I almost don’t know where to begin. See what had happened was…Lol. But seriously, jokes aside I offer my deepest apologies for my extended absence from the blog. While there are not many excuses I can offer, I assure you that the insight I gained in my time away, which I’ll share in this post, will more than makeup for it. Or at least I hope it will.

I’ll just cut straight to the chase. I had to take a break from love. I’m sure you’re thinking, “what does that even mean?” “How does that even work?” Well, I can assure you, it wasn’t a pleasant journey, at least not at first. I had gotten to such a low point in love. I was for the first time, disgusted and disgruntled with love. I wanted no parts of it. I stopped believing in the possibility of it. After coming up empty handed on my constant quest for love, I was officially over trying to find it. Naturally, I no longer had the desire to write on the topic. For those who don’t know, I am a therapist, who happens to specialize in, you guessed it, couple’s work. Day in and day out, I help couples through some of the toughest times of their relationships, while teaching them skills to better themselves and their partnerships. Literally, my entire world revolved around love. I believe God felt sorry for me because during this time my couple’s clientele dwindled and I received a ton of individuals. I guess God knew as well as I did that I wasn’t in the space to help them.

After taking a year from the blog and six months to myself, I have deemed it almost necessary to write again. I struggled with what would be my comeback post. Instantly, almost obviously, the thought hit me. Why not just start by talking about what drove me into silence in the first place? If I had experienced this, surely others have as well.

We all know that romance has been a goal to achieve for decades. Self-help books are flying off the shelves right now as everyone is in a mad dash to find the answer to obtaining true love. We read about it, watch it in movies and television shows, and have discussions about it with friends and loved ones. There are blogs and YouTube channels dedicated to it. Love is always a hot topic that is difficult to escape from. For a hopeless romantic like myself, the constant talk of love is intoxicating. But what happens when the high wears off and the drug of choice no longer does it for you? What happens when the thing you always believed in doesn’t seem to be manifesting like you always dreamed it would?

I have talked to so many people, whether it be followers, friends, family, or clients and they all have seemed to experience this same feeling. The feeling of hopeless despair. The feeling that maybe the love you hope for, isn’t meant for you. Maybe the phrase “there’s somebody for everybody” is just an empty group of words. This is a dark and sad revelation to come to after waiting for love for so long. It feels like the child waiting for the distant father to come to pick them up as promised, finally accepting the truth that daddy isn’t coming. For many, daddy is the love they always longed for but could never get to show up.

I promise I’m not writing this to sound dark and bleak. I’m writing this to do the opposite. I’m writing this to bring light to what feels like a dark space that the hope of love once filled. After much needed time, I realized that the answer should not be to give up on love but to recondition our minds as to what we thought it meant. I realized that many of us condition ourselves to believe that the sad, heartbreaking situations we experienced were synonymous with the love we sought. So we concluded that searching for love brought pain. This isn’t necessarily wrong, but it’s not in totality the truth. The desire for love is not the problem, it was the methods in which we chose to obtain it that brought issues.

So how does one recondition themselves? Through taking time from love. Yes, this is the entire point of this post. Sometimes, you need to take a break from what you want. Sometimes you need to regroup. Many people who are frustrated with their quest for love have done everything they think is possible to get it. They go out of their way to fix themselves so that their chances of a mate will be better. The issue is, if the goal for what you do is just so you can get a mate, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Taking time from love isn’t about fixing yourself, it’s about fixing your mindset.

The goal is not to change yourself, it’s to accept yourself. I finally realized that me trying to “perfect” or “fix” myself was to try to make me more loveable to the ones who saw something wrong with me and didn’t love the core of who I was. It showed that I had fallen for the lie that I was hard to love. The truth is, you won’t be hard to love for the person who accepts you for who you are. Yes, you will forever be a proponent of working on yourself and bettering yourself. I am not trying to give people an excuse to continue being messed up. What I am saying, is that your motivation of why and the goal of what you are trying to accomplish makes the difference. Are you trying to be better or are you trying to fix the essence of you that you convinced yourself is wrong so you can get someone to love you?

This is why self-love is so important. You really have to love yourself in a way that is accepting of your good and bad. It is easy to excuse people for not loving you wholeheartedly when you agree that there are parts of you not to love. When you don’t love all of you, you relate to when others don’t. If you want someone to love you for the core of your essence, you should first do the same. When you love every part of yourself, you can challenge others to do the equivalent.

It is difficult to do this without taking a break. I never would have been able to come to some ugly truths had I not taken a break from love. I hadn’t realized just how much I had been negatively impacted by the internal messages that were being implanted by every failed attempt of my endeavors. I had not realized that my quest was starting to accumulate some heavy baggage. I’m here to encourage you to take some time and unpack some. You may have been journeying a long time trying to find love. With every failed trip you simply add more stuff to your luggage and went out on the next voyage.

Maybe it’s time to take a break from your quest. Maybe, just maybe, you need a break. It doesn’t mean you are giving up, but sometimes it is good to check your map to see if you’re still going in the right direction. Patiently waiting for love can weigh so heavy on the heart. Getting your hopes up repeatedly can be daunting and can create nasty narratives in your mind. I don’t suggest you allow yourself to get as bitter as I did. That’s what I’m trying to prevent. I’m trying to catch you before you reach emotional fatigue. I’m also here to let you know that there is nothing wrong with wanting to take a break. It’s not that you’re giving up, rather than giving your heart some much-needed maintenance. So, before you decide to take another trip towards love, consider if you may need some time to rest before the next journey. Safe travels😊