Unpopular (But True): Love Looks Like Letting People Be Who They Are

When staying loved means betraying yourself, it’s time to rethink what love really is.

Love that requires you to stay small isn’t unconditional love.

How does the saying go? If I had a penny for every time someone winced when I told them that, I’d be a rich woman.

I see it all the time, with myself included. Trying, desperately at times, to make a square peg fit into a round hole. Forcing a relationship to work when it clearly doesn’t. Maybe on paper it reads as love. Maybe there are moments of expression interpreted as unconditional, and so you stay. But the foundation is anything but solid, and you find yourself playing small in your life.

In the beginning, the feeling of playing small is undetectable, because it happens so subtly, building over time. It’s in all the micromoments you choose not to express yourself fully because it feels safer not to.

The time you didn’t speak up for yourself.
Pretending you don’t want what you really do.
Making yourself easier, more agreeable.
Waiting for permission you don’t actually need.
Being told you take up too much space - your feelings are too much.

Playing small is an adaptation of yourself in order to belong, fit in, or not rock the boat. It avoids rejection and disappointing people. Disconnecting you from your basic need of connection.

My uncle described it best when he told me about the dissolution of his marriage to my aunt years ago. He said it was like all these moments of micro tears that never really got repaired, and then one day you’re facing a very large gap that is irreparable. I have faced a similar gap after years of unrepaired micro tears.

Playing small creates quiet friction in your life that, over time, robs you of contentment and peace. With clients, I see this play out as feelings of life seeming a little off, stuck, and unsupported, or as being expected to act or be a certain way that doesn’t feel authentic.

The hardest realization to confront is the belief that this behavior is normal! This is how relationships are supposed to operate. But, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Is it time to let those relationships go?

Sometimes, yes, and sometimes, no. It requires a little soul work to find the true answer. First and foremost, everyone, and yes, I mean everyone, deserves to take up the space they were given. Even if we don’t “like” the space someone is taking up, they have a right through their soul contract to exist.

You deserve to take up space and to love and be loved unconditionally. And when someone is dampening the space you are taking up by limiting your capacity to be yourself because it threatens them in some way, a hard evaluation is needed.

Is it really worth it to stay?
Is it time to go?

The answer lies in the boundaries you are willing to set so you don’t embrace or impose conditions. Living a wild life requires unconditional love, and it is possible, but it takes work. I will say that it is, in fact, harder to love someone wild and free: unrestricted with no conditions on behavior in order to be in a relationship.

An unpopular opinion, but one I fully support, is to self-lead the situation; meet people where they are, but put them where they belong.

The unconditional element is the first part: meet people where they are. There are three types of business in this world: your business, my business, and the universe’s business, and you can only control your business. Meeting people where they are is unconditional when you don’t control their behavior, values, or beliefs. You let go of the attachment you have for them to treat you a certain way. If those choices are damaging in some way (especially physically or emotionally), cut your ties. The reverse is also true. If someone is not meeting you where you are at our core, they are smothering you.

The second element is the boundary: put them where they belong. If someone chooses to impose conditions on you, forcing you to hide the truest version of yourself or expecting you to treat them in a way that doesn’t align with your values, it is up to you, and ONLY you, to put distance between the two of you. Expecting someone to change the way they treat you is sitting in their business, and it’s never going to happen.

Move them from your inner circle, which is your most vulnerable space, to an outer circle, where they have less access to you. This option lets you stay safe without having to play small or lose the relationship.

We have no business attempting to control someone else or how they treat us. The only option is to meet them exactly as they are, but put them in a zone of safety.

February is the unofficial month of love. With that comes a barrage of relationship questions, especially on this topic. Boundaries with loved ones are by far the HARDEST to set. But if you choose to live wildly, it looks like letting people be who they are, WITHOUT sacrificing yourself or your safety.

I encourage you to take some time to evaluate your relationships: family, friends, and intimate ones.

In what relationships are you free?
Where are you playing small?
Where do you need to move people to an outer circle of access?

Instead of expecting more out of someone else, expect more out of yourself. Meet people where they are, but put them where they belong.

May your days be wild…

Abby