Not realizing that trying to change someone else is not love, just codependent anxiety.

I used to think that if only I told her how to communicate better and how to manage her own emotions, we’d have a more beautiful relationship..

Not realizing I only forced that out of fear of feeling my own..

Incapable of holding space for the most tender and fragile aspects of my being, I also did not feel able to hold hers.

I used to think that my desire for her and I to grow together was fuelled by positivity, aspirations and healthy self-development..

Not realizing it was shame all along:

Shame of not feeling good enough.

Shame of -perhaps- not having chosen good enough.

Shame of every dark corner of my heart that my relationships reflected to me..

I used to think love is a project you can work on..

Not realizing that it is a space where you stand as a prerequisite for a healthy relationship and not the other way around.

You don’t work in love,

You allow Love to work on you.

I used to think I was right and my partner often wrong, less than, or not good enough..

Not realizing these thoughts were games my mind kept playing, belittling her so that her love (or absence thereof) would not pierce and hurt so deeply..

Keeping the emotional upper hand,

“just in case.”

A safety mechanism devised to keep my heart at bay from feeling the fullness of my partner, their pain and my own pain intertwined and entangled due to a lot of unconscious choices.

I used to think too much.

Now I feel.

I live.

I love,

laugh and cry.

And God! what a difference it makes..

To have decided to nourish intimacy within me before having the nerve to demand it from the outside.