How I Became a Well-loved Woman.

“It’s so nice to see a well-loved woman!”

Deep in that liminal space between night and day, on my morning walk through a local park last Friday, I heard a voice behind me.

I turned around and saw a neighbor from the community where we reside, a Canadian woman named Stefania walking her dog. We have met a few times when we were here last spring.

That description – a well-loved woman – surprized me and gave me lots to ponder over the weekend.

I already know that whatever others say or think about me – whether in admiration or judgment – says more about them than about me.

So I knew that this combination of words was a symbol, a reflection of how this woman perceived me, a story she has created about me based on her own history.

At the same time, these words found deep resonance in me. I recognized them as a mirrored reflection intended for me. This phrase – a well-loved woman – felt true, but I suspect not in the way that Stefania intended it.

I sensed that in seeing me as a well-loved woman she was somehow referring to the way I am loved by my husband, whom she has met the few times we spoke before.

I felt compelled to quickly warn her: “Yes, I have finally learned to love myself.”

“Sure,” she answered, “But it is easier when your partner is open and growing with you.”

The fact is, she does not know either of us enough to come to that conclusion about me or my husband.

She told me that when she saw us together, we looked like we were close friends. Meanwhile, she has been married and divorced twice. I noticed a bitterness in her smile as she was saying that.

I observe that at the source of our suffering is the idea that love comes from a place outside of ourselves.

I saw that in Stefania’s loaded with projection words was a belief that some people are better at delivering love than others. She has tried a few times to find the right supplier for her, but hasn’t found a sustainable one yet.

Because there is no such thing. The only sustainable supply of love is the one we can access within.

What we all seek is a specific feeling. We crave the euphoria of being in love, that feeling of fearlessness, security, invincibility, and hope.

The problem is that we come to associate these feelings as something that can be supplied by someone on outside of ourselves.

And if you have been reading me for a while, you know that no one can give us a feeling. No one can make us feel loved, just like no one can make us feel un-loved. Whatever we feel was within us already. The current partner or circumstance act as a catalyst that brings our inner state to our awareness.

What many of us do not realize is that when we feel loved (or in love), no one actually gives us anything. This blissful feeling we crave is actually our own energy rising as a result of our own internal psycho-emotional process.

So I do believe that what my neighbor sensed in me is true: I am a well-loved woman. I am a woman who feels safe, who feels loved, and who is living my life on my own terms.

In the last few days I have felt particularly happy.

Returning to Mexico with its glorious nature and weather after two months of travel, newness and change has felt like a blessing.

I have just resumed my self-care routine which is so easy here. My daily 20-30 minute walks as soon as I wake feel exquisite and beat any cup of coffee, without which I couldn’t face life only 6 months ago. These few minutes with myself in the beginning of each day, just as the sun rises, while the moon is still visible in the sky, and the air feels so pleasantly cool before the daytime heat sets in have been filling my whole being with gratitude.

This week, on one such morning walk an affirmation came to me: “I am safe and I am loved”, which I have since been repeating like a mantra on my daily morning walks.

To come to this place in my life, where at 58 I can finally tell myself: I am safe and I am loved and not have some place in my gut constrict in fear feels absolutely unbelievable.

I finally embody these words. My whole being is relaxed and radiating this safety and this love. (Most of the time – haha!)

Perhaps Stefania noticed my blissful state, which was visible in my posture, beyond language. She did witness me well-loved, but she assumed that my state is thanks to my husband.

The fact is – and it feels almost strange to say this – my feeling loved lately has very little to do with my husband.

My feeling well-loved is the result of a relationship that I have been cultivating with myself for the last ten years.

It required a death of an entitled ego and a remembering of a connection with something much greater than my husband, much greater than me.

“You can’t be loved any more than your own lack of love for self,” I saw from David Dayan yesterday. Yes, I have come to the same conclusion.

Today I own the fact that I am a well-loved woman.

I feel it with every fiber of my body. I know it to be true.

I keep catching myself with this thought : “I love my life!”

And it is so unbelievable, because I know where I came from.

Over the last 10 years, suicidal thoughts were a recurring theme. I faced so many existential fears, experienced such brutal cognitive dissonance as life as I knew it was crumbling. I had to question everything I knew to be true and came to realization that my beliefs were mostly based on illusions and other people’s fears.

So to find myself today in a state where I can say I love my life feels like magic to me.

But it’s not magical in the delusional way, when you just wish for something incongruent to you to happen.

My life feels magic because I built it.

My life is custom-made for me, by me.

It is magic, because I used to be unaware of my power, of what I was capable of. I did not know that I could dream something that felt impossible when I dreamt it and build it to become my reality.

I wrote in my journal over the weekend: my days are filled with doing what I want, when I want, and with whom I want. I do very little of what I don’t like doing.

I love my life because I built it to my own specifications and preferences, my specific wishes and values.

It took daring to stop building my husband’s dream life and start building my own. There was a lot of pushback.

My life is stripped to the bare-bones simple.

I have very few possessions and things I can call mine and I have never felt freer and more abundant.

I feel safe and I feel loved.

And it is not my husband’s achievement.

It is all me.

Every scary step into the unknown, every dare to follow the sound of my own drum brought me here. No one could do that for me.

I did not have to change a partner to feel loved.

Come to think of it, I did not even have to change myself!

I just had to discover who I actually am, who I always was underneath all the pretense, other people’s beliefs, and my own masks.

And then I had to dare to live in alignment with my essence, which meant taking time to listen, honor what I heard, trust the unknown that was calling me, and daring to step into the arena.

And instead of changing people in relationships with me for me to feel better, I used my feelings and reactions as the stepping stones toward meeting myself.

I am a well-loved woman. I respect, care for and love myself.

At 58, I make my wellbeing my priority.

It is never too late to start.

PS: Some more spaces available for private 1-1 work with me before we hit the holidays.

The 30-days 1-1 Experience is perfect to begin now if you want to break your recurring patterns in relationships BEFORE THE NEW YEAR.

We’ll be connected throughout the 30 days together via WhatsApp in addition to the 4 sessions, focusing on whatever keeps you unhappy or stuck in your relationships. I will help you clean up your side in your relating dynamic, so you can feel empowered to bring about the changes you desire.

Find more details for 30-day offer and sign up ​here​.

Or meet me for a FREE 30-min conversation here to discuss how I can best support you in this challenging time of pressure and change.

PPS: I am delighted to announce that some of my masterclasses that sum up some of my foundational teachings are now available for purchase to study at your own pace.