Learning to Love & Let Go.

In love and in friendship, you may love and care deeply for someone, in fact you will but you have to love yourself and have more self-respect that outweighs any feelings at the end of the day when they clearly show who they are, where they are at, how they define things, and how they are capable of loving.

It doesn’t mean that the feelings change, it doesn’t mean there’s any less love; it simply means that they can’t be chased at the cost of your self worth, boundaries, and self-respect to what you know you deserve.

The ultimate act of self-love is to learn how to love from afar when all you want is to love intimately.

To understand it isn’t fair to yourself to love someone more than you are loving yourself, to love someone in ways that are at the cost of you, to continue to show up for someone more than they are for you.

To understand that that if they don’t have the capacity to love you in the way that you want, need, and deserve to be loved that nothing you can do will ever be able to change that.

To know that no amount of effort and no grand gestures will be able to ever reach someone who is unreachable in the ways that you wish to reach them.

To understand that not everyone knows how to accept love, how to receive it, how to be loved and those are the people who will reject your love not always because they do not want it but because they don't know how to embrace it. To know that they will never be able to feel like they can give what you give because they can’t even begin to accept yours.

To know that being able to accept the love that someone gives and truly love someone comes from a place of loving yourself, knowing yourself.

To understand that even if you think they deserve it, that a part of them doesn't and it just has to be accepted whether you want to or not in order to be kind to your heart, in order to love yourself, in order to give yourself closure and make peace with the loss of the potential you once held onto.

To know that the longer that you hold on to what you know will never be, the more you prolong the inevitable and hurt yourself in the process.

To understand that your reality can’t be rooted in what ifs, it can’t be rooted in the things that currently aren’t happening, it can’t live in the potential of what isn’t.

To acknowledge that this connection has only survived in what ifs and hopes for the future, the promise of potential and you deserve far more than that.

To understand it takes so much strength to let go of the hopes and dreams we put into others, that we create in others that we so desperately want to be our reality but aren’t. To feel like in a way we are giving up on a version of them that we hoped they could be, that we were waiting to show up even though we knew never would.

To learn to let go of who we thought they were when they show us who they are.

To understand that letting go isn’t erasing the memories or means they have to be a bad person, it simply means that we are accepting that they weren't the right fit and that is okay.

To acknowledge and accept that not everyone is meant to be permanent in our lives, not everyone is meant to stay and that is something that we have no control over.

To understand that the more we try to fight, the more we try to hold on; the more we inevitably hurt ourselves, sometimes even sacrificing parts of ourselves in the process. People are meant to ebb and flow and not control.

To learn to embrace the impermanence of life. Everyone comes into our live for a reason, often times a season. Life is about collecting memories, experiences, and lessons; learning, growing, and evolving not about collecting people.

To love yourself enough to not settle with potential when you deserve reality.

To respect ourselves enough when they show us very clearly that they can’t give us the version of them we hoped, wanted, and even maybe believed they could be.

To accept people with where they are at and understand if that isn’t for us, if that isn’t compatible for us to not try to make it. To not try to force pieces together that aren't meant to be.

To understand that no matter how much we may want to help others heal, we can’t heal them.

To see that no matter how much we try to love them, it won’t make them be able to accept it. That no matter how safe of a space we try to create, it won’t always make them feel safe. That no matter how much we open up, it doesn’t mean they will. That no matter how much we show up for them, it won’t make them show up for us more. That no matter what we see in them, if they can’t see it in themselves that’s not for us to try to help them see. That if someone thinks they can’t trust anyone, they will find every reason not to even if you give them every reason to. That nothing will make them stay even if you want them to. That every time you try to get close, if they want to run they will and you need to let them. That if they don’t know, it’s not your job to teach. That you showing them how to be a good friend won't make them one. That you showing them how they deserve to be treated won’t matter if they always think they aren’t deserving, good enough. That there’s a fine line between confidence and self-worth and entitlement when it comes to accepting the love others choose to give. That if they are broken in ways, it isn’t for you to try to fix. That they aren’t for you to heal, that they aren’t for you to help. That often times the more you try, the less they will. That the more you push, the more they pull away. That if they aren’t ready, they might never be and that’s just a fact of life. That it isn't for you to wait to find out.

That at the end of the day part of being human means that we are all just afraid of getting hurt and are trying to protect ourselves whether we want to acknowledge that or not. Whether we are aware of how we consciously and subconsciously propagate and manifest this within our lives and in our interactions and connections with others.

To understand that your emotional availability will not make someone who is unavailable more available.

That sometimes you have to leave people where they are because it isn’t your job to try to meet them halfway if they aren’t trying to meet you. That you cannot make someone afraid to lose you, you can’t change how someone sees your value in their life; no matter how much you try.

That it isn’t your responsibility to redefine things for someone who wants to stay comfortable in defaulting to the definitions their comfort lives in due to lack of outgrowing unhealthy ways of coping and defense mechanisms that stunt emotional self regulation.

To understand that just because there’s depth in the things we feel for someone doesn’t mean they deserve to be in the depths of our lives forever.

To understand that you deserve people in your life who feel the same depths, who see your depths, who reciprocate without you having to try to help them find them, navigate them.

To understand your peace lies in the loss of possibility and it is okay to grieve that. Coming to terms with the fact that you can find peace in not seeing everything through sometimes is not an easy feat, letting go.

To understand that you can find peace in putting yourself first and that it isn't selfish to do so.

To acknowledge that you can part ways, you can let something go without needing to attach any negative feelings or emotions but just letting it be, that it is healthy to do so and be able to recognize that.

To give yourself permission to fully feel, to fully reflect so you can fully process so that you can find the place in your heart to let go.

To allow yourself to feel everything that you need to feel without judgement, without blame, without regret for yourself. To give your heart grace. To allow yourself moments to not be okay so it can be okay again.

To understand that endings are often the space that beginnings need to spark, to find hope, to flourish, to begin again, and eventually to try again. To find the courage to try again, to stay open.

To know that anyone who truly value in you will never ask you to fall in love with false potential because they will hand you reality without you having to ask.

To understand if you ever have to teach others how to treat you they will never treat you good enough for what you deserve. That if you have to teach someone how to hold your heart, how to love your heart; it will never feel like they fully see or appreciate your heart.

To know that it is never a bad thing to feel deeply, to love deeply but to recognize when your depth isn’t seen and validated for what it deserves that it needs to be redirected to find a depth that matches in another connection.

In a world with so many souls, there are far too many oceans that live within worth discovering the depths to feel drowned and lost within one.

To understand that you cannot teach someone how to love you well, you cannot teach genuine connection, intentionality, and thoughtfulness that’s an intangible. The same way you can't teach someone how to be a good person, love either comes naturally or it doesn't.

To see you can communicate awareness but if there is no understanding and no true desire to listen it will never be enough, your words will never be loud enough to be heard from someone you isn't listening.

To see that it isn't our place to try to guide someone in the right direction to finding the parts of themselves that are lost, to heal the parts of themselves that need to be healed.

To see that your healing isn’t someone else’s, your timing isn’t someone else’s and that is something they have to find their own healing in their own time and sometimes that means you aren’t meant to be on that journey.

To come to the realization that sometimes that is a heartbreaking thing to accept the reality of especially when we truly love and care for someone but if we truly love them that means doing what is best for them and for us.

To know that if someone is reacting versus responding to your vulnerability, your self awareness, and your self reflections that you are communicating by taking things personally that is someone showing you that they have unhealed trauma that is keeping them from being able to fully see and hear you because their emotional capacity and empathy are limited until they do inner work to self reflect to evaluate why they feel triggered and to be able to repair their emotional regulation to be able to communicate and connect in a more understanding and open way without projecting, without shutting down, without their insecurities convincing them they are unsafe.

To know that it isn't always that they want to be reactive or that they don't want to be vulnerable with you, it is that they don't know how to navigate the walls that they have built. They have yet to learn how to combat the ways they have learned and all they know is to fall back to the place where they feel safe until they do the work to learn otherwise.

To understand that on some level, all of our actions in life are a result of us winning or losing the battle of trying to stay open and trust in a world that has taught us the only way to stay safe is to stay closed off, to shut down when we fear being hurt.

To understand while you can understand the place that it comes from and why they do it that it doesn't mean that you deserve to have to scale walls that someone else would take down for you. That it isn’t your job to show someone the light if all they want to see is darkness. That you cannot stop someone from running if they aren’t ready to. That you can't stop someone from shutting down if they can't stop themselves. That it’s not your place to waste your time attempting to change a narrative that someone shows you they aren’t even trying to change themselves, that they just want to keep playing on repeat.

To know that openly communicating feelings, emotions, wants, and needs will never shut down someone who is truly emotionally available and has healed many parts of their inner child and adult trauma. That bringing awareness to things, calling someone out only works if someone is in a place of healing where they are capable, where they are receptive to understanding, to listening. That communicating realness is something to be valued, treasured in any connection but will be taken as an attack or negative by anyone lacking the healing that leads to the emotional maturity to truly hear what you are trying to bring to their attention, what you are sharing about yourself.

To understand that if someone is valuing their perceptions, assumptions, and sense of safety (defenses) over open communication, objectivity, and curiosity that isn’t someone you want in your life. That isn’t someone who is ever going to be capable of fully seeing you and loving you for who you are because they can’t get past themselves until they heal and in turn are limited by their own emotional capacity, maturity, and unavailability in ways that will bleed into your connection and their capacity to love you.

To know that it has nothing to do with your integrity, your character, or your worth to leave something that is only hurting you, only taking from you and isn't right for you.

To know it is not your job to satisfy other people's expectations nor to control what others are going to think about you.

It is not your job to justify their behaviors nor should you. It is not your job to wait around until the excuses are supposed to run out but probably won't. It is not your job to prove to them that you are different because if they saw you and paid attention they would know, they wouldn’t question. It isn’t your job to hold the shit that they try to put onto you from their past that isn’t yours to hold, it isn’t fair to you.

It isn’t your responsibility to prove them wrong if they haven’t taken the time to heal the parts of them that feel they need to be proven wrong.

To know to try to have those hard conversations, to communicate feelings and emotions, but to also have boundaries and respect yourself enough to remove yourself if those are crossed.

To understand if someone is defaulting to making something about them when you bring something to their attention that emotional response reveals and reflects their level of maturity and their overall emotional capacity for understanding and desire to get to know you beyond themselves.

To know that it is never selfish to choose what you need for your happiness, mental, and emotional health and you don’t ever need to feel guilty for that or feel like you have to justify that to anyone.

To know that it is not your responsibility to heal or fix anyone except yourself.

To understand that what you deserve lives in the what is and not in the what ifs.

To understand that healed people don’t hurt people because they know how to love themselves in a way that they don’t take how others treat them personally, they don’t hold and harbor hate and hard feelings towards others. They can clearly see the hurt, the trauma and triggers, and unhealed parts in the ways that drive people to behave and within themselves to be able to separate themselves to more often be in a responsive state rather than reactively taking things personally.

To understand that you deserve to have people in your life who will protect your heart as you protect theirs.

To understand that being loved deeply by someone like you is a privilege. To be given the mindfulness, the awareness, the thoughtfulness, and for someone to treat your heart with so much respect and softness is far too much to give to someone that doesn’t reciprocate; for someone who doesn't hold your heart in the same regard.

To know that it is not too much to ask but it’s also not something everyone can give and that’s okay.

To understand that sometimes rejection is in our best interest in whatever form it may come, it serves as realignment.

To understand that love is more of a verb than a noun.

To understand that people often times define love by how others have treated them, how others have hurt them rather than by how they think they truly deserve to be loved and how they love others.

To understand that until someone learns to love from a place of loving themselves they will let their capacity and validation of how “good” they are continue to be dependent on others rather than themselves.

To know that genuine love isn’t static but dynamic.

To see that love is a spectrum and everyone falls somewhere on it depending on how much time they have taken to learn to love, get to know, and heal themselves, the beautiful parts and the broken parts.

To know that sometimes the most respectful thing you can do for yourself and for others is let them be, leave them where they are.

To understand that leaving anything out of respect for yourself and to preserve your peace is never wrong a connection that is genuine or meant to be period.

To understand that it isn’t shallow to know what doesn’t serve or deserve you.

To know that not everyone feels love as you do but that you should seek to find those who do, who will.

To understand that love doesn’t end where leaving begins, that there isn’t a loss for love or lack there of just because you have to let go.

To know that learning to let go of a deep love is learning to let go of an attachment, a bond that is meaningful to you but recognizing that it no longer serves you and your peace and that letting go is sometimes the most loving thing we can do for ourselves and for others.

To know that it takes so much more love to be kind and do something hard like let someone go that you love with everything in you and don't harbor any bad feelings towards but want the best for.

To not be selfish but to be selfless, to your heart and to theirs; to protect their heart until protecting it meant letting it go and loving from afar. To give it a chance to find peace even if that means pain for you in the present.

To understand that letting go doesn't mean giving up or loving any less but loving more.