The Pursuit of Happiness: 21 Spiritual Rules to Success

This is an excerpt from my new book:

The Pursuit of Happiness: 21 Spiritual Rules to Success coming April 2012! 

Spiritual Rule #2

Do Not Let Your Relationship Status

Define Your Happiness

“You cannot borrow half of who you are from someone else,

yet people try to do it all of the time,

 they just call it a relationship!”

This is a very common mistake people make, attaching their happiness to their relationship status. If you are unhappy right now, and say that you don't do this ... well, I don't believe you! You’ve heard it a million times before, “This is my better half,” or “They complete me!” It has become an accepted way of thinking in society today, and it is causing a huge problem. People think it is natural, or common, to feel “whole” when you are in a relationship, in fact, they do not even think twice about it! Society has adapted the mind-set that wholeness and relationships are linked, they have unknowingly blended the two together. The problem is, you cannot borrow half of who you are from someone else, and this is exactly what you are trying to do when you feel this way! As a result, people have become very focused on being in a relationship, because they like the way they feel when they are in one. What they don’t pay attention to is what they are actually experiencing. Distraction!

“What?” I am sure you are wondering, “How does that work?” Well, it’s really pretty easy. Whenever you do not feel whole you are experiencing what is called a spiritual void. This spiritual void happens when your soul is being malnourished in a sense. You are not fulfilling yourself on a soul level (in other words, you are breaking many of the rules in this book.) When your soul is malnourished this feeling becomes very noticeable, and many times, it is mistaken for loneliness. How does this involve your relationship? When you are in a relationship, most people no longer notice the void, another person is essentially distracting them. You become more focused on what this other person is doing, and what they are doing now, and now, you get the drift. When another person becomes such a focus in your life, under these circumstances, your happiness meter begins to fluctuate with their behavior. Your happiness then becomes attached to your significant other and your relationship. Of course, it is natural to have things in your relationship affect your happiness from time to time, for a “temporary” time period. In fact, there is no way to avoid it. When you are arguing, or going through a stressful time in your life or in your relationship, your happiness can become affected. What I am talking about here is becoming so focused on your relationship status, that your relationship’s effect on your happiness is not temporary, but permanent! Now, I have broken this down into two different categories for you, so here they are:

If You Are In a Relationship

If you are in a relationship and your partner seems to have a HUGE impact on your day-to-day happiness. (Now, I do not expect you to know this if you are one of these people, but your friends will, so ask them.) So, if your friends constantly complain to you, and say things like, “You will never be happy with so and so,” or they are tired of hearing you complain to them about your relationship, there is a problem. Just to reiterate, there will be days when you and your significant other will argue, or whatever, and it will affect your happiness (temporarily), and that is normal. But when you are experiencing a spiritual void and do not feel whole yourself and you do not have anything else going on in your life to focus upon that is good for you, your primary focus will become your relationship. Your focus will become your partner and what your partner is doing. Every move they make will give you a mood swing.

If You Are Not In a Relationship

If you are not in a relationship and you only seem to be happy when you are in one, this is a big problem! Yes it is normal to be lonely (to an extent), yes it is normal to want a companion, but it is not normal (it is absurd how many people think this is normal so I choose to use a different word here), it is not "healthy" to feel happy only when you are in a relationship. This is in fact a huge red flag that you have a spiritual void going on in your life that you need to fill!

How do you fill spiritual void?

Start with Spiritual Rules #6, #10 and #15 right away!

 You can visit my Amazon author page at: http://www.amazon.com/Jennifer-ONeill/e/B007C6LDRY/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1