Subtle Balance

I didn’t always understand this…

For a long time (and sometimes it’s still difficult)
I took the silence personally. 🫣

I mistook emotional unavailability for not caring.
I thought if someone loved you enough, they would just… open up.

Eventually. If you were patient enough. Safe enough. Good enough. 😢

What I understand now, through my own life and through the work I do, is that most men were never given the tools. Not because they didn’t want to connect. But because connection, vulnerability, and emotional honesty were quietly and consistently trained out of them from the time they were small boys. 😢

That doesn’t make the impact on the people around them any less real. But it does change how we look at it. And it changes what becomes possible. 🩷

If this resonates, save it. And share it with someone who needs to read it today.

Lots of love 💕
Selina

I keep thinking about this line. 💭

It’s from Pippi Longstocking, a little girl in a children’s book from 1945, with red braids and one strength most adults lose somewhere along the way: the absence of doubt. 🥰

We’ve been taught the opposite. “I’ve never done it, so I probably can’t.” “I don’t have experience, so who am I to try.” “What if I fail?”

A child doesn’t think like that.
A child thinks: new thing, let’s go!

If there’s something you’ve been talking yourself out of this week, maybe try her logic instead. Just for a day. 🩷

Save this for the day your brain tries to talk you out of something. And send it to the friend who keeps saying “I could never.” 😉

Lots of love 💕
Selina