All The Single Ladies: The Gifts of Standing Alone

I don’t like dwelling on the past, but I do like learning from it. Recently I took a look back at journal entries and started noticing a pattern when it came to my relationships with men. On the last new moon of 2019, I set the intention to heal my heart wounds around the masculine. Ever since, I’ve been having blasts from the past, all my experiences and emotions in relation to men from the last decade have been bubbling to the surface. So I can address, acknowledge, accept and clear them in order to make room for something new.

Looking at my journals I realized that I once thought sex was all I had to offer a man and all they had to offer me. My dad always said, men only want one thing. And so the cliche lives on, and that’s all i gave or got. I accepted crumbs. Ego paired with deep insecurities. Every time I had sex with someone who didn’t care about me or see me, I created a distance, another layer of self-betrayal. We underestimate how much it affects us, the impact, the ripple effects over time. We trivialize it. So it was just physical with no emotions. 

My first kiss was at 15. He was older so I lied and told him it wasn’t my first time. Already with the shame. The first time I had sex I was 17. A drummer in a band I hung out with, we’d make out wasted at every show and barely spoke. One night, I asked him to have sex. I wanted to get it over with. The following week he had a girlfriend and I was kicked out of the friend group. A pattern that would repeat itself all throughout my 20s. Disconnected sex and another girl, in her power, would swoop in and there I was again, left in the dust alone, pretending I didn’t have any feelings, hating on the world, men and myself. 

I’ve never felt safe with or around the masculine. I always felt disposable, replaceable. And I was because I wasn’t showing my true self. I was just an empty body to them. I was seeking affection, I wanted to cuddle, but I thought the price I had to pay was sex. I thought maybe after I gave them what they wanted they would see me. 

I’ve mostly dated men with substance abuse problems or as disconnected from themselves as I was, all of which I had zero emotional intimacy with. They all ghosted or cheated or were simply not interested in more. The nice ones, the few and far between, I walked away from. I didn’t believe them nor was I attracted to them. Classic. 

I had never been in an emotionally intimate relationship with a man. I had so much shame around never having been in a real relationship to this day especially since I worked in the lingerie biz. I thought I would be perceived as a fraud; “What does this girl know about expressing sexuality and sensuality” (based on this false belief we are taught that sexuality only exists in relation to a man)

I was fearing judgment, being looked down on as not legitimate. As an imposter of a woman. This was the only time I really compared myself to other women or feared their opinion. I’m such a girl’s girl, I have a gazillion female friends and get along with them naturally. But I feared the judgment of all the women I sold lingerie to that had boyfriends and all the spiritual women who had transcendental sexual experiences with their twin flames. I felt so left out from one of the most natural and exquisite human experiences, partnership, love, romance.

“I felt so defective as a woman, like there must be something wrong with me. Why could I not have a boyfriend? I craved intimacy and love but it felt forbidden to me. ANYONE BUT HER. Like there was a chastity belt around my heart.”

When I turned 30 and chose to no longer have unfulfilling sexual escapades, I started to see that all my sexual energy goes into my work and passions. The sacral chakra, our womb, is the home of our creative life force, it’s where projects are birthed. Our sexual energy is our power. Before this, I didn’t understand that my sexuality existed independently of my relation to a man. That all the creativity I poured into birthing my alter ego, my business, my community, was that sexual life force energy. My pole dancing, my feminine expression, all testaments to the power between my legs, in my womb space . All these years I felt shame and unworthy because I had never been chosen. There was always another girl, better at the female role. More nurturing, more loving, more sensual, more desirable. I was not what a man wanted. And somehow society made me believe that my worth and value as a woman was directly tied to that.

Only in the last little while did I truly understand how I was expressing and harnessing my sexual energy. Only in the last year, at 33, did I truly feel empowered and inspired by my willingness to stand alone, dive deep into my own shadows, share my vulnerability with the world on a mission to heal the imbalance between the feminine and masculine. This was part of my journey, my soul’s mission. I needed to be alone to learn. This was my path. There are so many ways to express sexuality and it is such an important part of our lives but we don’t deserve to feel shame for not being in a couple. Every one has their own path, and as nourishing and transformative as relationships can be, there isn’t just one way to live. Far too often I see women sacrificing themselves in the name of the couple. Maybe if we had a collectively more positive attitude towards single women of any age, we wouldn’t feel like we had to.

Did I crave the support, affection and love of a man sometimes? Fuck yes. But would I sacrifice my soul mission, my self-love, my evolution, in order to be in a relationship? Hell no. This was my journey. This is my journey. And I choose to travel it with integrity and authenticity and only accept what I know I’m worth. Every lover, every encounter is a teacher but there’s also no shame in standing alone. In fact, I now feel proud of myself for having the courage to walk my own path and not need a relationship to feel whole. I want one, but I don’t need one. And that’s the difference. 

If this resonates with you and you are craving more on the topic, be sure to listen to episode 07 of Bed Talks the podcast where Meg and I go deep into our stories about love and fear.

xo

Sabrina