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Unfortunately, many of us get lost on our way to find wholeness and happiness — we get lost in search of the perfect Other instead of seeking our whole and true self. Searching for someone else, rather than seeking your own wholeness, can create great difficulty for you and sometimes even endanger you.

When you depend on a romantic relationship to make you feel okay or whole, you can get into trouble — sometimes big trouble. Rushing into what turns out to be a bad relationship can have painful consequences, and sometimes change the entire course of your life.

Although your teen years are a great time to explore relationships, they are also an important time to explore yourself. To find your missing pieces, to focus on becoming whole. Yet often in our most difficult times, instead of seeking truth and strength within ourselves, we look for a romance to rescue us.

Happily ever after can include romantic love but it always includes spirit. As Sobonfu Some reminds us,

"This world of spirit applies to absolutely everyone in the world. Because without spirit, we wouldn't even make it here. It would be really hard to know whether we were going to wake up tomorrow and be alive without spirit. It would be really hard to know we have life."

"Separation from spirit, as we see here in the West, causes a greater emphasis on romantic love. It creates a vortex of longing for another person, for another way of connecting. Yet, romantic love is only one way of finding that other connection, which is to spirit, that we are actually looking for."

— SOBONFU SOME, AFRICAN SHAMAN,
AUTHOR OF THE SPIRIT OF INTIMACY

It's not that romantic love isn't wonderful — it can be. But it is really the desire to feel your place in this world, to have a sense of who you are, to be connected to spirit, that often drives you to connect with others romantically. In many traditions such as Sufism, sacred psychology, Buddhism, and mystical Christianity, the search for romantic love (for the Beloved) is recognized as our search for the sacred.

We all want to feel this sacred connection to something beautiful. Romantic love can make you feel like you have everything you could ever want. But soon you find out that even when you have found your "soul mate," after a while that yearning for the connection with more, with your purpose, with spirit, comes back. So, romantic love is just part of finding wholeness and happiness. Shamans know this to be true, and that is why they teach their youth about energy and spiritual power. Only from a place of spiritual empowerment can you call to you a romantic partner with whom you can truly be happy.

Once you devote yourself to being whole, you can more easily and successfully create healthy, safe relationships with others. Most of your life happens in relationships — with family, friends, teachers, neighbors, employers, acquaintances. Many of these relationships will be a source of great pleasure and even joy. But sometimes they will be difficult, causing stress and threatening your self-esteem. When this happens, you have the tools within yourself to be safe. You have the ability to protect yourself in all your relationships and situations.

This article was excerpted from:

Teen Psychic
by Julie Tallard Johnson.

Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Bindu Books, a division of Inner Traditions Intl. ©2003. http://www.innertraditions.com

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About the Author

JULIE TALLARD JOHNSON is the author of The Thundering Years and I Ching for Teens. She is a psychotherapist and mentor of teens and young adults. She lives in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Visit her website at www.julietallardjohnson.com.

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