I see you, sis. You’re self aware. You’re doing the work. And you’re calling in the great love story that you know you deserve. Maybe you’ve been through some things that have shaped your view of the relationships and have caused you to turn inward to address any lingering insecurities or trauma that you feel are in the way of manifesting true and lasting partnership. You’re reading the right books, journaling through the hard stuff and learning how to remain open through it all. You deserve some recognition for all the prep work you’re doing for the next relationship you enter. Take a moment to acknowledge all you’ve already done.
Feels good, right?
But before you buy that next book or cue up the latest podcast episode about love, how about you just rest. As Black women, we are always receiving messaging that tells us we need to be doing something at all times to move us closer to any goals that we have. So, when it comes to love, we take that same approach. Because we are usually able to will anything that we want in our lives, we think that love will be the same. And, unfortunately, that’s just not the case. When it comes to relationships, we all know that it takes two to tango and that means there is no willing that can be done by only one person in order to make a partnership successful. Love often becomes yet another place where we, as Black women, bend over backwards to show our worth. We ignore our own needs, we are over understanding and we can forget to prioritize our own happiness. Therefore, when things go bad, we can think of no other solution than fixing something about ourselves that must have contributed to the perceived failure/loss.
Though this can be helpful, it can also do more damage.
Self-awareness can become self-blame when we are trying to figure out why someone we love cannot reciprocate that love back to us. We can pick ourselves apart from every single angle and decide that we are hard to love, impossible to please or just simply not good enough. These thoughts can sometimes thrust us deep into anxiety, depression and an overall lack of self-worth that may lead to us calling in the opposite of what we ultimately want. When we have allowed ourselves to believe that there is something wrong with us, rather than understanding that sometimes compatibility is just not there, we can begin to accept less than what we deserve. It’s a slippery slope to devote so much time to self-improvement in the name of gaining affection. The time that we put into bettering ourselves should be for the approval of, well, ourselves. The amount of programming we see that drives home the idea that women must show up whole and almost perfect in order to receive the fairytale love that others seem to have, is damaging to many of us. It creates a loop of needing outside validation of our value. The idea becomes that only when we are loved by someone can we truly see what we are worth. Imagine how dangerous that can be for those who are abused, rejected and/or abandoned by those they love. It’s no wonder why many women often lose sight of themselves in the wake of heartbreak—they’ve been convinced that their worth is directly connected to their relationship status.
As we go about creating a more true version of ourselves this year, may we remember that we are our own best thing. No matter who comes or goes in our lives.