Dear SELF,
I am sorry it took me so long to recognise you.
For much of my life, I searched for love outside myself.
I looked for it in relationships, friendships, approval, attention and the hope that someone might finally see all of me and decide I was worthy of being chosen.
Like so many of us, I was taught that love was something to find.
Somewhere out there was another person who would complete me, fill the empty spaces and take away the loneliness. Someone who would become the missing piece of my life.
It was a beautiful story.
But it was still a story.
The truth is, I was never half of a person.
I was never broken.
I was never incomplete.
I had simply forgotten who I was.
The search for completion
We are conditioned to believe that love will arrive through another person.
We search for the one who will make us feel safe, important, desirable and whole. We become frightened that if no one chooses us, it must mean there is something wrong with us.
And so we learn to perform.
We change our shape to fit another person’s expectations. We silence our needs. We soften our truth. We practise being agreeable, desirable and easy to love.
We ask another person to reassure us that we matter.
They ask us to do the same for them.
Without realising it, love can become a transaction between two people who are both afraid of being alone.
I will become what you need if you become what I need.
I will soothe your loneliness if you soothe mine.
I will make you feel worthy if you make me feel worthy.
We may call it love, but beneath it there can be fear, need, attachment and an unspoken expectation that another person will save us from ourselves.
For a while, it may feel wonderful.
There is attraction, excitement and the intoxicating feeling of being wanted. We think constantly about the other person. We feel swept away by something larger than ourselves.
But sometimes what we call falling in love is actually falling into projection.
We fall in love with who we imagine the other person to be and with who we believe we can become through them.
When awakening changes love
Then something begins to change.
We awaken.
Perhaps slowly. Perhaps painfully. Perhaps through the ending of a relationship that forced us to confront everything we had avoided within ourselves.
We begin to recognise our patterns.
We see where we confused intensity with intimacy.
We see where we mistook attachment for devotion.
We see where we abandoned ourselves to avoid abandonment by someone else.
We recognise the places where our wounds were attracted to another person’s wounds and called the connection destiny.
Once we see these patterns clearly, we cannot easily unsee them.
This is why awakening can make love feel more difficult.
It is not because we have become cold, unfeeling or incapable of connection.
It is because we can no longer comfortably participate in relationships built upon possession, manipulation, emotional bargaining or fear.
We can no longer pretend that being needed is the same as being loved.
We can no longer make another person responsible for our happiness, nor can we carry the responsibility for theirs.
The old relationship story no longer fits.
The loneliness of seeing clearly
There is a particular loneliness that can accompany awakening.
It is not always the loneliness of being physically alone. We may enjoy our own company and feel deeply peaceful within ourselves.
It is the loneliness of seeing through a game that so many people are still playing.
We meet someone attractive, interesting or kind. There may be chemistry and genuine connection, but we can also sense the unconscious expectations beginning to form.
We recognise when someone wants us to become the solution to their emptiness.
We notice when they are attracted to the role they imagine we will play rather than the person we truly are.
We feel when a connection is based upon familiar wounds rather than conscious alignment.
And so we hesitate.
Not necessarily because we are afraid of love, but because we are no longer willing to lose ourselves within it.
This clarity can narrow the relationship field considerably.
It is no longer enough for someone to make us laugh, find us attractive or fill our evenings with conversation.
We begin to long for something deeper.
We want to meet someone who has also begun the journey within.
Someone who is willing to take responsibility for their own wounds, reactions and choices.
Someone who is not searching for another person to complete them.
Someone who can stand beside us without asking us to become smaller, quieter or less ourselves.
We are no longer searching for someone who needs us.
We are searching for someone who can freely choose us.
Dear SELF, I choose you
So, dear SELF, today I choose you.
I choose you when the silence feels heavy.
I choose you when I am tempted to settle simply because being with someone seems easier than standing alone.
I choose you when an old wound tells me that being alone means I am unlovable.
I choose you when I feel the urge to chase, convince, perform or prove my worth.
I choose you when my heart wants to return to something familiar, even though my soul knows it is no longer aligned.
I choose to listen to my Inner Compass.
I choose to honour the quiet knowing within me.
I choose not to abandon myself in exchange for affection.
I choose not to betray my truth for the temporary comfort of belonging.
I would rather stand alone as my authentic SELF than disappear inside a relationship built upon illusion.
Love from fullness
Real love does not ask two incomplete people to rescue each other.
It invites two whole beings to meet.
This does not mean they are perfect. They will still carry wounds, histories, fears and human imperfections.
Wholeness does not mean having nothing left to heal.
It means knowing that beneath everything we have experienced, there is a deeper SELF that has never been broken.
From this place, love becomes a choice rather than a need.
It does not say, “I cannot live without you.”
It says, “I am capable of standing within myself, and I choose to walk beside you.”
It does not possess.
It does not demand constant proof.
It does not require either person to abandon their truth to preserve the relationship.
It allows two people to remain connected to themselves while opening their lives to each other.
This kind of love offers freedom without emotional distance, closeness without possession and commitment without self-abandonment.
It is not driven by desperation.
It grows from fullness.
Becoming the love I was searching for
Perhaps this is the real purpose of the journey.
Not to find someone who will love me enough to make me whole, but to become conscious of the love that has always lived within me.
Love is not merely something exchanged between two people.
It is a way of being.
It is present in the way I speak to myself when I am hurting.
It is present in the boundaries I create.
It is present in the courage to walk away from what no longer honours me.
It is present in forgiveness, creativity, friendship, laughter, service and silence.
It is present when I listen to my body, trust my intuition and follow the direction of my soul.
The love I spent so long searching for was never hiding in another person.
It was waiting within me.
Waiting to be recognised.
Waiting to be embodied.
Waiting to be lived.
If love arrives
Perhaps one day another person will arrive who has walked a similar path.
Someone who does not see me as the answer to their loneliness, but as a companion within the mystery of life.
Someone who knows they are already whole.
Someone who can meet me without needing to possess, rescue or define me.
If that love arrives, I will welcome it.
I will not meet it from emptiness.
I will not ask it to complete me.
I will meet it as the person I have become.
Whole, awake and free.
And if it does not arrive in the form I once imagined, I will still have love.
Because love was never confined to another person.
Love is the ground beneath my being.
It is what I am when I stop performing, grasping and searching.
My promise to the SELF
Dear SELF,
I promise to stop treating you as something that must be improved before you are worthy of love.
I promise to stop leaving you behind whenever someone else offers me attention.
I promise to listen when you whisper that something is not right.
I promise to honour your wisdom, protect your peace and trust your direction.
I promise not to confuse loneliness with incompleteness.
I promise not to call attachment love simply because I am afraid to let go.
I promise to stop searching for myself in the eyes of another person.
I have found you.
You were here all along.
Beneath the roles.
Beneath the wounds.
Beneath the expectations and stories about who I was supposed to be.
You were waiting patiently for me to return.
I do not need another person to make me whole.
I do not need to be chosen to know that I am worthy.
I do not need to be rescued.
I am already complete.
I am already love.
And from this place, I am free to love another person without losing myself.
With all the love I once searched for elsewhere,
Me
If this reflection speaks to something unfolding within you, I offer sessions to help you explore relationship patterns, emotional wounds, energetic attachments and the deeper messages held within your body and soul.
Together, we can reconnect with your Inner Compass and gently realign with the truth of who you are.
An Invitation
Are you ready to stop searching outside yourself and reconnect with the love, wisdom and wholeness already within you?
A private session can help you explore relationship patterns, emotional wounds, energetic attachments and the beliefs that may be keeping you disconnected from your true SELF. Together, we will listen to your body, reconnect with your Inner Compass and gently realign with your highest awakened expression.
Book a session with Dawn
Available in Midland, Collie, by phone or online.
Visit www.dawnkelly.com.au to learn more or make a booking.
Dawn Kelly
Awakened Wellness with Dawn
Recent Comments