Do you feel lonely? Were you left alone after a relationship breakup? Have you not yet found the right partner? Do you worry that you may never find a genuine, intimate relationship? Could you, like Johnny Lee, be looking for love in all the wrong places?
“Well, I spent a lifetime lookin' for you
Single bars and good time lovers were never true
Playin' a fool's game, hopin' to win
And tellin' those sweet lies and losin' again.
“I was lookin' for love in all the wrong places
Lookin' for love in too many faces
Searchin' their eyes, lookin' for traces
Of what I'm dreamin' of
Hopin' to find a friend and a lover
I'll bless the day I discover,
Another heart - lookin' for love.”
Could you be looking for love in all the wrong ways? Are you trying to attract others to you? Could you engage them rather than waiting for them to engage you? Could you let them lead the conversation rather than trying to manage it?
Early in my career, I feared social engagements involving company executives. I felt I had nothing to offer. However, at one company function, when I watched my wife, I saw that she easily struck up conversations with those she had never even met. On our way home, I asked her how she was able to converse so comfortably. She replied, “It’s easy, I simply ask them about themselves.”
I started reaching out to people I didn’t know. Even though I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be interesting, I asked them about themselves anyway. Rather than deciding the conversation was going nowhere, I encouraged it. Rather than concluding the conversation would never go anywhere, I probed when necessary to keep it going. Of course, most times a relationship never even got initiated. However, sometimes, the dialogue surprisingly became more enriching and satisfying and an actual relationship developed. The odd time it flourished into an intimate and valued relationship.
As I reflected on several years of practicing this, I asked myself what was making it work. I concluded I kept my expectation level very low and stopped working so hard at it. I focussed on making the conversation pleasant for them rather than for me. I realized I was enriching their lives by making them feel someone was genuinely interested in them. I found that the result of all this was that I was making myself more attractive to them. I was increasing the likelihood that one of those occasions would develop into an intimate relationship. I stopped obsessing over making it happen.
Might a similar approach reduce your loneliness? Could it reduce your fear that you will never find an intimate relationship? Could it make you more attractive? Could your increased attractiveness lead you more assuredly to the intimate relationship you are so eagerly seeking?
Could this approach even lead you to an intimate relationship with your creator? In The Seven Stages of Discovering Life's Purpose, we establish that the achievement of the meaning of life culminates in becoming at one with our creator in a lifelong intimate relationship.
The same process that leads to a lifelong relationship with a soul mate can lead to a lifelong intimate relationship with your creator Step 1: You initiate conversation at every opportunity. Step 2: You actively listen. Step 3: You suppress the urge to steer the conversation. Step 4: When the conversation turns to you, you keep your answer brief and bridge back to listening. But how you can apply this process to a creator who doesn’t show itself or speak to you?
We explore this question at Become At One With Creator.
Del H. Smith conducts research into life’s meaning and is the award-winning author of the AMAZON Best Seller, Discovering Life’s Purpose.