Lessons in Love.

it's f*cking brutal out there <3

There is a beautiful mantra that Florence Given shared recently:

✨ The longer you linger, the deeper the magic ✨

In healing work, there is a concept called titration.

Titration allows our bodies to begin to feel safe sitting with ourselves. Titration allows our bodies to slowly build a feeling of safety, to actualize it.

When you can build this feeling of trust over time, you become available for the deeper, more difficult teachings. Because your body knows that it can handle it. Your body has a foundation of safety that acts as both support and assurance when the uncomfortable truths come forward.

The same is true for getting to know another person.

By taking time, lingering, you allow yourself the capacity to open. Small moments of safety give your heart the permission to feel safe in exposing the deepest vulnerabilities. The edges of the soul that are most special to you, most messy, critical to who you are. And, by going too fast, by attempting to bare the entire soul immediately, you inherently rob each other of the unraveling.

I have always described myself as 0 or 100.

An extremist if you will.

I am willing to jump off the cliff and let the wind race past my ears, but I am hesitant to cautiously descend. To thoughtfully map the course and understand the tedious work in front of me. To surrender to patience and to slowness.

Story Time.

On February 19th, I concluded my 3 month travel saga through South America and Antarctica to return to the states for a company offsite in Palm Springs. I work for a 100% remote tech company, which means I’ve barely met any of my coworkers in person. We mainly bounce around the virtuals.

We share pics of lizards and bugs, hold weekly meditations. My colleagues live as Slack avatars and tiles on the screen. No scent, no 3D manifestation of connection or energy.

When I got to Palm Springs, one of these avatars came to life in full, vibrant color. Ory and I had attended weekly meditations together for 8 months. We shared memes. We had one single Zoom 1:1 connecting over travel and exploration and our soul’s desire to migrate like birds from season to season 🕊️

We talked about thrift shopping in Palm Springs and finding bolo ties and cowboy boots to absolutely dazzle our coworkers.

After the first day of workshops, they found me basking on a rock in the sun and asked me what I was contemplating, staring forlornly into the mountains. I replied I was just enjoying the scenery on this occasion, but I have been known to indulge in staring forlornly into the sea while chugging whole milk. They full body laughed.

Please see ‘Hippies & Jelly Donuts’ for more, “I found myself pulled over on the side of Cabrillo Highway in Half Moon Bay, blasting The Scientist, and slowly chugging a carton of organic whole milk as I gazed upon a stormy, grey sea.”

Hippies & Jelly Donuts.

They were wearing tight, corduroy bellbottom pants that hugged their ass in all the right places. A discreet flare and flirtiness that made me giddy. They had curly, bouncy golden hair tied up with a golden clip that was the shape of a stick of butter. Unsalted butter to be exact. I was intrigued. I was hooked.

le beurre

We spent the weekend constantly finding each other, doubled over in belly laughs, getting lost in late night chats. Two balls of energy and light drawn to each other over and over again ☄️☄️

I was wearing a leopard print jacket (loud, obnoxious, perfectly set against the dusty desert glow) and they wore a 70’s cowhide jacket paired with orange tinted sunnies. We usurped the professional headshot photographer to take pics in our rockstar jackets. Our indie band cover seamless captured in minutes. Dynamic. I loved their humor, their rizz, the way they walked about the world. The bellbottoms didn’t hurt, either. The way we could never be far away from each other for too long without feeling the golden thread pull us back to one another yet again. After the cacao ceremony Madeline and I led, I saw them wiping away tears. They saw me in all of the layers of who I am, it felt, and they loved and accepted me.

After the offsite, we started talking on the phone. They said they were nervous, because we were coworkers, but they loved my spirit and wanted to explore things romantically. My heart stopped. Butterflies. Excitement. Shock. I loved their soul, their sparkle, but thought it was platonic. The idea of walking through this door romantically delighted and enticed me, so we did.

They showed up in the Hudson Valley one week before my ACL surgery and agreed, offered, to take care of me.

There was no lingering.

No titration.

Just two crazy souls ready to jump off the cliff strapped to each other, holding tight. How romantic.

Fast Forward.

Our unraveling was less like a golden thread being tenderly pulled and more like a hot pink ball of yarn that accidentally dropped on the floor; you watch the entire orb transform into a pile of spaghetti.

While the spaghetti was still pink, and slightly alluring, it was also a shapeless hot mess that neither of us knew how to put back together.

I am sitting with a lot of grief over the ball of yarn.

The dreams of my future sweater or my thin 90’s scarf quickly dissolved as I looked at the pile of slop in front of me.

At first I blamed myself for not having self control.

For always choosing to base jump rather than safely belay down to the canyon beneath.

Ultimately, this self-hated and judgment wasn’t productive. And didn’t acknowledge the simple truth that I will risk anything for the chance of love and true partnership.

I’ve let go of the self hate, and shifted to the learnings:

How can I integrate the hot pink spaghetti into my life and learn how to allow for the gentle, beautiful unraveling of myself and another?

Love and relationships are the single most complicated, challenging magic there is, in my opinion. It is the ultimate divine mirror to your own shadows and your own process. Love exposes exactly where you are. There is no hiding. The truth will be etched in front of you, unmistakable, and you are forced to liaise with it.

One of my uncomfortable truths is that I’m still learning to accept love. Learning to acclimate to safety. To trust goodness. Stability. Care. Accepting care in my vulnerable state post knee surgery was one of the most challenging things I’ve had to do in a long time. To believe someone could love me enough that caring for me wasn’t a burden, but an act of love. I’ve had to sit with the fact that parts of me believe I’m not worthy of that. With the parts of me that believe it’s not possible to be truly taken care of by another person, a partner. That someone could see me in my ugliest, rawest, most unglamorous form and still want me. Huge thanks to the patriarchy for that. Etched beliefs that as a woman, being beautiful means being maintained, manicured, serving male gaze and the concept of what a woman is “supposed” to be in our society.

Not having the strength or ability to get dressed, do my hair, display how I can cook and be adorable and be productive and valuable all day shattered me. I couldn’t believe that the less sparkly, less leopard print Babs deserved or “earned” love.

This love portal taught me so much in the most brutal ways.

In certain ways, it shattered me. And, in ending, it shattered me double.

When I experience heartbreak, it becomes unimaginable that I would bare my soul, open my heart, leave the door open to this type of discomfort ever again.

I attach to the vision of love, partnership. Attach to the deep yearning. The resistance to “rejection.” The feeling of “failure.”

Compatibility is hard.

The truth that I am never willing to accept (but am slowly trying), is that magnetism, love, appreciation for who someone is—spark—doesn’t equate to the ability to authentically and successfully weave two lives together.

A relationship ending is not failure, but a beautiful exploration of both the heart, the internal world, and compatibility.

Cutting cords, relationships ending, it doesn’t mean either of you is BAD. It is simply a lack of alignment.

Unfortunately, this truth doesn’t really make the heartbreak any easier. But, it beckons you to rise to the occasion of ultimate self love: knowing that a lack of alignment does not mean you are not enough. It doesn’t mean you are not delicious, but perhaps that dairy gives the other person a stomach ache.

It is always worth it to love.

Because, it means you are brave enough to live. Kitty Lever reminded me in a desperate moment, that living means accepting heartbreak and loss. Not shutting down in light of heartbreak shows our capacity to sit with discomfort and move with it. To accept that not everything will turn out as planned. And, to get up and doit all anyways.

So much love,

Babs

Transparency: All content published by Luv, Babs is completely original and inspired by my unique experience as a hotcake-lovin’ human on this earth. I use AI to proofread and to generate high-level summaries. Thank you for reading! 🖤

About the Author

Babs is a big-hearted semi chaotic gemini who lives in Woodstock, New York where she can frolic about the land like a fairy and listen to the birds in the morning.

She is now single and looking for a faerie king/kween/insert-gender-identity-here to feed her fresh tomatoes from the vine this summer. Feel free to reach out with inquiries at @babsbiscuits on instagram or comment something spicy yet heartfelt on this post.