I always loved the idea of love. Yet I never felt worthy of it.
I remember being a young girl and dreaming of my person - the one who would see all parts of me and cherish everything they saw, the one I could feel safe with, fully open up to, and be my real self around. It was an epic dream...
Ironically, I grew up feeling like I had to hide. At a very young age, I developed a habit of filtering my speech, silencing my true ideas and beliefs, and suppressing my deepest desires. Like a chameleon, I camouflaged myself based on my surroundings, and it became a defense mechanism - it was an act of survival to abandon my authentic self in moments of perceived threat.
Over time this habit became chronic, and years later in my early adult life, it was so much of a normalized behavior that I didn't even notice I was doing it. And this, as you can imagine, had a massive impact on my love life.
I was involved in multiple romantic relationships during my high school years and my early twenties, and now looking back on each one, I can see that I lost myself - over and over and over again. It was the same pattern. I got into a relationship with someone, started morphing into them, and then in a few months or a year later I had a massive breakdown when I finally realized I didn't recognize myself in the mirror (which inevitably led to a breakup). Over and over again...
So my track record wasn't so great the first few years of my dating life. I admit.
But then I met someone who changed it all. Her name is Sie. Instantly our relationship felt different because she had such a raw form of love for me - one that was non-judgmental and unconditional.
At first this was a breath of fresh air, then a shock to my system. I'd never experienced love like this before, and it took me a very, very long time to accept it (I think 7 years later...I'm still learning).
These past years of being in a relationship with Sie, I've grown to love myself more and allow myself to be free. I've become aware of my habitual behaviors of self-abandonment, and I'm learning how to let my walls down...in order to let love in. I'm deconstructing the fears that caused me to act this way in the first place.
It's a practice and it's a continual journey...but the point of this story is this: the solution to my problems was never about meeting the perfect person to fulfill all my needs. I am incredibly grateful that I found Sie, and she's been acting as a beautiful mirror of love for me to reflect back to myself. But I've found that as people, although our love lives involve relationships with partners, they are very much rooted in - and directly impacted by - the relationships we have with ourselves first.
Sie and I haven't always had a smooth sailing journey. It's actually been an insanely rocky road, and our love has grown through all of that - and again for that I am grateful. But I think that through these past few years, my commitment to my self-love journey has been a major fuel to that fire. I'm only able to open up with Sie so fully now because I've given myself permission to do so in my inner relationship.
I have found my worth in the deepest corners of my being - where the true source of love resides - and because I live and breathe this, it is now reflected in my love life. And the more I tune into this inner love, the better my romantic life gets, and the more I am able to fully express myself.
No more filtering, no more chameleonizing, no more abandoning myself - now I show up to life as someone who knows she is deserving of love, and my love life shows it. I became my person, and its really made all the difference.
If you feel like you are losing yourself, either to a relationship or to some other circumstance/area in your life, just know that you can always find your way back home to the love within yourself, and all aspects of your life can get better. It starts with one decision: to stop hiding who you are. Choose to be you, choose to love you, and allow your life to start reflecting this.
Maybe you clicked on this blog post because you wanted to improve your romantic life, but what's really begging for your attention is your own heart. This is your opportunity to listen to it now. :)
- Sarah
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Note From Me:
*As I reflect back on experiences I’ve had throughout my life, I find that it brings me great joy to put them into words - to voice what I’ve been through, and to also express any insights learned from each one. Sharing stories seems to satisfy this inner yearning to leave my mark - and at the very least, it always leaves me feeling lighter and more true to myself. So that is why I write, and my intention is to uplift, entertain, and maybe even inspire others to share their own experiences with the world. We all have a story.
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