On Not Feeling Like Yourself and Letting Go of Who You Used to Be

 Hello My Beautiful Queen, 

A huge theme in my life at the moment is energetic boundaries and manipulation. As a young child living at home, I truly believed that I was just too sensitive. Surely the anxiety and depression I felt was a product of myself and my own inability to handle life. Now as an adult living at home, I understand that some of this truly was my environment. 

Now this blog post isn't about blame. I'm not here to blame anyone, but I am here to process what is on my mind. I spoke with my coach recently about the pressure to present myself as perfect. Not in a way where I would ever lie or manipulate my story to make it "better or more successful" but in a way that there is a pressure to always have the lesson and the takeaway. 

For me, it is more important to share my raw moments with you. To let it be okay that sometimes life is hard, and sometimes we don't know what to do, and we don't show up as our best selves and we don't always see the lesson.

If we're going to be super raw right now, for a lot of this year, I felt either like shit or just disconnected from myself. Which doesn't mean that there weren't good moments, or times when I felt confident and fantastic. Just that there were also challenges. Most of the time, I just didn't feel like myself. And reflecting on the end of the year, I have realized that a lot of this was coming from having expectations for who I was. But the thing is, we are human. And so we evolve. You are never the same exact version of yourself, and just as comparing yourself to others can be unhealthy, comparing yourself to previous versions of you, is also unhealthy. A lesson I am carrying forward with me is that when it comes to your own evolution, it doesn't matter who you were before because that person does not exist anymore. What matters is who you are now and how you choose to treat yourself in this moment. 

I often tell my clients that no amount of inner work will ever make it so you never experience darkness in your life. The darkness is part of your expansion. But you can learn to witness yourself and learn what it means to support yourself through the darkness. You can learn that being in the dark doesn't make you the dark.

On Being a "Late Bloomer": I've never had a relationship and how I discovered I was actually demiromantic

 

Hello My Beautiful Queen,

Wow, I cannot believe that the last time I published a post on this website was in April. In many ways I transitioned to posting and communicating with my audience on Instagram, but I have written several drafts of posts that have just not seen the light of day on this website. 

I have had a lot of thoughts. I one hundred percent am still a coach and absolutely love helping people work through their blocks. But this year was also about recognizing and making time for the things that I love outside of this space. And for 2022, I want to bring you into more aspects of my life and talk about things that may not fit into my "niche"

Obviously, there is a lot for us to catch up on. But rather than looking back, let's move forward and I will fill you in throughout. 

I turned 27 this fall, and while I have spoken about this on the podcast, I want to write a separate post just going over everything I have learned about myself. I have never been in a relationship or a situationship or anything like that. I am completely fine with this, but it's other people who seem to have a problem with this.

If you are in the same boat as me, then you know exactly the reaction I am talking about. The shock, the "it will happen for you," (first of all, who said I was looking) the "oh my gosh, really??" And if the person really has minimal control of their reaction, the why? Why have you not been in a relationship? 

It's fucking exhausting, but it's those kind of reactions that make you hyper aware of the fact that people find this unusual and are insinuating that something is wrong with you (whether they are aware of this or not).

Now, here's the thing. Almost a decade of these reactions (because yes, this does start when you are a teenager), you do start to feel like you are behind. To be very blunt with you, I even started to feel like I wasn't a "real" adult because I had not hit this major milestone. For a lot of people, that can put pressure on you to actively look for a relationship or rush into a relationship that perhaps you didn't actually want just so you could check it off as something you have done.

Some insight for you, I have never wanted a relationship. The idea of it didn't excite me, I didn't understand the point of relationships and some part of me truly believed that people just got into relationships because that's what was expected of them. Because surely, no one actually wanted to be in a relationship?

LOL, you'll see where this is going. I have always enjoyed casually dating. I like my own company and am easily overwhelmed when I am around others for too long. I like to flirt, I love dates and I love getting to know new people. My college friends told me I was a fuckboy for this. People who have been jaded before will perhaps claim that you have commitment issues, or you just have to open your heart/drop your guard or find the right person. 

But like, I just did not want a relationship. I wasn't looking because I didn't want it. I spent so much of my adult life believing that something was wrong with me because I wasn't seriously interested in dating anyone. And through conversations with others, had come to believe that this made me a terrible person.

Until this year, where I realized I was demiromantic. I had seen a bunch of aromantic tiktokers, related to so much of their content and did some research. It was a relief. I wasn't a fuckboy, I didn't have commitment issues, I wasn't just a bitch *insert eyeroll*

    Me when I realized people genuinely desire relationships and don't just feel pressure to be in one

I'm demiromantic. When reflecting on all of my past dating experience, I realized that what I felt for others was sexual attraction. And sexual attraction is not romantic attraction. I feel the same way about dates as I do hanging out with a new friend. I have only ever had a crush on one person who I knew for years before I ever felt something romantic towards him. 

Not every person who is in the same boat as I am is demiromantic. And maybe you do really want a relationship. That is valid and okay. But ultimately, what this taught me was don't let other people's ignorance and past trauma define you. Sometimes people don't know what the fuck they are talking about and ultimately, you are the only one who can know yourself.