As a woman, we’re supposed to be…
 

As a man, they’re supposed to be…

And THEN you’ll be loved.

We learn the role to play and become who the world tells us to be. In fact, becoming that version of ourselves is easy. It’s the safest, surest way to love and it’s what we ultimately want, isn’t it?

We’re taught conditioned love.

Who do I have to be in order to be loved?

Because we think no one would *choose* to love the biggest, messiest, fullest expression of ourselves in all our wild glory and humanly gloom.

I mean, I never thought anyone would choose to love all of me. All of my multiple scars, my imperfect body, my scared wounds. Why would someone *want* to be with me? I wasn’t simple, uncomplicated, perfect. I barely have anything figured out, I’m intricately messy, care and feel too much, and come in waves. Sometimes stirred up as a hurricane that whirls within herself to stop from inflicting such passion and feeling on others’ surface-level lives, and sometimes as peaceful as the gentle early morning, lapping waves while I’m in his arms in bed. I want to be ravished and held and enraptured and free all at once. And while I could be that proper, quiet woman in exchange for the man I love’s love… my soul burns inside of me.

This exchange can’t be the only way we love and are loved, can it?

Because it breaks my heart that we hide the things inside of us that we think will cause us to be unwanted. We keep our desires, dreams, and darkness hidden because we think they’ll make the one we love run away from us. We don’t tell our deepest truths because we’re terrified of being raw and exposed, and then left. We don’t become the biggest we can be because we don’t want to be “too much” for them. We hold ourselves back both in relationships and how we show up in the world because of this fear of rejection.

It’s much easier to be loved for a version of ourselves than left for who we truly are.

So we compromise ourselves.

We say it’s not that important.
We convince ourselves that we’re happy.
We remind ourselves of how we should be grateful.
We say it’s okay that we’re not having that sexual desire be fulfilled.
We say other things matter more than what we truly want.
We don’t speak up about what we want to change in this world because it would make them uncomfortable.

We downplay and dismiss our dreams so we don’t rock the boat.
We tell ourselves that it’s all “fine” because we want to be with them.
We hide our fears, darkness, desires, dreams, truth because it’s easier that way.

It’s easier to hide ourselves than lose them, than lose love.

We love them so damn much and want to be loved so badly in return, that we sacrifice staying true to ourselves.

We fall for fear, disguised as conditioned love.

So over time we silence that inner calling, tell half-truths, downplay our innate power, shrink within ourselves, and our soul withers away.

But I don’t believe we have to choose between ourselves and love.

This conditioned love is limiting both ourselves and the power love can give us.

Because true, liberated love is terrifying.

Because this love, in all its wonder, demands all of us. It wants us all in. This love wants us to be all of us, seen, and never settle. It’s intense, shakes you to your core, and also all-empowering.

It means we’re independently invincible as individuals AND confidently codependent in relationships.
It means we know we can love and be loved AND be the fullest expression of ourselves.
It means we’re worthy; in deserving love AND what we really desire.

But we’ve been taught our whole lives that we can’t possibly be the truest version of ourselves AND be loved. We’re taught it’s an either/or situation. You have to choose.

But I refuse to believe this.

We learn this lie from the world. So I want to accumulate proof that I can be that messy, complicated, wanting, big, powerful, fully expressed version of myself AND for my love story to be my greatest story. It’s scary and I’m constantly learning, but it’s both deeply peaceful and powerful and I wouldn’t have it any other way anymore. I have to keep coming back to an unshakable place within myself.

Because the way we love is the way we live.

Once you clearly and confidently know who you are, then you won’t hold yourself back in exchange for love anymore – which empowers you to play bigger in all areas of your life.

So this work, this change, this new level of love and ourselves doesn’t start with them or fighting what frustrates us. It starts with us.

Imagine if it stopped being normal for us to ignore our gut feelings, silence our inner voice, and hold back our own powerful soul in love. Just think of what your relationship, your life, your impact on others would be like if we loved liberated… just how powerful that would be.

Because as a client said to me this week about the opposite; it’s both boring and tiring.

It’s boring and tiring to not be free to be you.
It’s boring and tiring to hide who you are and what you truly want.
It’s boring and tiring to always small talk and never talk about the stuff that really matters to our hearts.
It’s boring and tiring to constantly overthink everything, worry all the time, and stay stuck in your head.
It’s boring and tiring to be “proper” and “good”.
It’s boring and tiring to play by the rules all the time.
It’s boring and tiring to not explore sexually, to not be physically intimately vulnerable, and to not feel chest-heaving, sigh-worthy satisfied.
It’s boring and tiring to care so much about what they think.
It’s boring and tiring to hold on so damn tight.
It’s boring and tiring to be unable to creatively express yourself.
It’s boring and tiring to constantly strive for perfection and never put anything out into the world.
It’s boring and tiring to deny ourselves pleasure, power, passion.
It’s boring and tiring to keep everyone else so comfortable while your own body is saying something is off.

And it’s boring and tiring to be boring and tiring.

We all know a person who hints at what it would be like to be worthy of love and be fully themselves. They’re carefree, radiant, trusting their gut, passionate, living in the moment, have endless energy, fiery, flowing love, and full of life. They ooze freedom and presence. They’re grounded in who they are. They’re magnetic. They change the world, maybe just a little bit.

There’s that version of yourself within yourself right now.

Think of if that were you; the un-held back version of yourself who isn’t afraid of losing love… how would it feel, how would you show up, how would your life change?

If you never meet yourself, then you’ll never feel safe to be yourself.

Let your energy be stronger than anyone else’s, tap into your power, speak your truth.

The truer to yourself you become, the more love the world has for you… in all its forms.

Let’s change the way we’re conditioned for love so we can live liberated as a whole.