So often December is a season of reflection and celebration. And for the single woman reflection and celebration can be hard.
Reflection:
It tends to be when you look back on all that happened, and wrap up all those hopes and dreams you had for the year. You might want to focus in on all that didn’t happen, or all the things that haven’t changed. And it can be easy to spiral from it didn’t happen, to when will it happen, or it may never happen. And that can feel hopeless.
Celebration:
There are many moments throughout December to celebrate. Work parties, family gatherings, gift exchanges, New Year’s Eve bashes. All of those are meant to be a time of celebration and yet your brain wants to believe that those would be easier if you had someone to do the celebrating with. So, it taints the celebrating as a single woman. All of that can just make you feel lonely, or left out.
You will hear me continually talking about the 50/50 of each and every season and that it is a part of life. You can get better at allowing the 50% negative to be there and not make it mean anything about you. The negative parts of life will be present regardless of your marital status, it is just a part of being a human. So your singleness at the Holidays does not have anything to do with you. You haven’t been bad and God is punishing you. You haven’t done anything wrong and are destined to be single forever. You didn’t miss your chance with that last guy and now have to figure out how to be happy as a single woman for life. This is another Holiday season that God is allowing you to be single. This isn’t a mistake, you shouldn’t be married by now. You were always going to celebrate the 2021 Holiday season as a single woman.
So now what?
There is a 50% positive and a 50% negative to this season. I want to help you allow the negative and enjoy the positive.
So let’s focus on reflection and celebration.
Reflection:
Your default thinking will look back and show you all that didn’t go well, or you should have done better. You should have lost weight, or accomplished those goals. Your life would be so much better if you would have just made that relationship work out, or not stayed with that guy so long. But I want to offer you an alternative. I want you to intentionally focus on everything that you learned this last year. Nothing went wrong last year. It was perfect just the way it was. God was always using all these events for you. I want you to focus on all of the ways you have grown. I want you to purposefully see how you are different. Remember you are not better than last year, just different. You think differently than you did last year. You might have experienced loss, or job change, or even a move. So reflect in a way that really serves you.
Allow yourself to grieve what you were hoping would happen. Instead of feeling hopeless, redirect your attention towards all that you want to put effort towards in the future. Your mind will want to look back and allow you to believe you can’t do it. You will never figure this out. You haven’t yet and time is ticking…. You really need to get on this. And I just want to remind you that you are not running a race. You are on a journey. You are learning so many things as you go on this adventure. You might feel like you are in a hurry but that just leads you to unnecessary pressure and making decisions from a scarcity mindset.
Allowing the negative emotions of reflection can mean allowing yourself to be sad that you are still single. It can mean allowing yourself to feel disappointed if you were hoping a relationship would be in a different place than it currently is. It can be processing any of the negative emotions that come up while you are looking back and reflecting. But again allowing them and not spiraling to making it mean anything about you or why you are single. Events happened this past year. Some of those will bring up negative emotions and knowing that nothing has gone wrong because the negative emotions are there. Those are just there to point you to the Lord, to work through them with Him. This year more than any other, I was able to see just how valuable the negative emotions are in my life. I am so glad I have been sad, disappointed, frustrated, confused, fearful, nervous, anxious. Those have allowed me to see what is valuable and important to me. Those emotions have allowed me to see what beliefs I am still holding on to that may not actually work for me anymore. Which has been really helpful as I am continuing to let the Lord transform my mind and help me love others like He loves them.
There is a 50% positive to your life, even as a single woman. Because you are single you get to experience looking back and reflecting on all that was possible and all that happened. Look back on the amazingness of the year. Allow yourself to focus on what went well. What you did differently to produce different results for yourself this year. See how you being single might have brought some amazing things in your life, and enjoy them. When I was single I was able to travel, to buy things that I wanted, to spend time where I felt the Lord calling me to, and experience things that I can’t as easily now that I am married with kids.
Celebration:
You are capable of celebrating as a single woman. Celebrating as a single woman looks different than celebrating married and/or celebrating married with kiddos. It is just different. There is not one better than the other. There is a 50/50 to each of those scenarios.
Allowing the 50/50 of celebrating at the Holidays is seeing just what is hard about it and processing it through. Yes, you might feel left out, a third wheel, or just plain sad that you are alone for another Holiday season. You aren’t looking at Christmas lights with your man. You aren’t decorating cookies together or getting each other gifts. That is NOT happening, and that is okay. It is not the time for it to happen for you. There is something God has for you in doing this season single again. But just allow yourself to feel all of that. Don’t spiral it further to make it mean anything about you. Just be sad, disappointed, left out, longing, and hurt.
Then look at what is available to you as a single woman at the Holidays. See the 50% positive that is there. Look for it on purpose. Understand that you get to decide how to celebrate and make it special for you. Celebrating can look different for everyone but don’t use what someone else is doing to beat yourself up for how your Holidays should be. Let yours be all that they are and decide what you want them to look like on purpose.
This Christmas season remove some of the unnecessary suffering that you create by not allowing the 50/50. Become aware of it. Realize that reflection and celebration can be good and bad. Then allow the bad and focus on the good.
God is so good. His love for you is HUGE. He wants you to enjoy all that He is giving you. He wants you to accept the life He has given you. I did a great job of rejecting the life He gave me by fighting Him on how it should be different. But He knew. He knew what was best for me. He knew what He was doing. He knew the plans, but I needed to get on board with allowing it to be the way it was. I needed to decide consciously how I was going to look at the circumstances of my life. I encourage you to do that now.
Here is to the next few weeks of celebration and reflection,
Angie
