The Love I Was Looking For Couldn’t Find Me Hiding

There’s a certain ache that comes from pretending you don’t want to be seen.

I used to call it independence. Boundaries. Standards.
But underneath all that was fear. A fear so familiar, I thought it was personality. I thought I was just “not that emotional,” or “too strong for the soft stuff.” What I really was? Tired. Guarded. Trying to heal quietly without anyone seeing me unravel.

And that’s the problem.

The love I was calling in—the steady, soul-honoring kind—couldn’t find me behind the walls I built to survive.

Because here’s the thing: Love doesn’t speak armor.
It speaks energy.
It responds to presence, softness, authenticity. Not performance.

And I get it—there are good reasons we hide. Trauma. Rejection. Childhood conditioning. Religion. Hustle culture. TikTok therapists who make hyper-independence sound like a flex. But love? The real kind? It needs you present to find you. And most of us are still emotionally out of office.

I didn’t realize that “glowing up” wasn’t just about looking good or leveling up my standards. It was about coming home to the version of me I kept hiding.

The one who cried easily.
The one who wanted to be chosen without proving anything.
The one who wanted soft mornings and forehead kisses and someone who didn’t flinch when she got vulnerable.

That version of me was never weak. She was waiting.

And when I stopped hiding her—when I stopped auditioning for love and started embodying it—everything changed.

So if you’re here, reading this, and wondering why love hasn’t landed yet…
Ask yourself gently:
Would the kind of love I crave even recognize me behind this mask?

And if the answer is no, good. That means you're waking up. That means your softness is stirring. That means you’re ready.

Because love doesn’t have to find you perfect.
It just has to find you true.

If this touched something tender in you, I wrote a whole book from that same space.
It's called The Love You Seek Is You—and it’s not a relationship guide. It’s a self-reclamation.
Grab it here →