Worth the Stretch

I’ve been struggling with the question of whether feeling the ache, the longing, for love makes it manifest more slowly, or not at all. Should I push that ache down? Suppress it? Ignore it and pretend it’s not there? 

There is a deep sadness because I am so clear about what I want now, and realize I have never had it. I’ve grazed the edge of it a couple times. I’ve thought I found it. 

But turns out it was just a teaching time. A time to learn and grow more into myself; a time to bring me clarity through heart ache. 

There is no growth without pain.

Part of me believes that in order to manifest something, you have to be in alignment 24/7, never waiver, never feel doubtful, and never feel anything like sadness, aching or grief. 

So then I come back to the seat of my soul. I sink in deep. And I know that’s not true. I know with certainty that to be human is to experience a range of emotions, to accept them all, sit with them and move through them. Sometimes it’s not pretty. But it’s necessary. 

This is healthy. Normal. Needed. 

Nothing good and pure would ask me to stifle who I am. The concept of manifestation is no exception. It would not require me to stop feeling my feels in order to be in alignment with what I want. If I denied my feelings, it would be like shoving them into a dark closet. They would still hum there, leaking into my energy. But if I feel my feelings, it’s like opening the door to that closet and letting the feelings pass through. Then my energy field is actually cleaner. 

So I feel the feels. Sit with them. Try to endure them and not distract myself with anything that would temporarily take my pain away but not help in the long term. 

I’ve done the distractions. The pain is still there whenever the distraction is over, and sometimes the pain leaks into the distraction, which is very annoying. I’d rather get through the pain and enjoy all my experiences rather than be in the middle of an experience that is meant to distract me, and have my pain creep through the edges of my heart and taint the experience. 

I’ve realized that the ache for love is because I know what it will feel like when it arrives. The ache is my heart stretching toward what it already knows is coming. 

I feel a mix of grief- because it’s not here yet- and joy- because I know it’s possible. 

The ache is the bridge between the now and the not-yet.

I carry a trust that love will come in its time. This means I am aligned. The ache doesn’t cancel the trust, it deepens it. Sitting with it, feeling the ache, or grief, doesn’t delay my love. It’s only if I get stuck in hopelessness or a scarcity mindset that it muddies the signal of my alignment and what I truly want. Feeling authentically and then gently guiding myself back toward trust is part of the manifestation process. 

This ache doesn’t mean love is far away. It means my heart is awake and open. The ache is evidence of my capacity to love deeply. This longing is proof of my readiness. 

I have a long history of being surrounded by people who weren’t able to respond to my need for love, safety, acknowledgement. People who weren’t strong enough, or for some reason weren’t able. 

Early on, I learned that love could leave, and there was nothing I could do to make it stay. That’s a brutal message for a tender heart. I tried everything I knew- I tried being good enough, easy enough, invisible enough, loving enough, because then maybe someone would choose me. 

That survival logic- earn love, prove worthiness, disappear to be safe- got baked into my nervous system. It kept me afloat as a child and then replayed in later relationships. 

I became very ill during my marriage. It felt as though some people close to me did not believe I was sick. 

I learned what it feels like to not be believed in my body. 

There were a few months where I was so sick, I couldn’t function. I couldn’t easily get out of bed to care for myself, let alone my four children who had special needs and chronic illnesses themselves. My husband never took a sick day. I didn’t have help with the kids. 

It felt like it was expected that I would just suck it up and act fine. 

Like I had done since I was a child. 

Like everyone expected me to be capable of. 

So I did the best I could. I felt like I was literally dying. I learned what it feels like to reach for support and discover that the capacity on the other side isn’t there. I learned how disorienting it is when help is offered in theory but unavailable in practice. I learned how often I would still be alone- even after asking for help.

I was in survival mode not only because of my illness, but because of the emotional vacuum around me. No one came. I had to be both sick and still the pillar. 

That’s the cruelest loneliness: lying in bed, body wrecked, heart screaming, and realizing- 

I have to figure this out alone. I always have to figure it out alone.

But I was never unworthy. I was never invisible. I was a little girl who asked to be held, and the grown ups around me couldn’t respond in the way I needed. That wound shaped me, but it does not define what I deserve now. I was not unworthy of help as a sick wife and mother. I deserved someone who would say- I see how sick you are. I’m here. I will carry what you can’t right now. 

My suffering was real. I should not have had to fight alone. I deserved care, belief, support. 

I still deserve a love that shows up when I can’t stand.

I deserve a love that stays without me having to beg.

I deserve a love that hears my voice the first time.

I deserve a love that delights in my presence, not my erasure. 

It’s taking a lot of time to feel safe to show up in a relationship, showing up as my authentic self. And not being completely frozen in fear at the thought that if I do show up, he will certainly leave. 

That trauma, that blueprint for love, was written in absence. Parents who couldn’t keep me close. A marriage where I felt unseen and unheard. 

My nervous system has been wired to expect what I don’t want. But that doesn’t mean what I do want doesn’t exist. It means I’ve been living on a map that didn’t lead there. 

Are times, I have the thought, “What I want does not exist.” And then I realize I am the proof that it does exist. If I exist, and the way I love exists, there is a possibility that there is a man out there in the world who is capable of loving hard, the way I do. 

I’ve often been made to feel that the way I love is too much, too big, too hard to be on the receiving end of. But I have never understood why. I give the kind of love I want. I want the big, bold, unconditional, ferocious love. I want the- completely crazy for you, I love every single thing about you and I want the world to know- kind of love. 

I don’t know why that is too much.

My head knows it is not me. This is not a reflection of my lack of worth. It just is what it is. They’re not ready, they’re not my person, etc. 

But my heart is still that little girl, living inside the circle of trauma.

And that terrified mama, afraid my body would never be normal again…

Living inside survival mode…all alone. 

No one was coming to help me, let alone save me. 

What I have always craved is someone beside me to just lay my head down next to and rest. Let the world go for just a few minutes, because I know he’s got me. Because I know, no matter what, he will stay. Because I know he sees me. He hears my voice. 

He is safe, present, he cares, he shows up… 

because he loves me as big and loud as I love him.

I try to remember, I am not hard to love. Maybe I am even easy to love, which is why people light up around me. Why friends, family, colleagues, even strangers feel my energy and warmth. What’s painful here is not my worthiness, it’s the mismatch between my desire for one particular man’s love and the limits of his capacity or willingness to step into it. 

Love requires two people making the same choice at the same time. Sometimes the heartbreak isn’t that you weren’t chosen, but that he chose comfort and safety over risk and depth. That’s not a reflection of my lovability, it’s a reflection of his threshold, his capacity.

This isn’t where I’m stuck; this is where I stand, looking forward.

The ache I feel is real. It comes from the longing to give and receive a kind of ferocious, mutual love. That longing doesn’t mean I’m weak or unlovable, it means I am awake to what my heart deserves. The fact that I want love this deeply is proof that I am capable of it. And because I am capable, maybe someday I will meet someone who is just as capable. 

Someone who won’t step back when it feels hard, but who will say yes, you are worth the stretch. 

We are worth the stretch.