You know all those quizzes out there: compatibility, does your mate rate, how to meet the love of your life, etc. They put things which are complicated and synergistic into little fun sound bites, make tapestries into lists and then numbers and then a score. Wheeeee! They are fun and I’m only slightly knocking them…just a little…I’m hiding that magazine further under the couch… However, having done this and other list making games and rituals over the years we all pretty much know what we want in a someone to love. We want them to be this, do this, look like this, and this other thing would be an added bonus. ?
This is handy because then when we’re confused or frustrated about why we haven’t found “the one” or our one turns out to be a .5 or we’re just freakin’ tired of trying, we have the tools to turn things around. First, we need to make a fresh list, one that is updated for today and is thorough and honest (so if you’re in the middle of a breakup or wanting to break up, you need to leave the digs and the “don’t wants” out of things because those gotchas aren’t helpful for this process.) Have that list be on the right hand side of the page(s) and have the left side blank. Then comes the fun: put a check mark next to everything on the list that you aren’t doing or being for yourself. Some things are obvious and don’t count like the fact you can’t really change from 5’10” to 6’3″ and you wouldn’t want to so stop being silly and concentrate.
When you look at the list, if you can, most people wince just thinking about the check mark process and have to put it away for a while. But once you get there, most people see that they are looking for someone to treat them way better than they treat themselves. They are looking, not for a soulmate, but for spackle to fill in the cracks or Bondo to fix the dents. No wonder we don’t find a soulmate. We aren’t actually looking for one, we’re looking for a repair kit and someone willing to be responsible for all the shit…ahem…stuff we don’t want to do. Yuck! So now that the list is in front of you and you know where the cracks and the dents are, instead of waiting for someone else to do the repairs, start working on them yourself. Start being your own soulmate. Start treating yourself the way you want to be treated. Do the things you want to do, validate yourself, see yourself the way you want to be seen. Be who you want to be. Don’t wait. What you’ll find is that when you start treating yourself right, others will too and pretty soon you’ll not only feel better and be better, but you’ll be mixing in with others walking that same path. From there, who knows what could happen.
