A lot of our emotional pain doesn’t come from people failing us. It comes from us refusing to see them as they are. We keep hoping they’ll change. We keep dropping hints. We keep handing out emotional blueprints like, “Here’s what I need, here’s how you can love me better.”
And they keep not showing up. Not because they’re bad. But because they can’t or won’t.
Let me give you a few real-life examples.
There’s the sibling or girlfriend who shows up when they need something. They call you in crisis or stop by to vent, but the entire conversation is about them. Their problems, their work drama, their stress. They never ask how you’re doing. Never pause long enough to hear your silence. And then they leave or hang up, totally unaware that you needed space too.
Then there’s the contrast between people in your own family. Two people can love you and still show up in radically different ways. One may check on you consistently, hold space, speak life into you. Another might give the bare minimum. No follow-ups. No real attunement.
You’re left doing the emotional math: “Is this all I get from them? Am I asking for too much?” But the moment you stop asking those questions…
The moment you accept their limitations, not as a reflection of your worth, but as a reflection of their capacity, that’s when the shift begins.
You stop trying to show people how to show up in the ways you’ve always needed. You stop editing yourself to be more palatable or “easier to love.” You stop waiting for a version of them that was never coming.
And in that space? You start observing. You start adjusting your expectations. You begin receiving love where it naturally flows and releasing the need for it where it doesn’t.
That is emotional evolution in real time. That is you unhooking your worth from other people’s behavior.
That is you saying: “I’ll keep loving you, but I won’t keep waiting on you to be someone else.”
It’s not bitterness.
It’s not detachment.
It’s emotional clarity.
It’s Soft Power.
And sis, that’s freedom.
If this spoke to you
You’ll love my free guide:
Too Healed for That: 12 Intimate Soul Stories of Healing & Growth
Because healing doesn’t always look like cutting people off.
Sometimes, it just looks like letting them be without letting them define you.
~Kofi