Hello, dear soul, and welcome to the Light Bears Library. In today's journal entry, I want to explore a deep wound that I think we might share. It's the wound that comes from our genuine human need to be loved not being met. When we reach out our whole hearts to love and to care and to understand another and are rejected, ignored, misunderstood at best, or mistreated, backstabbed, abused at worst. We are often shocked at this because we would never treat someone that way. And we're confused, hurt, grieved, frustrated. And I found that if the person is someone who is we thought should love us back, like our family members or our partner, this wound is deepest and can lead to a deep anger, even rage. And all of that emotional turmoil can leave us feeling depleted and broken. And now all of that makes complete logical sense, right? And I think that if we feel that over and over again, it's, you know, it or it's a particularly deep wound from a parent or a sibling or a partner that we've been with for a long time. It can we can start to question our need for love. The reason why I am bringing this up today is because this is something that I've been feeling for the last number of years with my mom. And, you know, it's been going on a long time just with her being in a in a in a in a relationship with someone after my parents got divorced when I was in university. And they got together and they've been together ever since. And that's wonderful. He's a a good solid human being, and that's wonderful. And they they are in they're you know, in a loving, loving marriage. But my mom has sort of prioritized him over relationship with me, and that's been hurtful over the years. But over the last number of years, um, you know, in particular sort of five years ago or some something like that, it's just like the door slammed in my face, and it just felt abandoned and could never really talk to her about it. And it's just recently kind of she's wanted to try and be like nothing's wrong and everything's okay, and I can't do it anymore. And so this wound that I'm talking about for me comes from my mom and also from my siblings just not being able to show up and and reciprocate love and care and understanding. So this has all kind of come to a head in the last couple of years because I moved to be closer to them. And so I feel like I put it all on the line to show up to be in relationship with them, and it just didn't work out. So um that's where the the the pain and the hurt comes from, and and then the questioning of, you know, maybe thinking that that love, you know, I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have reached out, I shouldn't have started to love. And then because we reached out, because I reached out for for love from someone that was not able to, was unavailable, um, it kind of brought a sense of humilial humiliation or shame of like I shouldn't have done that. I've like ruined my whole life like by moving here to Alberta from the West Coast, where you know, we had problems, my husband and I, like with the world and all the stuff, but you know, we enjoyed where we lived. And now that we're here, it's it's just it's just caused a lot of like with sensitivities and my husband, it's just it's just caused a lot. Anyway, you can watch other videos to listen to that story, but um so because of that feeling of humiliation or shame, I started like turning against that need for love. And maybe you felt the same, or it's just like thinking that I never should have tried to love so much. I never um thinking that I I shouldn't have needed love from them in the first place, like, you know, and so we kind of stop asking, asking for that love, and we and I sh and I've shut down and stopped expressing that need for love and hardening my heart. And and what happens so so the wounding makes sense, right? But what has happened is that that that pain and anger and it has like turned inward on myself, on like the anger I feel towards myself for like wanting and needing that love from my mom, from my brother. It's just it's like that's a real human need. And it's like so anyway, I've it's like that hardening and that pain, it turns into like self-condemnation of like you know, I'm I'm too needy, I'm I expect too much. Um maybe love is the problem itself, you know, like but it's just so I I've tried to and I've seen this in my husband too, even like with my family and being rejected. Um, but it's like we try and crush that that longing that we have inside of us to be loved and seen and and understood and for for who we are, and and we we try and crush that so that maybe we'll we'll not feel so hurt by it or not let it happen again with someone else in the future. But here's the thing that I've come to realize is that doing that only crushes my heart and my soul, and I started to die inside, and it had been happening before before I moved here, and that's why I was like, I need to do something, you know, I need to see if I can reach out like to my family, and and so all of that rage that I turned inward at having this natural need for for love is has been like a vice squeezing all of the the life out of me towards like feeling like I'm dying, and I've watched it deaden my joie de vivre, my enthusiasm for life, and and most painfully it's sort of like dried up my own ability to feel love towards the man that I love the most, uh my husband, and uh I've watched us kind of drift a little bit, and because we've both kind of hardened and shut down this that part of ourselves that uh needs love and wants love, and it hardens our ability to to give love and receive love. So when I recognized that this is what was happening and made the connection, I've I need I now need to like find my way to the other side of this, to the light, to life, to love again, because my desire for love and your desire for love is not a weakness. That tenderness and sensitivity that we have, that need for care is is so beautiful and real and it's what makes us human and and we have the right to love others and be loved in return, and it's not we're not asking too much. It's not too much to ask for. It's you know, and and I need to stop punishing myself for simply being human. So when I've come to this place, this place of realization that oh, this need is human and and and softened to my myself and softened, turned that anger and rage away from myself and stopped like crushing myself with that. Yes, the you know, it's like I've I've come to this place where my body softens and relaxes a little bit, and my heartbeat steadies, and my breath calms, and my mind stills, and everything feels so much calmer. And the the panic that I feel is like this sense of panic. And that's maybe another video. I don't know, but um, but I feel like I'm returning to my center and that my that life is is sort of entering back into my heart and my soul. Just just this recognition alone that it's okay, that it's human, that my need for love is is inherent, and it's like, oh, oh, okay, okay. The wound and the sadness and the grief are still there, you know, and and that wound is going to take time to heal, especially because it's my mom, you know, it's that's that's a that's a really foundational relationship in my life, and um and the anger is still there, but I'm not like tyrannizing myself with it and berating myself for my very human need for love, and so I am not unlovable because someone in my life couldn't, you know, or didn't treat me right, and neither are you, you're lovable, and our desire for love for love is a sign of life, it's not a defect, you know, and I think that's really, really beautiful and freeing, and can feel the sense of joy and playfulness and joie de vivre, it's it's there, and I feel like I can get there. So, dear soul, this went deep. And um, so please take care of yourself with this. But I hope there's a sense of of lightness, perhaps. And I would love to hear from you about how this felt in your body or any other thoughts or feelings that came up from this today. And I'd just like to thank you for seeing me, for being here in the library, and I I wish you so many blessings. Signing off for today, XOXO Kate.