When I say this new year has really thrown me for a loop, it sure has. So many different layers of my life are moving and shifting and really forcing me to pivot or get run over. And best believe, even if I have to cry, and y’all know I’m a crier, the entire time, I’m going to do it.
Since my last blog post, there has been a shift. I had to let go of the pain and suffering I was causing myself through the transitionary period of the lesson I was being taught. The shift feels like a weight has been lifted off my chest and my heart once I finally allowed myself to let go and let God.
I naturally have a big heart. I see the best in people even if they do not see it in themselves. It is a blessing and a curse to see the potential in people and to understand that we are all a work in progress. No one is ever fully healed. No one is perfect. No one’s walk with Christ is perfect and no one is fully saved. We all make mistakes, act selfishly, and carry traumas that have wounded us so deeply we are still trying to navigate our way through the darkness.
But for me, my character along with my spiritual gifts allow me to see and feel much deeper. That is what they call an empath. An empath is someone who is highly sensitive to the emotions and energy of others. They do not just understand how someone feels, they feel it as if it is their own. That has been both a gift and something I had to learn how to manage.
I feel more deeply. I am not sure I have always been this way, but I know once I started my healing journey, my walk with Christ, and growing spiritually, certain things changed about me. I used to crave relationships but never really knew what it meant to truly get to know someone and accept them for who they are as they are, while being aware that they will change over time just as I would.
I thought I knew what love was based off the love I saw from my parents and other family members, along with what society portrayed as that perfect love. I was lost and confused and did not truly know what love meant, yet I was chasing it. It was not until my life hit rock bottom and I had to choose to love myself first that the dynamic had to shift.
It was not until I started to heal myself, heal my wounds around love and what that looked like to me versus what it actually means. It was not until I had to nurture the little girl in me who thought she was never enough, who believed she had to prove her worth and that being loved and chosen depended on how much she could do and give to the other person.
That led me to holding on harder, staying longer, fighting harder, and overextending myself over and over again until I broke. In the end, it was me who was broken. Trying to love and hold on to what was not meant for me to hold on to.
I am not saying there are not situations where things get hard and you have to put in more effort to come out on the other side. But when it is just you, when it is unilateral and one sided and you are giving more than you are receiving, that is not healthy love. That is anxious attachment.
Anxious attachment is a pattern where someone fears abandonment so deeply that they overextend themselves to keep the relationship. They overplay their part, overgive, overcompensate, and ignore their own needs just to try to keep the other person around. It is rooted in the fear of losing them, or sometimes the deeper fear of being alone.
The Shenelle I am today still has those wounds that want to help, heal, fix, and support the people I care about. Because when I needed support, I had to handle it all on my own. I know what it is like to heal alone and have to pick yourself up and keep going because what else are you supposed to do.
You have to keep going. Keep evolving. Keep shifting as you go through different experiences in life.
I went years in a period of isolation. Being alone. Doing the inner work. Praying, fasting, journaling, going to therapy. Working so hard to climb my way out of the darkness that tried to consume me.
I knew that I had to want my comeback to be bigger and stronger than anything else I had ever done because I never want to be back in that place of desperation. Walking unconsciously. Making poor decisions. Hurting people because I was hurting.
I wanted to heal and change my life because I wanted to. Because I know my life is not destined to be stuck in a cycle of repeating patterns. I wanted to learn the lessons that the Creator has in store for me so I can elevate and transition into a higher, more self aware version of myself.
Learning to love yourself is a mirror reflection of the love you will allow into your life. It is a lifestyle choice. It is easy to pretend and stay negative and stuck in our ways because of what has been done to us or what we may have done in the past. But making the choice to learn and actively choose differently once we have gained the knowledge that we are worthy and capable of so much more than staying complacent to our circumstances, that is growth.
If we know what we want and we have the tools and the support from the people who truly see us for who we are, with no lies, no manipulation, no ego, those are the ones we keep close to us. The ones willing to go the distance with you while you heal the wounds that told you that you cannot have it all.
Choose the ones that choose you too. Choose the ones that see you deeply, flaws and all. Choose the ones who know you are a work in progress but love you anyway.
Deeper connection is something that I seek now. I do not do well with surface level conversations, surface level people, or surface level ways of thinking. I want depth. I want to know your favorite foods. The movies that make you cry or question your way of thinking. What you consider the perfect love to be. What are your pet peeves. What are your dreams and aspirations. What mistakes have you made in your life and if you could change them, would you.
Tell me about your inner child wounds and how you plan to heal them. How do you plan to grow and evolve into the best version of yourself. I want to know it all. The good, the bad, the ugly, the work in progress. Because we are all difficult to be with, but with the right person we find purpose and patience and something worth trying for.
I hope we all find that kind of love. That patient, tender, caring kind of love. No matter how much pain and suffering we have gone through in life, we are worthy of being loved and receiving love.
If you know what you want, especially when it comes to love, go after it. We only have one life. And if someone truly sees you deeply, do not be scared and run. Be brave and go after it.
You do not know how long they will be there waiting for you.
Closing Mantra
I survived what tried to break me. I healed what tried to harden me. I am worthy of a love that sees me deeply and chooses me fully. I release the fear of abandonment and embrace the courage to be loved. I do not run from what is meant for me. I receive love with an open heart.
Asé
Diary of a Self- Lover 
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