In 2016, I began a very ambitious mission to unpack why I think the way I do and what has influenced and shaped how I view myself/relationships, aka a healing journey. This also coincided with a spiritual awakening. It feels a bit cliche that it started because I was heartbroken over a guy. In reality, I broke my own heart chasing a guy who was so clearly emotionally unavailable. It was all too easy to abandon myself in hopes of winning another’s affection. So, I started doing what I do best: reading and learning all that I could in hopes of “fixing” myself. I devoured books on psychology, trauma, the science of love, attachment theory, limerence, love addiction, etc. My genuine love for learning and this feeling that something was “wrong” with me made for the perfect self-help frenzy. The answers always felt like they lived outside of me... within books, friends, the community of healers and occultists I’ve cultivated. I would stop at nothing but the truth—hoping that somewhere within the pages of a book, I would find out exactly what was “wrong” with me and why relationships always seemed to evade me. With more and more knowledge, things didn’t get easier, though. I just had more awareness and felt my feelings more intensely. It didn’t all click for me until I ended up in my first real relationship last year and then chose to end it earlier this year that I *could* trust myself to make the right decisions for myself. This 8-year journey brought me back to myself in such a fortifying way. Yes, through therapy and all my independent studies (I should have a degree by now!), I have much better relational awareness but most of all, I know it was never about changing myself to be loved. It was about accepting myself for exactly who I am and having compassion for the anxious parts of me I so desperately wished I could therapize my way out of. I wanted to banish all the uncomfortable parts instead of embracing and loving them just as much as I loved the “good” parts of me. And isn’t that what most of us are looking for? Someone who will see us and love us for exactly who we are (the good & the bad) but we’ve got to do that for ourselves, too.