 Hello everybody, I hope that you're all doing well. Welcome back to my channel and welcome back to this little podcast series that I have started over here. I know it's been a minute since the last episode, but you know, life happens. I did a little bit of traveling and so we just took a little bit of a break, not too long of a break, but we're back today with episode 4, I believe. And today I wanted to talk a little bit about a season of singleness as a single woman in her almost late 20s. I just kind of wanted to talk about the things that I have learned from my seasons of being single. And I wanted to make this video because there is such like a stigma or just feeling about being single that people see it as a bad thing and it's really not a bad thing at all. And so I have a list of like five ish talking points to share with you. And there are just five things that I've learned about singleness that, you know, you can actually use it to your advantage and use it as a good thing. And so I hope that if you are in a single season and you are feeling lonely or you're feeling, you know, hopeless that you may never find your person, I hope that these will help you find comfort and help you kind of alter the way that you think about being single until you do meet your person. And I get it. I know it's hard. I mean, I have been in love and I think being in love is one of the best feelings in the world. I miss it every day. Doesn't necessarily mean that you miss the person at all. But you know, that feeling of being in love and having that partnership is a great feeling. So I get it. I totally get how it's hard to kind of alter your mentality. But I hope that these things will help. So the very first one I have written down here is to learn how to be thankful for your single season. And I know that's hard. And that's something that I really had to remind myself of when I first, you know, all the times that I entered my single season. You know, you have to remind yourself that you'll never get another season like this. And we're all getting older and in one day you'll probably be married and have kids and you'll never get a long time like ever again for the next 20 plus years. So it's it's a season that you might not ever get again. And so if you think about it like that, you'll learn to enjoy your alone time and you'll learn to enjoy the quiet. You'll learn to enjoy a random Saturday where you didn't make plans and you can sit on your couch and watch whatever you want in pajamas if you want to. And there might be a time in your life where you may not be able to do that again. So that's something to keep in mind. And two, you have so much more free time to see family and friends. You're just based off, you're basing your life off of your schedule, not your schedule and your partner schedule. So you have more freedom to do things and go places and see whoever you want and do whatever you want. And you have the room to become the best version of yourself. So that's the first one is try to alter your mentality and learn how to be thankful for it. The next one is a hard one to kind of get through your head I think, but it's that you're not missing out. I get it. I am like I said entering my late 20s, I am getting to that point where every time I go online someone else is engaged or getting married or this that and the other thing. And while you're so happy for them, it's easy to compare yourself to them. Like, oh, we're the same age. Should I be doing that? I should be doing that too. I should be in that stage of my life. But you know what? Everyone's timeline is different. You're not missing out. You just haven't found your wisdom yet and that's okay. Your journey is unique to you and your timeline doesn't have to look like everybody else's. And you know, trusting God's timing, I've learned trusting God's timing is always better than trusting your own or trying to make your own timeline. So just try to remind yourself that you're not missing out. Your timeline is just different. The next one I would say is don't settle. And it's very easy to settle. People do it all the time, especially when you know what it's like to have a partner and you know what it's like to be in love and to like have that person be your person. When you don't have it, it creates a void. And so you want to just date someone to fill that void to have someone to talk to all day, someone to go out to eat with or whatever. It's human nature. I feel like we've all kind of been there. But I had to remind myself that, you know, relationships affect every part of your life. They affect you emotionally, physically, sometimes mentally, sometimes spiritually. And so if it can affect you like that, imagine what the wrong relationship would do to you or what it has the power to do to you. So jumping into just any relationship, you know, it's this risky business and every decision that we make now affects is going to affect our future. So don't settle just because you want somebody to fill that hole because the right person will. But until then, use yourself to fill that void. We'll get there. Number four is your patience is not in vain. And as cheesy as it sounds, good things do come to those who wait. And this is something that I have to remind myself of because I'm sitting here and I'm like, God, I'm being patient. Like I'm doing all the things, right? And another big thing that I remind myself is honoring God and, and, you know, putting him first will always be worth it. And I'm not trying to make this video totally about that. But for me, that's that's what I'm trying to implement in my life and remind myself. Because, you know, we think we know better, but we don't. That's that's where that's where the patience comes in and it's hard and it sucks. But you gotta do it. Okay. And the last one, number five, you guys are going to think I'm a cheese ball for this one, but I'm going to say it anyway, because it's true. And I have found this to be true for me. In this season, this is where you should be putting yourself first and loving yourself first and dating yourself first. And I mean that when I tell you that I bought myself flowers once a month, I was buying myself flowers once a month, I still kind of do. You know, this is the time where we we find our our identity and we get self awareness and you find purpose like this is where you become yourself and I genuinely have felt that the last couple of months where I've been navigating this this season, you really become the best version of yourself. And then once you learn to love yourself and you become your own person again, you're then ready to then step into another relationship. Once you have that self identity and that self awareness and you're like, okay, I have a better grasp of like who I am as a person. Again, as as my own person without a partner, then you can properly love someone else. And I think our human nature is we we go to like love somebody else first without learning to love ourselves and then we expect that person to make us feel good about ourselves. And it doesn't work that way. It should it should go the other way and I have been guilty of this and that's why I can say this because I have learned that lesson. You have to be good with yourself first so that you know who you're bringing you yourself bringing into whatever relationship comes next. And I'll never forget the one day that I was like, wow, I love being single. It was the first time since I I got a relationship that I was like, wow, I am like thriving. It was a Sunday afternoon. I had gone to church in the morning. I went grocery shopping afterwards and then I was pulling into my dad's driveway to have like family dinner with the family and like watch a movie and just have a a night in at their house. And I was like, I never got to do this before because you know, you always had something to do or you were always with your partner and not that that's a bad thing, but you do kind of lose a little bit of your own like self identity and it was in that moment when I I became so like content in my singleness and I was like, I love this and it was from that that week was the week that I realized, okay, I think I'm ready to like see what's out there and maybe try to date again just to see just to like dip my toes in a little bit and that's how I kind of realized that once I was okay, I think I said it in my very first podcast episode full circle that when you're content with your now you can God will slowly start to reveal your next and I really do believe that and that's kind of where I am now and so the next episode that'll come to you in a few weeks might be sooner than you think. I don't know because now I feel like I'm on a roll. I'm going to talk about a couple of points to keep in mind when you are ready to date again and these are things that I had to relearn myself because dating is hard. It was hard a couple years ago and now it's a lot harder so that'll be the next episode so if you're curious to hear those points if you are in a similar season like I am then that'll be coming to you really soon. I know this was a little bit shorter of an episode than usual but I hope that you guys got a little something out of it. I look forward to reading your comments down below. Thank you so much for being here and I will see you in my next episode. Bye guys!