Unlearning the Lie That Love Has to Be Earned

And coming home to a love that doesn’t disappear when I stop performing.

Somewhere along the way, I learned that love had strings attached.

Be a good girl.
Say the right thing.
Don’t be too much.
Don’t need too much.

I learned that if I ticked all the boxes, stayed small, stayed pleasing, stayed quiet…
Then maybe I’d be loved.
Maybe I’d be safe.
Maybe I’d belong.

And so I adapted.
I made myself easy.
I learned how to feel the emotional climate in a room before I ever opened my mouth.
I learned to over-function, over-care, over-give — because deep down, I believed love wasn’t freely given.
It had to be earned. Managed. Maintained.

Love felt like a transaction.
And I got good at being the one who gave more.

But here’s the truth no one taught me:
Real love doesn’t keep a scorecard.
It doesn’t disappear when you speak your truth.
It doesn’t flinch when you’re tired or raw or human.

Real love stays.
Real love sees.
Real love says, “You don’t need to be perfect for me to choose you.”

It took me years to learn this.

And even now, I still remember how that belief used to feel —
that urge to prove myself, to earn love all over again.

But when a belief or agreement is truly healed at the root,
its power dissolves.
The emotional charge, the old survival response — they simply fade.

It no longer runs the show.
And from that place, it becomes so much easier to change thoughts, patterns, and habits —
because there’s no longer a story or wound driving them.

The belief isn’t just “understood” — it’s released.
What’s left is space.
And in that space, something softer can take root.
A deeper truth. A more loving one.
The one that says:
You’ve always been worthy. You’ve never had to earn love.

With love,
Annie 🧡