Admit to Love
Venus Retrograde in Leo
In my readings with people over the years, I have noticed there is an embarrassment that comes up around asking about love. Clients tiptoe up to the topic and sheepishly ask, “Can I ask about my love life? Is that ok?” It’s the thing that no one wants to admit to wanting. We’re living in a culture that prizes individualism and self-sufficiency. Love yourself first, we’re told. If you can’t love yourself first, then you’re not ready to be loved by another person. This is a lie. I will say it till my very last breath – this is a lie.
We are so embarrassed to admit our desire for love. It’s sad to me. I’ve begun saying it out loud in certain situations, when I’ve reflected on why I’ve hung on to a relationship that wasn’t working or why I behaved in a way that didn’t make rational sense. It’s simple but not easy to say: “I just wanted to be loved”. That elicits some cringe, doesn’t it? It makes me feel raw simply to say it out loud. “I just wanted to be loved”. It sounds embarrassing, doesn’t it? It’s not a cool thing to do. Like wow, why would she admit to that? I’ve had to see that it is actually a natural desire that points me towards my own worthiness, to my most vulnerable and truthful parts that deserve to be seen and celebrated, to be able to say out loud – “I want to be loved”.
This makes people uncomfortable. We aren’t supposed to want that, let alone admit to it out loud if we’re struggling with it. Love is in short supply these days, it seems. People don’t seem to know how to love. We pathologize our inability to love well. We’ve come up with so many words and terms to categorize and write off people and their behaviors – “toxic” “fuck boi” “love bomber”. And I get it, it’s helpful to have language to make sense of our experiences. We long for a formula, for people to give us advice about the correct way to behave that will make us lovable. I really can’t help but see that as my feed gets flooded with pop psychologists prescribing line after line of how to behave when dating/when in relationship. Sure, maybe we need some of that. But at the same time, I think it can erase the humanity of the fact that we all fuck up and hurt each other in our quest for connection. Maybe it would be easier to have those reparative conversations when we start there. I’m not talking about enduring bad or abusive behavior, and we should never tolerate a situation that makes us feel less than worthy – but I’m talking about understanding that we’re all human beings trying to figure this out.
Can you admit to your want for love? Without cringing? Without feeling ashamed? Without stopping yourself? Can you live with the uncomfortable emotions that bubble up when you admit to it? That is my wish for myself this Venus retrograde, to fully own my desire for love in my life, to say it out loud, to not be embarrassed about that fundamental and important part of myself that keeps my heart beating and my soul alive.
This is the part that keeps us alive, keeps us reaching for each other, keeps us connecting, and I hope we will never stop wanting to love and be loved.