Love….

Love Was Never Outside of Me

It’s so sad that I once thought I could only move forward if you were standing by my side.

I wasn’t able to look ahead unless I looked to my side first. And if you weren’t there, I couldn’t see clearly ahead.

I had given all my power away—not only my power, but also my vision.

I placed my worth in your vision of me. How you saw me, I allowed to become my truth. I gave you the power of God to determine my self-worth.

If you didn’t approve, I would erase, delete, remold, and transform myself again and again into the version of me that you approved of.

And when I continued to feel like I was failing, again and again, I started performing so much that I lost my true performance. I lost my true character beneath all the roles I was trying to shape myself into.

When they say, “Love is blind,” that phrase is far more complex than those three words.

Love made me blind to my self-worth.
Blind to my desires.
Blind to my future.
Blind to my existence.

Love made me blind to the shadow parts of myself.

Love allowed me to remain in survival mode because I believed love was something that had to be survived.

Love is actually so confusing to me.

Love is complex.

It can take on so many forms. It can take you through so many experiences, relationships, losses, lessons, and versions of yourself just to help you discover what love truly means.

And I’m beginning to understand something:

Love was never something I was supposed to find outside of myself.

Love was within me the entire time.

Maybe that’s why love became so confusing to me. I was searching for this powerful feeling in the wrong direction.

I kept looking ahead for it.

I kept looking beside me for it.

I kept looking at someone else for it.

But love was never ahead of me.

It was never beside me.

It was always within me, quietly waiting to be acknowledged.

And perhaps the greatest part of finding myself again is realizing that I don’t have to become someone else to be worthy of love.

I don’t have to perform for it.

I don’t have to earn it.

I don’t have to be approved of to possess it.

I am the place where my love begins.

And that was never love that was driving

The confusion for me , it’s was actually

FEAR….