Are you still frantically searching for Happiness?

I was successful at love, because I paid close attention to the (early) tiny warning signs, and didn't sweep 'em under the rug. I was lucky though~ I was never agenda-driven, in the sense of believing that marriage and family would magically make me "happy."

I did however, have a robust sex life for many years, and several marvelous love affairs in-between. Seekers of Happiness will try virtually ANYTHING to achieve it, thinking the magic 'key' is out there somewhere, that will eradicate their inner pain or discontent, and unlock the door that stands in the way of their contentment and joy. This is pure FANTASY.

Reality never matches our imaginings of "what could be." It's a painfully sobering outcome for those who think a relationship or baby will be the one thing that finally fills the hole in their soul.

Plenty of folks grew up without a real sense of connection and family, due to emotionally defective parents. They believe that if they can just construct a family of their OWN and turn it into the opposite of what they had as a child (and still do), all will be well, and they'll finally be free of the sense that "something's missing."

This is folly of course, but these people refuse to accept that REALITY won't match their long-held fantasy about what's going to complete them or make them feel whole. In truth, it never does.

Here's what you really have to consider when indulging these fantasies: Your parents once held the same, exact mental pictures about marriage and kids that you currently do. They were raised by people precisely like them, so they may have learned what NOT to do with their children, but had no frame of reference for a healthy, loving example of doing it differently, so they ended up following the blueprint that was given them. Alas, children always learn by example.

You might be convinced somehow, that You will be a better mom or dad than your parents were to you~ and to some degree you may be right~ but you're still left with a hole in your soul, due to self-worth scars and heartache their parenting legacy fostered in you.

If you think even for a moment, that all this isn't gonna deter your capacity to give a child the consistent, nurturing, love and attention THEY require when you're feeling in need of time and space for yourself, you're DANGEROUSLY naive and shortsighted.

Under these conditions, you will be raising a human who's gonna be searching the rest of THEIR life for a way to fill the ghastly hole in their own soul. Emotional genetics always repeat, generation to generation.

Regardless of how well-meaning you were when you took on that enormous child-rearing responsibility and couldn't fathom the downside of surrendering your autonomy and independence, primal wounds of infancy and childhood have left you incapable of fully bonding with another, because you're not bonded in healthy, friendly, nourishing ways to yourself.

Thus, your inner emptiness and sense of 'lack' which keeps you doggedly pursuing fantasies of "Happily Ever After," cannot be realized until you do the inner-work that's needed to mend your Self, and become emotionally vibrant and whole, just as you are.