and feeling sorry for yourself. Your life becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy—because you do the things that produce the very results you don’t want to achieve. That, in turn, continually reinforces your belief that aloneness is a source of pain instead of joy and opportunity. You’re trapped in a vicious cycle. Your negative thinking is producing negative behavior, which in turn is reinforcing your negative thinking. You’ve got to break the pattern—by thinking differently about aloneness, acting in ways that reinforce your new attitude, and focusing on the opportunities inherent in your situation.

  Let me give you an example of how changing my own perceptions of aloneness after my divorce helped me transform my experience of pain, failure, and depression into one of tremendous opportunity.

  Turning Obstacles into Opportunities

  When I returned to the United States from Germany, I believed that any possibility of a happy, successful life was shattered forever by my divorce. I was convinced that I would be struggling emotionally and financially for the rest of my life. These feelings were rooted in the deeply ingrained belief that my happiness depended on having a husband who would love me and take care of me financially, and that without this, I had and was nothing. Although a part of me was determined to go back to school, get my American degrees, and be able to earn my own living, for several years the belief that I needed a man to take care of me prevailed.

  As a first step toward changing my own negative perception of aloneness, I made a conscious effort to identify the good things that could come from my being on my own. I started focusing on those opportunities instead of constantly ruminating about the downside. I decided to go back to school and commit to my studies. Though I had to single-handedly care for my two children, who were facing the challenge of living nearly 4,000 miles away from their father and adjusting to a completely new life in the United States, I was free to raise them however I saw fit. Plus, unlike many divorced families with shared-care arrangements, my kids didn’t have to navigate two different households and two different sets of rules. I had lived away from my parents since I was 14 years old. Being back in my hometown gave me the chance to spend time with my parents, both of whom were now in their 70s. The meager income the children and I had to live on each month enabled me to learn to become a disciplined and resourceful money manager. Having the sole responsibility for running a household gave me the opportunity to develop greater self-sufficiency and confidence.

  The diminished conditions of my post-divorce life hadn’t changed, but my way of looking at it certainly had. And, gradually, things started to get better. Any time I found myself reverting to my old, negative way of thinking about my situation, I’d consciously redirect my mind to focus on the opportunities inherent in our new life. When my children wanted something I couldn’t afford or complained about the shabbiness of our apartment, I’d encourage them to focus on how they could use the current situation to their benefit, instead of as a limitation. For example, when they complained that all their friends had Nintendos and we couldn’t afford one, I’d explain that kids who spend all their time playing electronic games often lose their creativity and ability to focus. (“You’ll be more creative and focused if you spend your free time drawing or painting.”) Here’s another example: We moved nine times after my marriage ended. When my children complained about all the moves, I’d say: “You’re going to build a sense of security from the inside out. You’re going to be very adept at managing change in your lives.” Of course, they were kids. Sometimes they’d balk or argue with me when I turned these negatives into positives. But, ultimately, this approach seems to have had a profound effect on them. Today, both of my children are resourceful, strong, and successful young adults. They have learned to consistently rise to meet the challenges of their lives instead of allowing themselves to be defeated by them.

&nbs
p; By looking at my life in terms of opportunities and putting this approach into practice, I became more self-sufficient and was better able to manage my life. The entire process enriched my life in unexpected ways. My aloneness catalyzed a deep commitment to working on my own personal development. With no romantic partner or relationship issues to distract me, I was able to focus intently on learning about who I really was, where I came from, where I’d been in my life, the choices I’d made, and the impact those choices had on my life and those of my children. Aloneness itself became my great opportunity.

  Creating Healthier Relationships