Wounds That Built This Work — Part 2
Why I’m learning to stop proving and start perceiving love differently
This is Part 2 of a 5-part series called The Wounds That Built This Work—a raw look at the life stories that shaped me and the decision traps I had to break free from.
Get Untrapped™ isn’t just a publication…
it’s the blueprint of how I had to save my own life.
My father loved us through work.
That was his language — the way he proved his devotion. “I gotta go to work,” he’d say, every time life called for presence instead of performance.
He wasn’t unloving.
He was just unavailable.
I learned to adapt to that absence — to make myself smaller, quieter, easier to love. To believe that being low-maintenance made me worthy of keeping.
He was the first man I ever loved, and the first to break my heart.
He was also the first to teach me what it felt like to be unseen.
That paradox became my pattern.
At twenty-one, I married a man who felt familiar.
Different name, same rhythm — his needs first, mine later, if at all.
I stayed for ten years, waiting for mutuality to appear, convincing myself that patience was proof of love.
When I finally left, I promised myself I’d never repeat it.
But patterns don’t dissolve just because we decide to be wiser.
They linger until we learn the lesson differently.
Since then, I’ve met versions of the same experience — men who loved how I made them feel, but never considered how they made me feel.
Men who were comfortable being poured into, but not interested in pouring back.
But each time, I stay a little less than before.
That’s how I know I’m healing.
The distance between recognition and release keeps getting shorter.
The moment I sense imbalance, my spirit starts to withdraw — even before my body moves.
It’s clear to me that I’m different now.
I don’t debate my intuition or explain it away.
I listen.
I observe.
I honor my noticing.
I’ve come to see how often I’ve loved through labor — giving too much and giving too soon as a way of proving readiness and worthiness.
But love isn’t a résumé.
And care isn’t currency.
I’m letting reciprocity reveal people.
I’m holding my softness securely until it’s safe to share.
My work isn’t about asking, “What’s wrong with me?”
It’s about asking, “What is my energy teaching people about how to treat me?”
Because the questions we ask are invitations for the universe to respond.
If I ask what’s wrong with me, life will keep handing me mirrors of my flaws.
But if I ask how to attract love that’s generous, grounded, and emotionally mature — the universe shifts its search accordingly.
Chapter 46 feels different already.
I’m not trying to earn love — I’m discerning whether it is present.
I’m not proving my worth — I’m protecting it, and giving others the opportunity to perceive it.
I’m on my way to finally feeling the difference between being chosen and being cherished.
If this spoke to you, tell me below:
→ Have you traced any of your patterns in love back to childhood?
→ What questions are you asking now that invite something more true in?