Many of us at some point in our lives have probably felt, or at least hoped, that we would meet ‘the one’ and live happily ever after. So is the concept of ‘the one’ just a fairy tale, or can it be a reality?
I’ve been reading a book recently, Spirit Junkie
To quote Bernstein, “When your source of happiness lives in the arms of another human being, you’re totally screwed. The ego convinces us that all the love we need is in one “special” person.” Bernstein and A Course in Miracles suggest, “This kind of relationship differs from your other relationships in that you become to believe you need this person to be complete. The special love relationship is exclusive, and it makes that one special person better than you and everyone else.”
We convince ourselves that in the arms of ‘the one’, our lives will be complete and we will be able to live happily ever after. This kind of thinking is likely to keep us away from our true source of inner love. To quote Bernstein, “there is no way that special love can ever work. No one person can be your source of happiness. But without knowing where to find that true source, one will keep searching for it in all kinds of people, hoping to find ‘the one’.”
We enter into new relationships with optimism, hoping that this next partner will be ‘the one’. We build our new love interest up to be amazing and project all kinds of ideals about who our new partner is. The reality is that our partner is only human. He has strengths and weaknesses. He has imperfections. If we put him up on a pedestal, looking to him as the sole source of happiness, we are likely to be disappointed.
…and when it doesn’t work out we may tell ourselves he wasn’t ‘the one’ after all; that ‘the one’ must still be out there somewhere. We continue our search for yet another ‘special love’. We feel constant pressure to have a “special’ partner in order to be truly happy, when in actual it fact it is not true at all. By thinking that we need to find ‘the one’ in order to be happy we give away our power; we are no longer responsible for our own happiness. Our happiness rests on us finding ‘the one’. We might think, “when I meet the one I’ll be happy and complete,” or ‘when I have a ring on my finger I’ll be happy.”
The reality is that if we’re not happy before we meet that special someone; if we don’t accept responsibility for creating our own happiness by learning to appreciate and love ourselves; by fulfilling our own physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs; chances are that at some point in the relationship we will start to feel unfulfilled again. We may start to look elsewhere for the elusive ‘one’, when in reality the partner we had could have been a great match for us.
Pressure to have a ‘special’ partner can cause us not only to look externally to ourselves for our happiness, but also to stay in unhealthy or co-dependent relationships. When we think we’ve found ‘the one’ we can have a tendency to do whatever it takes to keep our partner happy, even if that means compromising ourselves. We might put the needs of our partner above our own, and deny our own true feelings and desires. That may make our partner, and us, happy in the short term. However lack of authenticity, an eagerness to please even at the expense of one’s self and an underlying neediness often ends up turning our partner off. Yet another ‘one’ is likely to slip through our fingers.
I don’t want to sound cynical, as I am a romantic at heart. My point here is that while ever we are searching for that ‘one’ person to complete us and make us happy, we are likely to be disappointed. There is no one person in the world that can complete us; no one person that can make us whole; no one person who can give us lasting fulfillment; no one person other than us ourselves. We are 100% responsible for creating our own happiness. Sure a new relationship can give us that ‘rush’, an initial sense of bliss, and ongoing happiness. However, if we look to our love relationship as our only source of fulfillment we’re likely to be disappointed.
I believe that in reality there are many potential ‘ones’; that at different points in our life different partners can help nurture and develop us on our life journey. We may choose to spend our lives with one person, however that doesn’t guarantee happiness. By connecting with, nurturing and celebrating our inner beauty we become fulfilled from within and more attractive to potential suitors or current partners alike; we no longer rely on someone else to complete us, but are empowered to give the best of ourselves in an equal and mutually rewarding relationship.
This blog post was written by Gabrielle Aitken, Inner Beauty Stylist and inspirer of Appreciation, Respect and Love (a.k.a. Aprelo).
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