Stop Begging and Start Allowing!
What Happens When You Stop Begging to Belong… and Start Allowing Everyone Their Humanity
I recently wrote an article called “What Happens When You Stop Begging to Belong.”
I had to write it because that feeling had been living in me for a long time. That ache. That quiet, persistent wondering why it always felt like I was reaching for connection while standing alone in the effort of it.
But the day I wrote it, I already knew something else was true.
I knew I was going to outgrow the version of myself who needed to frame everything as abandonment.
Because healing doesn’t just soften your pain…
It changes your language.
I Did Go Quiet — And Yes, I Still Love Them
Did I step back for a while from the very people who were helping to compound my grief?
Yes. I absolutely did.
And I don’t regret that.
But here is the part that feels different now:
I still love them.
Whether they know it or not, whether they receive it or not, whether they ever understand me or not — I love them.
What has shifted is not my capacity to love.
What has shifted is the way I speak to myself about what happened.
The Old Dialogue vs. The Healed One
There was a time when my inner dialogue sounded like this:
Why can’t they understand that I did the best I could?
I did the best I knew how to do.
I didn’t know how to be any different than what I was.
I showed up. I sacrificed. I held them when they needed to be held.
So why can’t they just see that?
That voice came from wounded justification.
From trying to be understood so I could finally feel worthy of peace.
Now my words sound different:
I did the best I could with what I had.
I can honor that truth without needing it validated by anyone else.
I am sorry that I didn’t know certain things then — and because of that, I didn’t have the capacity at the time to teach them what I hadn’t yet learned myself.
I gave what I could.
And I cannot control how others see things, experience things, or interpret their story.
But I absolutely have the right to choose how I feel inside myself.
That is not resignation.
That is sovereignty.
The Same Shift Happened With My Own Parental Wounds
There was a time I used to say this about the ones who were supposed to protect me:
Why can’t they just see me?
Why can’t they see that I needed them?
Why don’t they understand how deeply they hurt me?
Now I ask a different question:
Did I ever tell them how I felt — and did I actually listen to their response?
Because sometimes people don’t know you need them.
And sometimes they don’t have answers because they don’t have language for their own wounds either.
Grace Does Not Erase Pain — It Just Changes What You Do With It
I want to be honest here in a way that is not sentimental:
The Anger Is Real — But It Isn’t Aimed Where It Used to Be
I want to be clear about something:
Yes — I am still angry.
But I’m not angry at anyone anymore.
I’m angry because this was something I had to carry at all.
I’m angry that my childhood required survival instead of safety.
I’m angry that I had to walk through fire before I ever learned that water existed.
That anger doesn’t mean I have the right to blame anyone, anymore.
It means I’m finally telling the truth.
Because here’s the shift I’ve made:
There was a time when I believed that the people who chose the role of “protector” should have performed it perfectly.
That because they were the adults, they should have intuitively known how to shield me, teach me, guide me, and heal me.
Now I live in a more spiritual, grounded place — one that doesn’t erase the pain but gives it context.
I see now that I had to walk through that pain to understand what I truly want in life and to learn how to create it with intention instead of reaction.
Not because the suffering was noble or deserved —
but because the suffering awakened capacities in me that ease never could have taught.
And from this vantage point, the truth becomes much simpler:
They didn’t understand healing the way we understand it now.
They didn’t have the language, the resources, or the generational awareness we have today.
They didn’t know what they didn’t know.
And that is OK!
That doesn’t make my pain unreal or dismisses it.
It simply removes the target.
The anger is mine, I am allowed to hold it for as long as I need to —
but the blame no longer is.
That doesn’t erase that I did suffer, but it does relocate the responsibility back to me to heal it.
What happened to me was real.
What I do with it now is mine.
We Did Not Have the Knowledge Then That We Have Now
This is something I think we forget when we judge the past from the present:
We didn’t grow up in a culture that centered trauma awareness.
We didn’t have nervous-system education in schools.
We didn’t have accessible therapy the way it exists today.
We didn’t understand trauma and trauma-bonding the way we now do.
And I didn’t step into deep healing overnight either.
I tried.
I searched.
I read.
I shifted.
But the truth is, this kind of healing takes years — not weeks.
It takes cycles.
It takes collapse.
It takes rebuilding.
It takes different versions of yourself learning the same lesson at deeper and deeper levels.
To the Adult Children Who Are Choosing “No Contact”
I want to speak to you with honesty, respect, and clarity.
Yes—it is okay to step back from relationships that feel emotionally unsafe, overwhelming, or destabilizing. Protection is sometimes necessary. Space can be lifesaving. Distance can give you the room to finally hear yourself think and feel.
But I also want to say this gently and truthfully:
Separation alone is not the same as healing.
Separation is protection.
Healing is what you do with the space afterward.
There is an important difference between real abuse and imperfect parenting.
There is a difference between being harmed and being disappointed.
There is a difference between being unsafe and being told “no.”
Many parents worked within the only structures they knew. They followed the rules they were given, the examples they were shown, and the limitations they never learned how to question. That doesn’t mean everything they did was right—but it also doesn’t automatically make them villains.
True healing requires discernment, not just distance.
If you leave to protect your peace but never seek support to heal what was broken inside you, the distance may grow—but the wound will follow. Not because you made the wrong choice, but because wounds don’t heal through avoidance. They heal through understanding, support, reflection, and time.
Healing is not about returning to unsafe systems.
And it is also not about permanently exiling people who did their imperfect best from the limited place they knew how to stand.
Sometimes healing leads back to relationship.
Sometimes it leads to a different kind of relationship.
And sometimes it leads to permanent distance.
But the goal is not disconnection for the sake of disconnection.
The goal is freedom—from pain, from reenactment, from inherited patterns.
And that freedom comes from doing your own work—no matter what choice you make about contact.
And This Is the Part That Takes the Most Emotional Maturity
Healing is not just the responsibility of the “parent.”
And it is not just the responsibility of the “child.”
In any relationship — past or present — every individual is responsible for their own healing.
That does not mean sharing blame.
It means reclaiming power.
It means refusing to let unresolved pain remain the decision-maker in your life.
Where I Stand Now
I no longer live in the space of:
Why don’t they choose me?
Why can’t this just be fixed?
Why don’t they see me?
Now I live here:
I see myself.
I choose myself.
I take responsibility for my healing.
And I allow others the dignity of their own process — even when it hurts.
That doesn’t make me cold.
It makes me free.
A New Day for All of Us
Today is a new day, my friends — for every single one of us standing on either side of a “no-contact” decision.
To the parents who are hurting…
If someone you love has stepped away from you, please hear this gently:
It is okay to hurt.
It is okay to grieve.
It is okay to not understand why this happened.
And it is more than okay — it is healthy — to use this period of darkness as a place to turn inward and heal yourself.
Doing your own work does not mean you are letting go of them.
It simply means you are taking responsibility for your well-being, your peace, and your inner stability.
You may find that as you heal, you reach a place where:
- The situation still hurts
- The longing is still real
- But the desperation softens
Not because the relationship didn’t matter —
but because you begin to understand that everyone you love, including your children, are imperfect humans doing their best with what they’ve lived through.
And just like you, they have to figure their life out in their own way.
Their journey is theirs.
Your healing is yours.
And neither cancels the love in between.
To the adult children choosing distance…
Please be honest with yourself:
Are you taking space in order to heal,
or are you taking space and simply holding on to the wound?
Are you doing the work you wish the people you stepped away from had done for you?
This is not blame.
This is empowerment.
Because healing is how you break the cycle — not how you justify the separation.
And here is a truth many people don’t realize until years later:
Once you begin your healing journey, you may discover a surprising peace —
not because everything turned out the way you “deserved”…
but because you begin to see your lived experience through a lens of compassion rather than expectation.
Healing does not mean returning to the relationship.
Healing does not mean pretending nothing happened.
Healing does not mean dismissing your pain.
Healing simply means:
You no longer let your past run your present.
You no longer let hurt define your identity.
You no longer need someone else to change before you can breathe again.
And from that place — whatever choices you make next will come from clarity, not chaos.
Where Both Sides Meet
No one in this story has all the answers.
No one here is meant to be perfect.
No one here is the villain.
We are all humans trying to figure out how to live, love, heal, and understand our own hearts.
Whether you are the one who stayed…
the one who left…
or the one waiting quietly in the middle…
This truth holds:
Your healing is your responsibility.
Your peace is your birthright.
And your story is still unfolding.
Today is a new day for all of us — and it begins with choosing compassion, for ourselves and for each other, even when the road is hard.
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