Guilty, ashamed, embarrassed because I don’t have a boyfriend. Common sense in 2018 says that is absolutely ridiculous – but my reality is my reality.

To even type that makes me cringe, but also causes a lump to form in my throat and water to well up in my eyes. To face my truth is the path to growth and more than wanting a boyfriend, I want to, need to grow.

See life is good for me. Really good in fact. I have two healthy, loving and quirky kids. My minions are a constant stable source of joy and inspiration.

I have a promising career that is on an upward trajectory.

I have a great family. Supportive and loving.

I have a super set of friends. Funky, cool, supportive and genuine. And even besides my friends just in general, I am well liked and very popular with many people for just being authentically me.

There are probably some people who don’t like me, but I’m really not bothered by them. I am not destructive… those that don’t like me most likely don’t like me because they are insecure. And that doesn’t even matter to me. I really don’t need everyone to like me to be happy.

So I am happy most of the time because I am purposeful and loving.

So then Bronwyn why are you unhappy other times….. the single biggest reason is because I am single. Truth. Ugly embarrassing truth especially given all the beautiful things that I’ve just said about myself above.

And my nature, my core, my heart tells me …. you know what Bronwyn, unhappiness sucks. I don’t want to be unhappy. What can we do to stop being unhappy those times that we are, she asks herself.

After much meditation 🧘🏾‍♀️ I started believing unhappiness doesn’t go away by trying to replace it with a source of happiness.

I need to start a movement in my heart and mind by letting go of my unhappiness first. Softening to the emotions causing unhappiness. (Emotions = the overwhelming feeling of sadness materializes occasionally when I’m alone, that is also the symptom of my unhappiness) Once I’ve softened and stopped resisting them, I can then see the root cause. (First I thought the root cause was just loneliness, but with deeper guided meditation I considered all other possibilities, and the truth is I am ashamed of my single status).

This is interesting and slightly weird because a while ago I realized and fully accepted that I am not single because I’m flawed or broken. There is nothing “wrong” with me. I just am because I am. I also actively work towards loving and looking after myself – fulfilling my own needs. Treating myself with tenderness. And I also realized that single people are discriminated against. So I thought that I was in fact being wary and mindful of not accepting labels.

But an incident that happened this week permitted me to realize that despite my common sense, despite my personal growth and knowing what is logical and what is right, I still carry residual shame and embarrassment for being single.

A colleague labeled me as ‘single’ this week. Instinctively I wanted to tell the woman to fuck off. It was a big deal for me. Hhhhhhmmmm trigger much ….yeah it was. Instead of getting cross I should have actually just politely asked her “Why is it so important to you to refer to me as ‘single’ so completely out of context?”. But I didn’t, I just quietly got pissed off and in my own mind I labeled her as stupid. Tit for tatt…. gosh am I really 40 years old already?

I did that because I’m sensitive. But the truth is I am not going to change the way that the world thinks. I am not going to change the way that society was conditioned… the very way that I’ve been conditioned. In October last year I realized the reason for me having one rebound relationship after the next in last year and the year before was because of a misaligned value due to this very conditioning. Even though I worked towards changing the actual value I never realized that I have to work towards not feeling ashamed too! That just wasn’t common sense to me. I fixed one impact of that conditioning. It never occurred to me that there were other impacts too. And I just discovered another one.

So now, after all this analysis it’s time to let go. I’ve admitted my feelings and I’ve not judged myself. Comforted myself, now I must let go of what no longer serves me. And I want to accept what is because damnit I don’t have energy for any more unhappiness. I feel like smiling. My heart wants to beat strong.

So this is what I’ll do. And then, flowing along with the current of this river of life who knows what next uh, who knows 😁