You Were Never Chasing Them

We’ve all been there. Heartbreak. Pain. Choosing someone who didn’t choose us.

And at some point, you have to ask yourself… was I even choosing myself?

Maybe they disappeared when you needed them most. But then you look at yourself: how many times did you disappear from your own life at the slightest discomfort? Distracting yourself, overdoing things, avoiding what you felt instead of actually sitting with it?

Maybe they avoided confrontation. But how often have you avoided yourself? Really sitting down and facing your patterns, your emotions, every part of you without running?

It’s easy to blame the other person. Honestly, it’s the easiest thing to do. But that’s not where growth happens.

Growth happens when you turn inward. And yeah, it’s uncomfortable. But most real lessons are.

We love to say, “they didn’t do this, they did that…” And sure, we’re not responsible for how someone else treats us. But we are responsible for how we treat ourselves.

You can’t expect someone to choose you when you’re the one constantly abandoning yourself. When you’re inconsistent with yourself. When you’re chasing something outside of you that you’re not even giving yourself.

At some point, it clicks. You were never really chasing them. And you weren’t running from them either.

You were chasing what you thought they could give you. And running from what you needed to face within yourself.

That’s the part no one really wants to hear. Most of the time, it’s not about the other person. It’s about you. Your life will keep showing you what you need to see, one way or another.

I used to run from my emotions. I’d look for something, anything, outside of me to calm me down. To feel okay. I ignored my own needs, over and over again. And my body forced me to stop. I got injured. Again and again. Until I had no choice but to sit with myself.

That’s where things started changing. I learned how to actually feel my emotions instead of suppressing them. Not control them, but regulate them. Faced myself. My patterns. It hurt like hell. Ego was destroyed. Humbled. 

And slowly, I realized something simple but uncomfortable. I already had everything I was looking for. The safety. The calm. The peace. The love. It didn’t mean I didn’t love that person. 

Unconditional love, exists, and it’s simple. It’s the expectations, the control, the attachment, that’s what complicates it. That’s what turns it into something heavy.

And letting go of that? That’s not easy.

The mind wants control. It wants certainty. It wants to know how things will play out.

But life doesn’t work like that. At some point, you end up in a place where you have to surrender. Where you trust that things are working out, even when they don’t look the way you expected.

I was stubborn. Really stubborn. Impatient. Controlling. I wanted things my way, and I didn’t handle it well when they weren’t.

That version of me got humbled. Hard. Do those tendencies still show up sometimes? Of course. The difference is, they don’t run my life anymore. Now I catch myself. Sometimes immediately, sometimes a little later: but I see it. And I take a step back.

It’s a process. But the more you get to know yourself -without all the noise, without other people’s stories mixing into yours- the easier it gets.

At the end of the day, this whole “journey” people talk about? It’s really just learning how to function as a healthy, grounded human being.

Not constantly chasing. Not constantly running. Just… being whole. Feeling safe. Being present. 

And weirdly enough, even the parts of me that used to feel chaotic or all over the place started settling. That surprised me the most. For a while, it felt like I was going in the opposite direction: nothing made sense, things felt messy, intense.

But in the end, it brought me here. To a version of myself that feels stable. Clear. Present. Someone who can focus on herself. Set boundaries. Speak up. Protect her energy. Enjoy life without guilt. Go after what matters to her, even if no one else understands it.

Someone who can love without losing herself.

Who’s made peace with her past. Who’s still learning, still growing, but no longer running. Looking back, yeah… I gave myself some tough lessons.

But I was never alone in it. Life met me where I was, every single time. And now? I’m just… grateful. Still learning. Still surrendering.

But trusting it all a lot more.

And if all of this means I’ve apparently turned into an “avoidant” in love? Protection. It’s not my time to be with someone else. It’s time to be with myself.