What does it feel like to not have to be perfect?
Or to not care about what anyone else thinks?
Or to be the woman every man wants?
Or to finally be able to let go of him?
What is it like to live like that? To not feel like there's something wrong with you, to live your life like that confident, sassy woman you know, to say "next" when he's not ready for the commitment you are? What would it be like to live your own life like this?
You can read 1001 books or articles on how to do and be any one of those things and more, but until you put that book down or step away from your iPad and go out and live your life that way, nothing will change.
Yes, we may know so much more than we did before - and especially now that we’ve got 1001 more reasons to beat ourselves up for what we didn’t know before - but it’s only head knowledge, not heart and soul knowledge – which is the only kind of knowledge that changes things in a real way.
Not the doing, feeling, living knowledge that goes on to hold the memory of what it felt like to truly live like that and be treated like you were when you actually doing something different than what you've always done before.
Not the doing, feeling, living "now-becoming-familiar" knowledge of the memory of what it felt like to assert yourself like you never could before, to hold your own power, to look out of eyes that now have experienced the reality of doing things you never thought you could do before.
It’s how you feel by feeling it.
It’s how you live by experiencing it.
This is how things actually begin to change!
You’re still the same person, but on another level you’re not.
You see, it changes you to actually live what you read and hear. It changes you to experience something different firsthand, not just through what you read.
You bring your same self, but when you can be vulnerable and admit who you are to someone who loves you instead of judges you, who receives you with love instead of judgement, you heal that.
And that goes for everything else.
It’s why what you feel you can heal is so true. It's why it's because you feel so deeply that's there so much more hope for you!
And it's why we choose who we do. No matter how much we can't figure out why we could possibly have chosen the ones we do, we always do. In the hopes of substituting out someone who will remind you enough of that first love that will finally be capable of loving you like you’ve so wanted him to.
That’s how love heals - but only if it's the real kind.
The kind that first comes from you in the form of self-love. That’s why it hurts doubly worse and triply or as many more times as you repeat this pattern, if the particular ones you've chosen can’t give you what you need.
Because it only reinforces what you already proved once – in your earliest childhood memories – but now you have much clearer proof of. That someone outside of you is incapable of loving you. But you don't see that part, you only see the part of you that makes you feel unlovable.
This concept of self-love. The idea of experiencing and feeling how your life feels when you're happy, content, excited, confident in you. You have to experience it, not just read about it. You actually have to do things that make you happy, content, excited, confident; you won't know what that feels like until you discover that part of you.
That's why being around people that bring out the best in you matters.
That's why finding your passion, finding your tribe, discovering the beauty in the parts of you that you never saw before matter so much more than you know. We're not meant to only read about the type of life we want; we have to go out and get it for ourselves.
We have to feel it. Touch it. Smell it. Taste it. Live it.
No, it can't wait. No, it can't be put off until tomorrow or a better time down the road. That's why nothing's changed yet.
Because we're too good at doing the same thing we've always done. We're too used to waiting to be rescued from a fate we believe is sealed. We can live a long, long time believing things are changing without ever moving at all.
It's what we do so well.
Making love – and a life – out of nothing at all.
I know what it feels like to have nothing left in you to try. I know what it feels like to believe it's just not your time or that nothing you try will make it change.
But it only feels this way, Beautiful.
You see, this is what we do so well. We feel. And feel. And feel some more. And if it feels the way it does to you, then it's going to be that way for you. You've got to change the way it feels to change anything at all. You've got to feel the way you want it to feel to turn this beautiful vessel around.
Go find that feeling.
Wherever you get a sense of it. Don't stop until you feel it. That feeling you want is there.
It's not in him, that's why you've never found it there. It's never been found in him. It's always been in you.
Does this resonate with where you are right now? I love hearing from you. Share your story and whatever you're feeling right now with our beautiful community in the comments.
Hi Jane always lovely to hear from you and what an inspiration you were to me at the time when I really needed advice. You made such an impact on my life it changed for the better. In 2013 I wrote to you and told you about my story with my partner that did not want to commit.......and you wrote back and told me what I had to do.
That was a major turning point in my life and thanks to you it has worked out up until
now. As my journey with him progressed over the last three years lots have happened. I met his exwife and we became very good friends and we are very close . We have been friends now for over three years and have not had a cross word.
He has been very good to me I have been blessed to go to Spain every year for 3 months since 2013 . However His ex wife only has a few more months to live as she has a life threatning disease and I have volenteered to nurse her. I have just cut my holiday short in Spain to nurse her as she won't have anyone else around her.
The point I am trying to make Jane that my partner arrives in two weeks time and I have been nursing his ex since 1st September. I drive to her home every morning and spend the rest of the day with her where I prepare her meal and do the odd chores that has to be done. He phones me every night to find out how things are going but gets impatient when I am not available when he mails me.
Today was one of those days I told him that I would be at home most of the day and potter around in the garden.....but it started raining so that was the end of the gardening. I decided to go up to his ex and spend some time with her, I forgot to text him to say I was leaving earlier and murphy's law he phoned several times and I was not home. End result he got so angry with me and mailed me to say get out of my home the sooner the better...... and that is not the first time. I take exception to his statement and feel that he has know right to speak to me like that. Wnen ever things don't work his way he gets narsty by threaqtning me to get out, I know he does not mean it.
Jane I need your advice I have to answer his mail. How do I word this in a way that he understands where I am coming from. Please mail me and tell me what to say as I need to make it quite clear how I feel.
Kind regards
Doreen
I am feeling sad because I expected something else from him. I am trying everyday to get my feelings under control. Yes I know there is more to do than this feeling of lost, rejection and betrayal. I have come along way since my breakup. Tears are less and smiles are more. I am moving more and trying to stay focus. It has been truly hard but I know there is more to me. Life is what I deserve and enjoyment. Thank you for your words and support
There is so much more for you, Albirda! Don't assume, don't expect ... take your time to really get to know if he's capable of what it is you're looking for before you choose him. It's in the feeling of each and every one of your emotions that you find the real you. A treasure to behold by someone truly worthy of you!
Love this article
So glad, Kay! Thank you so much.
Hello Jane! Your last post was so amazingly insightful!! All of your posts are very powerful but this one just hit the mark!! I know the difference now to be accepted and loved for who I am!! What release! What freedom!! Due to your posts I have made a huge change in my life and dropped my hurtful fiancé of 2 years to luckily meet a wonderful man who shows me true love.
I'm so glad this one resonated so much with you, Shaun. And I'm so happy for you! It is such a sweet freedom to discover this difference, and to make it your own. Be so proud of yourself for seeing this for yourself - and taking back your own power to make this real for you!
Thank you, Jane.
This time I felt like you were talking to me. It's been a while since I felt that the shoe fits with your posts.
I feel like I have got the theory down. I know the signs now, I know what to say no to. I find myself spotting the red flags miles away and I'm glad. I know it's me, I have to change my life but somehow I feel like I'm at a point where I just scratch my head and say: now what?
I have met a few guys, but nothing quite good yet.
I've met a couple of men who showed real interest in a relationship with me; men who set up dates, who cared about what I wanted, who understood me and who followed up nicely. This is the first time something like that has ever happened to me and I am grateful but somehow I feel bad that I haven't quite felt any attraction to them. My body just didn't want them to come close, no hugs, nothing. It was all very confusing and I felt somehow as if something were still off with me. I couldn't move forward with them.
I feel sometimes as if what I kept dreaming of doesn't really exist because it's a fantasy and my head keeps wondering if I have to just settle for someone I'm not attracted to. Is it even normal to feel this way?
I have been working on not feeling ugly and I have made a lot of progress. I don't cry as often and somehow I feel more hopeful, but when it comes to that dream I've always had of being in love with a man who's also as in love with me and who matches me really well, I can't help but feel disappointed. Like it's just soooo far away if possible at all.
I consciously try to shift that thought, but I haven't been successful.
I'd like to listen to what you have to say on this to guide me like you always do.
Thank you so much in advance.
It's so normal to feel the way you're feeling, Angel. You reach a point where you get it, where you understand the practical, logical mind part that we so often miss before. You've gotten in touch with your blind spots and your triggers and seen all the places our culture and well-meaning family and friends influence our story. But where do we go from here? This is the part where we bring back our beautiful feeling, believing, optimistic self. The part that believes in dreams coming true, the part that sees the hope and the beauty in the places that no one else can. The part where we feel.
This is what I'm talking about here. We create new memories of what we want to feel like. Of what we want it to be like. It's why we have to "feel it. Touch it. Smell it. Taste it. Live it." We experience what we want on a feeling level so that it's about us recognizing that feeling and knowing what it means to experience those senses for ourselves firsthand. That's how we emulate a new energy, a new vibe that makes us visible to the ones who are looking for the same thing in us as they've discovered in them.
You've come so far, Angel! This is the next part we all come to. The aligning of the logical, practical parts of us that we've discovered for perhaps the first time, with the softer, sensuous side of the part of us that feels everything so deeply in such life-changing ways. No, this isn't about settling for someone you're not attracted to. No, this isn't about exchanging feeling bad about one thing for feeling bad about another. Most of us meet the ones in the middle before we meet the one we're meant to meet!
Take what resonates with you here, Angel, and let the rest sink in slowly in a way that becomes your own. This is yet another seed for you to run with, when it becomes clearer on your own. Let me know if you need more! 🙂
Our mind can only take us so far. Now it's our hearts that need to take us the rest of the way!
Thank you so much, Jane.
This makes it much clearer for me. I just need to figure out how I can feel something I've never felt. I'll try visualizations and hopefully my heart will get back to being open and hopeful because right now, I feel like it's so scared of being disappointed again that it's gone sort of numb.
I will see what shows up for me and I'll tell you if I get confused again.
Thank you so much for being this beautiful, wise being. I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't found your blog.
God bless you!
My pleasure and honor, Angel. Thank you for your beautiful words. I'm so glad this helped! Think of it as a short stop along they way to what will only become more and more clear. 🙂
So right on the spot - a 4 years long relationship has ended for me, the longest one I ever had. I am now learning, but still mostly as a pupil, sitting there alone and absorbing the knowledge, thinking, rethinking, realizing.... But, my feelings are still not quite there. My strenghth is still outside: in the memories of how good it felt to travel together, in the hope that a miracle will save me, bring a new (and in my most desperate times, even the old!) HIM... I am still isolated, and something keeps holding me back. I am scared and lost. That I might make another mistake, repeat the same known pattern. I feel like am not ready for the world yet, that I need more time to sit and learn.
Reading this article has made me realize one more thing: by thinking and feeling the feelings (and not doing, not experiencing the world and people), I am already repeating the known pattern, spinning around in the same circle. How to break it? Just the same way I broke the previous one - by simply doing it and see where it will take me. To break the current circle by stopping the analysis of what and how it was and make the step. I already see no progress in my feelings, without starting the new experiences.
Thank you, Jane!
Exactly, SB! Thank you for adding so much here. How eloquently you've described this process - and the way through. I'm sure many of us can relate to this in so many ways. Beautiful!
Love your article Jane and it's so full of love and encouragement. Just what I need today. You are so right; nothing will change until we make up our minds that we want change and do something about it. I am tired of attracting men who can't or won't make a committment. I don't have time for that; life is just too short. I want to attract a man who is on the same page as me. One who is ready to move foward and live a life of love. And it all begins with me!
So glad this came through for you, Anne-Marie. It absolutely does!
Hi Jane,
Thank you so much for your advice, i always read but don't comment , but i feel that it is time i change the mindset of me thinking it my fault that everything doesn't work out because its not my time yet.
i (25 yrs)am with my boyfriend(25yrs) that i love so much, we,ve been together for 10 month, he is so loving and caring, but these days he is kind of distanced all the time, when i ask, he tells me, he is going through some problems at work and home , but he is not ready to share it with me now, maybe later, he is indecisive and all. he used to call me all the time, but now he just calls me like every 2 days, long story short, his behavior has just changed, i told him, i cant stand it, so am going to move on with my life without him, but then he pleaded and even cried that i stay. am soo confused right now since there is this other guy(my young aunties friend( 35) who is so eager to marry me, and will start preparations if i accept. he is a good man too.
What do you advise is the best thing to do? i love my boyfriend so much, but my friend and my aunty think that am wasting my time with him. please please help.
love
Gege
But did anything change after he pleaded and cried for you to stay? What about you, Georgette? To go from someone you love so much to someone else who is so eager to marry you, leaves out time for the most important part of this equation - you. What are you looking for? What will matter most to you in 5, 10 and more years from now? Your boyfriend is showing you more of who he is - can you accept him as he is? If not, then you have your answer. It's not about what they want with you, it's about what you want for you, what you can live with and what will add to your life and bring in more happiness not less. You have so much of your beautiful life ahead of you, choose you, create your own life now. It is only not your time yet if you believe that. Change your story to it is your time and you'll create a whole new beautiful story that reflects the real you!
this year feels like it's been a new life for me and i started to do gardening with the community in the morning which is on the last Sunday of each month n i did it to help my best friends n 1 guy i met 5 years ago remembered me which rarely happens to me
this sunday just gone i saw this guy at gardening n i was acting jumpy n nervous to talk to him as my best friend picked it up, he did the demonstrating of the task n i was pruning n talking to my best friends, so he left me alone with my friends n helped out on top of the hill. So then came break time n i was talking to my friends who are girls about the carnival day and this 1 guy joins in with the convo and then the supervisor said to do weeding for a change so i let the girls go for a bit and this 1 guy who i know for 5 years had a convo n helping him do weeding under the trees in the community, there was no dating but mostly catchup.
ever since i saw this guy which my friends know him i feel like i've taken 1 step closer. cos at morning T i thought he was interested in my friend but then my mind said he is interested in me as i was interested in him. i don't care if he's 5 or 6 months older than me and he is good looking n tall which is what i want in terms of a man's looks n he's very generous n gentle. i feel he doesn't have much friends but i thought maybe thats why he's comes to me for help. he doesn't go on fb that much
when i see him i feel safe around him, i feel like he is a prince n i'm a princess in real life, i really like him, i don't wanna ask him though coz i think he will reject me coz i've got mild autism. i rather let him ask me out n if he did i would say yes, i have a few common things with him
On FB when he comes online i really get shy starting a convo with him n it's like i put in the box "how's things" but i don't click on send. then i act all autistic. after seeing him on sunday i feel like i'm obsessed n having a fantasy on him but i'm keeping my obsession to myself n not talk to much about him on FB coz in my mind i know that would scare him away which i've done before not doing it again.
i feel this guy makes me happy, gives me joy. idk what would happen if me n this guy were interested in each other. i feel like i've know a lot about him over the 5 years in friendship. idk whether to share that memory on FB or not n he told me i was the only friend he has had on FB for a long time which surprised me. idk whether if it's worth dating after 5 years of knowing each other n giving each other space? i think me n him are both interested in each other n what would happen next.
Take your time to get to know him, Courtney. Don't let your mild autism define you. Do a Google search for all the famous autistic people and you will see how it is only as much as a label as you make it. Someone who loves you for you will love you regardless - and even because of this! You're doing the choosing. If you're open and friendly, you'll know if he's interested in you because he'll make sure there's no doubt about it. It's never personal; it's always about being on the same page. You're not looking for a prince - you're looking for a real person. Someone who's truly compatible with you in all the ways that make a relationship real!
Hey there! I just wanted to give you some encouragement -- I work with a woman who is mildly, if not moderately autistic and she has recently started a wonderful, happy marriage with a man who is also a bit austistic. I've seen them together; they are happy, accept each other for their autistic faults, and geek out together about alternative subjects like zombies and the perfect way to cook pierogis! Their austism brings similar interests they can both enjoy - it's wonderful and im really happy for her. If it can happen for her, it can happen for you! Don't get discouraged -There's someone out there for everyone! 🙂
Thanks for sharing this inspiring example with Courtney, Julie. There is someone out there for everyone!
Thanks for your great article Jane. Yes, I do feel so much and I have a big heart and I need to work on me and make positive changes in my life. Love does not hurt, love isn't confusing, thats the way it was with him, its because he's not the one for me. But I did love him deeply, because I feel so much. There was judgement not love, and I knew that, but I was afraid to be alone. I've being alone too long. I'm the only single friend, and I want real love. Is that too much to ask for. But I have learnt from this life experience, and I won't give my heart to anyone who isn't worthy of me.
I'm so glad this resonated with you, Shelley. Thank you. And when you're ready to look ahead, look for what you do want more clearly than what you don't. It's never too much to ask for unless we believe it is. Your beautiful heart deserves as much back as you give - from someone who's capable of giving you exactly that.