Loneliness, Singleness, Happiness and And Marriage (Part 2)

Hey peeps! How has your week been?

In the last article, we started a conversation on loneliness, singleness, happiness and marriage. Here is the concluding part:

For the question raised last week regarding loneliness, I have this to say-

If you find yourself constantly lonely and depressed as a single person, you might want to pay attention to the things you focus on because our happiness or lack of it is a function of our focus. You might also want to pay more attention to your environment- are you surrounded by married people, especially those that seems to have it all together on the outside? Or perhaps you are welcoming words from every direction which as a result is producing a lot of pressure on the inside of you- words from mummy, daddy, sisters, all asking as though you have a control over it- “when are we eating the rice?”. You might also want to pay attention to the music you listen to, the people you let into your space (especially if they are negative and pessimistic people) and a whole lot of other things.

You might also want to get busy doing the things you love so it would shift your mind away from the seemingly missing links in your life. Surround yourself with people you know without a shadow of doubt loves you, and people and situations that makes you happy too. You might also want to spend more time with time with God because in His presence, there is fullness of Joy and at His right hand, there are pleasures evermore (Psalms 16:11). When you do, the joy of the Lord would become your strength and help you per time through the waiting period.

Regarding Happiness, this would be my advice:

As a single person, before you get married, make sure you find happiness from the core of you, the truth being that no man no matter who he is, is strong and self-happy enough to give you all the happiness you require in life. If already married and you find yourself constantly unhappy, it is never too late to set your feet on a path of happiness.  How do you find happiness?

Two major things I have realized brings about true happiness - purpose and wholeness. When your feet are set firmly on the path of purpose, you would have little time to be sad. Doesn’t mean that those moments that makes us all human would not come; they’ll come, only they would not last for a long period of time owing to your passion and your ultimate reliance on God through the process.

Passion coupled with the constant presence of God in our lives generates so much force; such force that overwhelms us and keeps us busy and productive majority of the time. In other words, the combination of these two factors (God and passion) drives us towards our goals despite obstacles and challenges (loneliness inclusive) encountered on the way. A God-filled busy and productive mind is no hiding place for the devil, but an idle mind is. As a result, it is advisable to get yourself duly engaged with passionate and worthwhile projects. As you work through the projects, make sure you celebrate your small wins along the way as they boost happiness, and as a matter of fact- confidence.

The second pathway to happiness is wholeness. Wholeness is the process of freeing yourself of wrong ideas and beliefs to enable you function fully, freely and without fear in the area God has called you. Wholeness is the ability to be yourself without any form of fear (especially fear of rejection), and without any form of pressure.

Lasting and true wholeness I’ll say is achieved majorly in three ways

·         Spending time with God

·         Spending ample time with yourself

·    And lastly- acquiring information through constant reading and listening to helpful audios/videos. Hopefully over time, we shall get to talk about wholeness, how to achieve it, and the benefits of having it.

In addition to purpose and wholeness, I would love to chip in this- spend time with your girlfriends, call them, go on outings with them as marriage does not equate prison. Go shopping (either window shopping or actual shopping- if you have the sufficient means and you actually need the things you intend buying) if it would make you happy. Be helpful to people who are in need. More importantly, make kindness a genuine part of you and try your possible best to be cheerful and friendly.

Above all, remember that your marriage would always be a reflection of your state of wholeness as a spouse. A happy spouse would most likely make a happy marriage and vice versa. Always choose to remember that your happiness starts from you and not necessarily what people do/can do for you. Married or single, choose to be the master of your own happiness.

 

.…Till we meet again- do enjoy the remaining days of your week and make sure you do something tangible to make yourself happy this week if you haven’t already.

P.S: If there is any topic you would like me to talk about, I’ll be glad to receive your email, or you could perhaps put it in the comment section below.

Photo Credit: DeviantArt

Loneliness, Singleness, Happiness And Marriage (Part 1).

Loneliness, singleness, happiness, marriage- these four words in one has been the downfall of many. Downfall in the sense that when they were single, they saw themselves as lonely and so sought after marriage every way they could; now married, they realize that marriage in itself is never the cure to loneliness.

I once mentioned in one of my posts on this blog that as a teenager, I’d always thought marriage would make you happy because of the stories I’d read about love and how the men keep doing things to make their women happy. Thank God I came across a book written by Funmi Akingbade and I read it before I had the chance of locking myself in a marriage I shouldn’t have been because I thought it would give me happiness.

What if I never came across that book, or any other book that would have given me a similar insight? I’m very sure I would have been married by now and seriously regretting it, because I would have gotten married for all the wrong reasons.

We mistake marriage solely for happiness because often times, we are blinded by the acts that leads to it. We are blinded by the people we see buy gifts for their women, take their women to the movies, massage their head and shoulders and the likes. All these and many more are not bad in themselves. They are a part of the ingredients marriage is made up of, but unfortunately not all marriage is all about. We often are not exposed to the other sides of marriage such as the responsibilities it brings and the maturity it requires, as a result, we go into it unprepared. All we see are the fairy tale aspects of marriage that makes us believe the ‘and they lived happily ever after’ farce.  Owing to the things we see, we long for marriage based on these facts which actually are true, but not all there is about marriage. We set a standard based on peripheral things, and not real/actual things. As a result, when a guy comes and makes us feel in the mushy-giddy way we have imagined, we jump into his arms without a second thought thinking that is all there would be to marriage until reality begins to set in.  

We begin to see that sometimes we are left alone as well, and marriage does not necessarily mean company every time. Then we go back to our single state- being lonely. Things takes a worse turn when we discover that the man travels a lot, or that he comes back home late and we are often the only one left at home till he comes. It becomes more apparent when we realize that there are no more flat mates to go to to hear the gist of the day, or probably school mates to go to school together once it is morning. As a matter of fact, we are now completely on our own; possibly more than ever.

So if loneliness happens to both single and married, what do we do to avoid/deal with it? And what do we do to attract happiness in contrast to our thought that marriage automatically equates happiness?

 ....To be continued....

Now That You Are Grown

It’s been a long long while; almost a year. Don’t know if to say happy new year, or happy new month, perhaps happy new week, or most recently- Happy new day *smiles*. Either way, I hope you do forgive me for being away for that long, God willing, I hope to get better at posting this season; far better than before.

While away for that long, more than ever, I have come to realize a couple of things – things about life, myself, my past, present and future that over time God willing, I would be putting up on the blog as lessons and learning points. But before then, let me welcome us all (you and I, because we have been so far away from each other- thanks to the ‘sleeping pill’ I swallowed for almost a year; the last time I posted being 31^st of August 2017) with a post I posted on Instagram and a great mentor of mine prompted me to share. Here:

“No doubt sometimes as a child growing up, we experience the stifling of our hearts, minds and arts, and sadly those memories hunt us for a long time, making us feel odd sometimes and act in awkward ways in the crowd.

But then, growing up, I realized 2 things

1. What you went through as a child to an extent was never about you, but your parents/guardians trying to keep their sanity. They shouted at you not because you were wrong for singing happily and dancing happily, but because they were tired and needed rest and shouting on you was the only way they could stop you.  It had nothing to do with your brilliance.
2. A mother eagle gives birth, causes the eaglet to fly the way it understands, then with time, leaves it to soar. The eaglet refusing to soar is not the mother's fault- but the eaglet now turned eagle's mental state. In as much as the eaglet might not have been thought how to soar in the way it would have loved, the subtle truth is that the eaglet is now grown and can choose and learn its own way of flight and as a result, unlearn how it was taught that it hated/hinders its now found way of flight.

As an adult, choose to be free. Reborn yourself in such a way that would free your true and real being. Do your best to erase thoughts pulling you down and give yourself permission to fly and soar like only you can.

*Note- I'm not trying to play down on childhood trauma, some people had it worse, I'm only saying we can rise above it if we choose to and the first step to rising is not only desiring it but actually pursuing it no matter how long it takes. Some wounds could be deep but time and knowledge heals all wounds. And if you want to cheat nature and heal faster, you can try healing up with Jesus- I promise you, it works.”


With time, we may dig more into these dynamics, as a part of the thoughts keeping me literally awake more than ever these days.  Before then, try to enjoy the weather and perhaps the personal season you are in all you can because seasons I promise you- are not always forever. I miss you all and it’s great to have you back. See you soon and much love.

Picture Credit: www.kath.ch