My Week 37 hike turned out to be a soggy one.  The forecast had warned me ahead of time, and I wore proper rain gear, but BOY did I get muddy.  It really got bad after a little slip and fall…mud along the leg of my jeans all the way up to my butt.  MESSY!

It was actually the perfect metaphor for how I was feeling this week.  Part of my trip to San Diego included a two-day retreat experimenting with mindfulness techniques and getting world-class coaching from Master Coach Bev Aron (check out her website here: http://bevaron.com/ ).

You never know what’s going to come up in a coaching session, and before I knew it, I found myself talking about my singleness in a way that surprised me.  I realized that part of the complacency I’ve felt lately about my search for a life partner is actually because for me, it feels safer to stay single.

Huh?

No, I argued with myself, I’m not scared; I’m just content and happy!

Here’s where the messy part comes in:  BOTH are true.

I want it to be simple; I want to be defined and live out of a deep contentment for the freedom I have to do the things I want when I want.  I want to take advantage of every extra moment my singleness allows me to hang with God and deepen my relationship with Him.  It’s a better story – I’m living exactly the life that I want.

But then that darn Bev Aron started poking around in my brain.  I don’t even really remember how we got there, but suddenly, in front of her and five of my colleagues, I heard myself saying “why do I want to put myself in a position to have my heart broken again?”.  Suddenly my story seemed more about living out of fear as opposed to contentment.  That’s not the story I want for my life.

For a few days after that, I seriously wondered if I was just a big fraud after all.  My years of seemingly enjoying my singleness, my coaching others to help them be happier in their singleness, the weeks of blogs I’ve written declaring that singleness is nothing to be afraid of…was it all just bluster?  A way to put a more positive spin on a character flaw?

The conclusion I came to was not black and white, nice and clean, or one or the other.  I realized I am both happy in my singleness and have work to do on my thoughts about relationships and marriage as part of my future.

Messy.

I know for me that sometimes when I catch myself thinking thoughts that don’t seem to jive with my way of believing and being, I start to doubt everything about myself. I alluded to this a few weeks ago in terms of discouragement and despair when it comes to my struggle with my weight, but it can happen in any area…my career, my spiritual walk, even my artwork.  I end up going with a bit of a “throw the baby out with the bath water” approach – i.e., it’s all or nothing.

What a waste that is!  So even though my brain likes to categorize things and have every thing sorted nice and neat under columns for “good” or “bad”, “happy” or “sad”, “right” or “wrong”, my life in any given area on any given day just doesn’t break down like that.  It’s more like “both/and”.  And realizing that brought a feeling of calmness.  I am in process.  I am figuring it out.  I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.

I know I have often let seeds of doubt creep in and steal my happiness.  Seriously, I’ll sit there and say “well, maybe I’m not happy after all,” and feel like a dope.  But then I remember that’s just not true…at least not 100% of the time.

Sometimes I sit and become filled with joy thinking about the life that I have…and wonder how it could ever get better than this.  I wonder why I would ever want to “shake things up” by introducing another person into the mix.  Sometimes.

But sometimes I meet someone and wonder “what if”…and see the fear in my heart that holds me back from exploring the “what if”.

Just keeping it real, people.

I don’t want fear to hold me back.  If I meet someone I could see a future with, I don’t want to shrink back because I’m worried my heart might get hurt again.  I want to live boldly and fully and abundantly.  So that means admitting that sometimes I am content, and sometimes I am not.  It means not cutting myself off from a potential relationship by telling myself that I am happier being single, but rather facing my fear of getting hurt and engaging anyway.

Messy.

Gloriously messy.

Are you allowing yourself to live out of “both/and” in your own life?  Are you willing to let it be messy?

I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts on this.  It was an eye-opening (and humbling!) thought process for me and I can’t stress enough how valuable it was…kind of takes some of the pressure and tension off of things…we’re allowed to be messy.  It’s not the end of the world.  So let me know what you come up with in the Comments section below, or better yet, schedule a free session with me and let’s dive in and explore what this concept means for you!

As always, in the meantime…HAVE A GREAT WEEK!