Do you find excuses to hold back your love? Do you guard your vulnerability? Have you been hurt in ways that have made you wise to the dangers of love and vowed never to risk love so freely again?

I’ve realized that the most painful aspect of heartbreak isn’t what someone did to break your heart, it’s how you used that heartbreak as an excuse to stop loving them. You told the parts of you that would love that person no matter what that they couldn’t love anymore. And your heart is broken not from having the wind knocked out of you, but from your refusal to start breathing again afterward.

There’s this belief that love requires qualifiers to exist. That love is so fragile it needs just the right environment to survive. And that without the proper context you must stop loving immediately lest you be loving in the wrong.

In fact, you need a label to justify loving another. Some role through which to explain your relationship. Because if you don’t label it, society will label it for you.

If a woman has sex with whomever she likes—for reasons that feel good to her—society tells her she’s a slut with no self-respect. Because it’s not enough to just want something and then allow yourself to have it. If what you’re offering is to be considered worthwhile, you must make others earn it before you give it away.

I saw this kind of thinking play out in my own life whenever I’d dream up a new business idea. No matter how much I would enjoy doing the thing I wanted to do, I was told I just couldn’t give it away for free. If I wasn’t charging for it, I wasn’t respecting myself and others wouldn’t respect what I had to offer. So I felt like I had to be qualified to charge for something before I could share it with others.

But I never wanted to be qualified, I just wanted to do it. I never wanted to learn their way, I just wanted to discover mine. I never wanted to provide a service, I just wanted to provide me. Read More