Wake Up to Love: A ‘Successfully Single’ Mindset

“All my time is spent

focused on

my freedom

now.

Why would I join them

when I know

that I can

beat ‘em

now?” - Lauryn Hill on “Nobody” track by NAS

Some folk can take and twist it... but freedom has roots.

We can spot freedom.

I’ve lived as a single woman for most of my adult life.

I’ve never been married.

I don’t have kids.

As a Caribbean-Latina woman singleness can be seen as a lonely lot i life…to be endured.

As a stylist for several many years, I’ve heard and learned about how the sisterhood perceives singleness. It is a trial and a pause on progress, for most, until we land a partner, birth children and officially begin life.

According to my West Indian culture and Sisterhood stories, singleness appeared to be ‘getting in the way’ of love. The message was: if I can’t find someone to love… I am unlovable.

That thought challenged me. Was singleness a stamp of unlovable-ness?

In my last article I shared that I set my life’s purpose, as love, at eight years old.

Twenty years later in a lively natural hair salon I heard a range of woman at ages 27, 36, 45 and 62 year old say the same thing, ‘Sis, my time for love has passed.’ or ‘Oh, gworl. I’ve aged out of love.’

I found this curious.

How could so many people of such a wide range of lifetimes ‘age out of love’?

I listened to the stories of my sista girls’ disappointing relationships. I looked at the decisions woven into the words as we laid our lives out like a map, with hopes of using the community to chart a path out of singleness and into the bright light of love.

I invite you to journey with me through the stores that taught me the lesson I live now and hope to share in this sista girl guide for waking up to love. I’m sharing what I learned on my love path because it has led me to a place where peace resides in me, love fills me and joy is cultivated within my soul.

I’ve also met the mirror to my soul…my Guapo.

The Successfully Single mindset I built up from sisterhood lessons, and lived out daily, is what allowed me to be single, open-hearted and abundant…(with boundaries that kept me from choices that did not align with my hearts joy).

I want these things for you.

If my own lessons can help you, sista girl…

I’ll gladly give you a chair and pour this good, hot tea to help you live your best life.

On to the stories and my lesson.

Whether it was a situationship we try to shift into a serious commitment, a marriage proposal from a mediocre partner or a total compromise in an unfulfilling and controlling provider/servant relationship… I looked and listened.

On the surface these relationships looked like freedom.

The situationship had intimacy (of a sort).

There was a marriage proposal (though it may give you indigestion to think of a life of emotional unavailability or inconsiderate actions).

And the final sista girl was actually married with children (but where was the husband ? Surely, not at home or helping to raise his children)

In the salon chair I styled sistas and asked the question every girlfriend asks when the streaming series goes to commercial…”is this relationship worth it if you’re not being considered at all?”

And the many replies can be summed up in one phrase: “Who else is going to want me?”

Over hot tea the sisterhood shared their solemn advice, ‘There’s not enough love for everyone. You’ve lost so much time already. Take what you can get.’

Meanwhile I had a Pastor who was also teaching me about navigating life.

He taught me abundance.

I learned that I can create love and if I want more, I brew it.

He taught me to go on dates with several guys to dances, dinners and fun-loving places.

He taught me that in dating it wasn’t my job to please the person or promote myself. I could see dating as a way to learn what I liked and, if I even liked that person.

Most importantly, I learned that love is a frequency and I can dial in at will.

That day, I saw my future self and I spoke life to her...drawing her near with every decision I made.

Instead of setting a million rules I used my awareness.

I was aware when a guy I liked didn’t show interest.

I took the tough pill of accepting that and didn’t try to convince him of my value.

No more auctioning off Thalia to the disinterested crowd of love interests.

I affirmed that what I needed was valid and stopped explaining it. When a guy wanted to get sexual without ‘knowing how he feels about me’ … I bounced.

I put my feelings first and BOUNCED.

We’ve all seen how folks can act when they are interested in someone. They listen, they pour in , they show up. I had to love myself enough to say ‘no’ to love interests that were not putting in the interest, effort or appreciation that manifests with love.

Abundance was my truth and I began to happily exchange potential marriages carrying promises of lose-yourself compromises with joy-filled singleness! I knew a different truth, gained by my Pastor and lessons from the sisterhood.

Here are the lessons I learned:

My singleness I not a burden it is a declaration of self love.

It is me saying ‘no’ to what I don’t want.

It is me making space for who I do want…so I’m available for love.

I learned that my heart can love freely, and let go, in love - when needed.

When faced with the fear of singleness I decided to change the channel. I turned the frequency of love until I heard a decision that was founded in affirmation.

I chose to make singleness a celebration , trusting that I am being guided by abundance each day that I wake up to love.

I’m not saying that I gave up on relationships to commit to a single life. I’m saying that I know what love is : healing and helpful and whole.

I’m saying that I can give that to myself.

And when that partner arrived I’d tended my heart so well that it was open, healed and focused on freedom.

I don’t have to live by roles that make me miserable or feed the scarcity mindset.

I got free and I bless you to feel the freedom of a self affirming love.

With singleness I changed the channel and became the lover of my soul.

I’ll tell you, I’m in a relationship with a bright, primal, wondrous soul ... my Guapo.

The only reason I was available for that is because of this Successfully Single perspective.

I didn’t compromise.

I stood firm and someone met me at that place.

Now, we paint each other with love…and its a beautiful thing.

In the words of Lauryn Hill:

“All my time is spent

focused on

my freedom

now.

Why would I join them

when I know

that I can

beat ‘em

now?”