When one part of you longs for love… and another is still protecting you from receiving it...
Beautiful Soul,
After 19 days of silence… of recalibration, integration and listening deeply within… I’m here again. 💛
And I’m here to share something I was shown during this time that felt so profound, I have not been able to stop feeling into it.
Not only because of what it revealed for me…
But because I could suddenly see how many of us may be living with the same hidden division within.
A split in the heart.
One part longing for love…
And another quietly protecting us from receiving it.
One part yearning to be held, supported, seen and met…
And another still whispering:
Do not let it come too close.
Perhaps we consciously know that we want connection.
We pray for it.
Work towards it.
Ask for it.
We may wonder why it still feels as though we are carrying everything alone… why the people who could truly meet us seem to remain at a distance… or why, even when love and support do arrive, we cannot quite rest inside them.
But what if the difficulty is not only that love has not arrived?
What if somewhere within us, love has become connected to what might happen after it does?
When Love Once Led To Loss
If opening once led to pain…
If connection was followed by separation…
If trust was met with betrayal…
If being seen made you vulnerable to rejection, judgement or attack…
Then the body may have learnt something the conscious mind no longer remembers:
Love is dangerous.
Not necessarily because of the love itself…
But because of the devastation that could follow it.
And so, even while the heart longs to open, something else begins to brace.
To question.
To hold back.
To stay in control.
To say no before we have had the chance to say yes.
Not because we do not want love.
But because some part of us is still trying to ensure that we never have to survive its loss again.
When Doing Everything Alone Becomes Who You Are
There are many ways we learn to survive.
For some of us, it was through becoming fiercely independent.
We learnt to solve the problems.
Carry the responsibility.
Find the way through.
Pick up the pieces.
Keep going.
We became the one who could manage everything alone—not necessarily because we wanted to, but because there was no one else to do it.
And there is extraordinary strength in that.
But sometimes, beneath that strength, there is also a very old heartbreak.
The heartbreak of the one who needed to be held… and no one came.
The one who needed support… and learnt not to ask.
The one who wanted to belong… but could never fully trust that belonging would last.
Eventually, doing everything alone can become more than something we do.
It can become who we believe we are.
And then receiving begins to feel strangely threatening.
Accepting help can feel like weakness.
Being held can feel like losing control.
Allowing someone to truly meet us can feel like placing our life in their hands all over again.
Even when love is standing directly in front of us…
Something within may still be unable to believe that it is safe to let it in.
The Unseen Protection Beneath Self-Sabotage
We can be so hard on ourselves when we recognise these patterns.
We call ourselves blocked.
Difficult.
Avoidant.
Self-sabotaging.
We become frustrated with the part that pulls away, shuts down, questions everything or refuses to move.
We wonder why we cannot simply receive what we say we want.
But what if that resistance is not evidence that something is wrong with you?
What if it is protection?
What if the very thing you have been fighting is an old intelligence within you that still believes it is keeping you alive?
Perhaps it learnt that shining too brightly was not safe.
That being fully expressed came with consequences.
That allowing your gifts to be seen made you vulnerable.
That hope made the fall more painful.
That connection could disappear at any moment.
And so it began to keep life at a careful distance.
Not only the pain…
But, unintentionally, the love too.
The Split in the Heart
This is the split so many of us carry.
Come closer.
Stay away.
See me.
Do not look too deeply.
Hold me.
I do not need anyone.
I want to belong.
I am safer alone.
Two completely different impulses living within the same heart.
And we can spend years swinging between them.
Opening and retreating.
Reaching and withdrawing.
Longing and protecting.
Sometimes wondering why what we desire always seems to remain just beyond our reach.
But neither side is wrong.
One remembers what you were made for.
The other remembers what you survived.
One longs to live fully.
The other wants to ensure that you remain safe.
Both are devoted to you.
They have simply forgotten that they do not have to fight each other anymore.
When Love Finally Arrives
Sometimes we imagine that when real love, support or belonging arrives, we will immediately recognise it.
That we will open our arms and allow it all the way in.
But that is not always how it happens.
Sometimes the presence of what we have longed for reveals how frightened we are to receive it.
The nervous system can brace against kindness.
Distrust consistency.
Question the love that asks for nothing in return.
It can feel more familiar to reach for someone unavailable than to remain present with someone who truly sees us.
More comfortable to keep striving than to be supported.
Safer to continue carrying everything than to discover what might happen if we finally put it down.
Love may be standing at the door…
And still, something within us may need time before it can believe the invitation is real.
This does not mean we have failed.
It does not mean we are incapable of love.
It means the body may be learning a new experience... one it has not yet known how to trust.
You Are Not Being Asked To Force Yourself Open
There is no demand here to trust before you are ready.
No instruction to tear down every wall.
No pressure to surrender the protection that once carried you through the impossible.
Your healing does not ask you to abandon yourself again.
It invites you to become curious about what is still being protected within you.
To recognise that beneath the resistance may be an extraordinary devotion to your life.
To understand that the part holding back may not need to be overcome.
It may simply need to discover that this moment is not the moment it still remembers.
That you are here now.
That you have more choice now.
That love does not always disappear.
That support does not make you powerless.
That being seen does not have to cost you your safety.
That you can remain deeply rooted in yourself while allowing another person to come close.
Perhaps The Door Is Already Open
Perhaps the love you have been waiting for is not as far away as it seems.
Perhaps life has already begun creating an opening.
Perhaps the part of you standing at the threshold simply cannot move as quickly as your conscious heart would like.
Let it be slow.
Let it look.
Let it feel.
Let it learn, one breath at a time, that something different may now be possible.
You do not have to force the split to close.
You do not have to make any part of yourself wrong.
But perhaps today, you can begin to notice:
Where do I long to be met… while still protecting myself from being reached?
Where do I desire support… while remaining identified with doing everything alone?
Where do I ask for love… but brace when it comes close?
Not to judge what you find.
Not to fix it.
Simply to recognise, with incredible tenderness, that there may be more love beneath your protection than you ever realised.
Because the part of you that learnt to keep love out was never trying to deny you love.
It was trying to prevent your heart from being broken again.
And perhaps the deeper possibility now is not simply to open your heart…
But to let your heart discover that it no longer has to be divided.
With so much love đź’›
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