You Do Not Have to Hustle to Be Lovable: Love is Your Birthright

When I had the same conversation with multiple clients, both men and women, around the same topic I know that it’s important to talk about here in the blog. I’m going to be straight with you, kitten: you do not need to earn love, it is your birthright.

You are born into this world deserving of belonging and worthy of being loved as you are. You don’t need to mold yourself into someone’s ideal or hustle for love.

Nope, you are lovable as you are. Imperfections and all.

This is certainly contrary to what I grew up believing about love.

As a little girl, I grew up believing that in order to be loved, I had to be a good girl and follow the rules. I had to get good grades, not talk in class, and clean my room. That if I failed to do those things perfectly, then all the affection would be withdrawn.

I also grew up witnessing and therefore believing that the way to keep a relationship in control and on path, then you had to criticize and shame people into behaving the way that you believed was right.

A decade ago, I would have told you that love meant obligation. Love meant giving up who you are for someone else. Love was small and narrow and rare. Love was something you had to bend and mold and beg for. Love meant needing to stand in ideal perfection of what others expected you to be.

I would have also told you that you had to be UP in the business of a loved one – performing, engaging, and hustling to be seen as worthy.

Ten years ago, my definition of love began to shift. I began to learn that love didn’t have to be rare and it sure didn’t have to mean obligation. That maybe, love wasn’t hard.

It’s taken years to get my arms around that concept.

Today, I have come to fully understand that love isn’t about hustle. It isn’t something that is hard or narrow or obligatory. Love is acceptance, allowing, and being. Love is keeping the purest form of yourself.

I know that love is in the ordinary of every day living. Love is seen in the side-by-side companionship of acceptance. Love is in the simple art of creating a life that is breathable and supportive.

Love isn’t only seen on Valentine’s day and Christmas. Love is boundless and endless.

And you get to choose love. Each and every moment. You don’t have to wait for it to choose you. No, darling, love chose you from the moment you were born. It is our birthright.