For most of my life, I gave love away as though it were something I had an endless supply of.
I gave it to my mother.
I gave it to my children.
My friends.
The people I hoped would stay.
I just never thought to save any for myself.
I wasn’t taught where love came from or how to obtain it.
Truthfully my mother couldn’t have taught me because no one taught her.
No one gave us a blueprint.
I learned the hard way after burnout, addiction, and repeated trauma that the love I was desperately searching for from others was living inside me all along.
I had just been giving it away without considering myself.
I gave and gave until I had nothing left to offer myself.
I kept giving it away un- reciprocated, until my cup was empty.
The emptiness consumed me… I needed to soothe it so I reached for things to numb it.
Not because I wanted to destroy myself, but because I didn’t know any other way.
I did what my mother did.
I reached for numbing agents like cigarettes, alcohol, and cannabis.
Trying to fill my cup with anything that made me feel a little less empty, less alone.
I searched for it in people.
I left those relationships even emptier than when I entered them.
I had been giving it away, hoping someone would finally return some to me.
I couldn’t stand the woman in the mirror.
She had become everything I resented.
I avoided mirrors.
My own reflection hurt too much to look at.
I would say awful things to myself.
I wouldn’t tell my child, “You look like trash” so why was I telling myself that in the mirror?
If I wouldn’t let my daughter wake up and numb her pain with substances, why should I?
I spent so many years asking other people to tell me I was worthy.
It never occurred to me to ask myself.
Then….
I asked myself a question I had never asked myself before.
What if the love I constantly give away isn’t exclusively for others,
What if some of that love actually belongs to me?
What if I started treating myself with the love I so freely gave everyone else?
What if that is the blueprint?
So I started small…
Tiny acts of self-love that grew into bigger moments and victories.
Slowly, I began to bloom and I realized that the love I had started to show myself was having a ripple effect on the world around me and the people I love.
One day at a time I watched love transform my life.
From the inside out.
Not because everyone around me suddenly changed.
But because I did.
The first person who finally treated me like someone worth loving…
… was me.
Everything else grew from there.
Maybe the blueprint wasn’t something I had to find…
It was something I had to learn to embody.
Category: Letters From The Hearth
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The Blueprint
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Letting Go
For most of my life, I believed my job was to hold everything together.
The people I loved.
The relationships.
The expectations.
The stories.
I thought if I just held on tightly enough, nothing would fall apart.
I was wrong.
The funny thing about letting go is that you never realize how much you’re carrying until you finally begin to set it down.
The weight slowly lifts.
Your shoulders soften.
Breathing becomes easier.
You finally have room to move again.
For a long time, I thought letting go meant pretending something never mattered.
Now I think it means something entirely different.
It means accepting that it mattered deeply…
and choosing not to carry it forever.
A year ago, if someone had told me where I would be today, I probably would have laughed.
Yet here I am.
I thought healing would arrive like fireworks.
Instead, it arrived so quietly I almost mistook it for an ordinary Tuesday.
Not because life became easier.
Because, little by little, I learned to loosen my grip.
A dear friend once shared something with me that I have never forgotten.
When we watch a gardener prune a rose, it can look almost cruel.
Why would you cut away something so beautiful?
I remember thinking exactly that.
It felt unfair.
Then I realized I had spent years asking life to let me keep branches I had already outgrown.
The gardener isn’t rejecting the rose.
They’re making room for healthier growth.
Healing asks the same thing of us.
Sometimes we have to release what we’ve been clinging to in order to become who we are.
The hardest part isn’t letting go.
It’s trusting that something beautiful can grow where something painful once lived.
We build our lives around stories.
Stories our parents told us.
Stories our relationships reinforced.
Stories we quietly repeated to ourselves until they felt like truth.
We hold those stories so tightly that eventually they begin to hurt.
Not because they’re true.
Because we’re afraid of what happens if we put them down.
I think that’s why letting go feels so impossible.
Most of the time, we aren’t holding on to the past.
We’re afraid of empty hands.
I’ve learned something unexpected.
Room for healing.
Room for rest.
Room for laughter I thought I’d forgotten.
Room for whatever comes next.
Letting go doesn’t erase what happened.
It doesn’t excuse the hurt.
It doesn’t make the lessons disappear.
It simply means those stories no longer get to write your future.
Maybe that’s what trust looks like.
Having the courage to loosen your grip…
and believing that what is meant for you doesn’t require you to hold on quite so tightly.
Sometimes letting go isn’t losing what mattered.
It’s finally making room for what wants to arrive.
I used to be afraid of empty hands.
Now I know they were never empty.
They were simply waiting to receive whatever came next.
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Pockets
As a woman, I’ve noticed that good pockets are hard to find.
I’m not talking about pants pockets, although let’s be honest, men seem to have that department on lockdown.
Somewhere along the way, women’s pockets started shrinking.
The funny thing is, I don’t think it stopped with our clothes.
The pockets of childhood disappeared too.
The pockets of time where we were allowed to grow slowly.
Allowed to wonder.
Allowed to daydream.
Allowed to become.
We grew up too fast.
Tried too hard.
Pushed too far.
And if we’re not careful, life keeps taking our pockets away.
Work.
Responsibilities.
Phones.
Obligations.
People needing things from us.
One day you wake up and realize there isn’t a single pocket left that’s yours.
I know because I did.
I lost so much of myself that way.
Not all at once.
Pocket by pocket.
Eventually, I had to start creating pockets of time.
A walk.
A quiet cup of tea.
A long bath in the dark.
A moment to think.
A moment to write.
A moment to come home to myself.
Because life has a way of moving from one problem to the next.
One crisis to the next.
One responsibility to the next.
And if we never stop long enough to process what we’ve lived through, we miss the lesson entirely.
I’ve become protective of those pockets now.
Not because they’re empty.
Because they’re sacred.
In many ways, I’m protecting the little girl who was told she was too much and somehow not enough all at once.
I’m teaching my children the same thing.
Put the phone down.
Read a book.
Take a walk.
Write a letter.
Sit quietly for a moment and think about what you’ve learned.
Think about who you’re becoming.
Pockets are precious.
Time slips away.
Commitments multiply.
Life gets loud.
But the things we carry deserve somewhere to rest.
So make room.
Make space.
Protect your pockets.
You may discover that what’s waiting there is you.