EP 53: Loving Someone Doesn't Mean Keeping Them
Your Love Belongs to You
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much energy we spend trying to outrun love that didn’t work out. Trying to reframe the story so the feeling fades faster. Trying to convince ourselves it wasn’t real. We treat the end of a relationship like we have to dismantle the whole thing just to move forward. And I don’t think that’s true.
In episode 53 of the Human(ing) Well podcast, Loving Someone Doesn’t Mean Keeping Them, I’m getting into what actually happens when love ends and why the loss hits so hard. We’ve been taught that love lives inside the other person. So when they leave, we believe we lost access to something we can’t get back. But that’s not where love comes from. You generated it. You softened, opened up, and allowed someone in. That willingness came from you, which means the parts of yourself that love brought out? Still yours.
Reflection questions to sit with:
Where have you confused loving someone with needing to keep them?
Have you ever stayed longer because you believed the feeling would disappear if you left?
What would shift if you trusted that love is something you generate, not something you’re granted?
Episode 53 of Human(ing) Well podcast is live. Go give it a listen, and if it resonates, pass it along to someone who needs it.
KEY POINTS:
00:00 – Introduction
00:51 – Love as an experience, not a contract
01:12 – Misattributing love to the other person
03:55 – My own story of loving someone I couldn’t build a life with
05:42 – Turning love inward and deepening self-love
09:30 – Reflection questions about love, possession, and agency
QUOTES:
“Loving somebody doesn’t require that you own them. It doesn’t even require proximity.” — Amber Cabral
“My love belongs to me. I elect to share it, but the person I love doesn’t have to be with me.” — Amber Cabral
“Love is meant to be shared, but your love belongs to you, and when you stop outsourcing ownership of your feelings, you move through relationships with more clarity, more choice, and, most importantly, more self-respect.” — Amber Cabral