Sidewalk Therapy: Love or Validation…

On my morning sidewalk therapy session — the one where I talk to myself like I’m on a very dramatic phone call with the universe — a thought hit me so hard I actually slowed down like,

“Wow. Okay. Emotional ambush before breakfast. Cute.”

It was something Alexander Dixon said about how a lot of people aren’t actually falling in love…

they’re falling into validation.

And you know when a truth hits you so cleanly that you can feel it behind your knees?

Yeah. That.

Because if we’re being brutally honest — and listen, you’re walking with me now, so don’t even think about backing out — half the “love” we’ve experienced wasn’t love at all.

It was someone giving us a hit of something we didn’t even know we were starving for.

A little attention?

Your whole nervous system stands up straighter like it heard its name announced over a loudspeaker.

A tiny bit of affection?

Your inner child pulls up a beanbag chair like, “Oh hell yes, story time.”

Someone makes you feel important?

Your brain immediately goes full movie trailer voice:

“In a world… where no one understood me… one person finally did.”

Relax.

You weren’t in love.

You were emotionally dehydrated.

You didn’t fall —

you refilled.

And THAT, my friend, is a spiritual plot twist.

By block one, the deeper truth started settling in:

Sometimes we don’t fall for the person.

We fall for the version of ourselves that appears in their eyes.

We fall for the glow.

The reflection.

The “holy shit I matter” feeling.

And when that glow shifts — not disappears, just shifts like someone dimmed the emotional lighting — suddenly your brain is pacing like you’re solving a crime:

Did I do something?

Why am I weird now?

Why was there a two-second pause before their good-morning text?

Is this the downfall?

Should I journal?

Should I sage something?

Should I buy a crystal and hope for the best?

This is where the chasing kicks in.

Not chasing them —

chasing the feeling.

Chasing the mirror.

Chasing the emotional sparkle.

Chasing the version of you that felt shiny in their presence.

And once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

It’s like realizing your “favorite homemade soup” came from a can — the love is still there, but the illusion?

Gone.

By block two, Dixon’s other point hit me like a pothole:

When people haven’t healed, they don’t show up in relationships.

They perform them.

And tell me why that felt like a personal attack delivered with love.

You know that performance:

The gift-giving.

The fixer energy.

The “I’ve got this, let me carry all emotional groceries for both of us” routine.

The constant impressing.

The emotional hospitality Olympics.

Not because you’re manipulative —

but because being impressive feels safer than being vulnerable.

It’s the intimacy version of contouring for a Zoom call.

It’s emotional shapewear —

looks amazing, feels suffocating.

And we’ve ALL done at least one round of it.

Don’t lie.

We all deserve an honorary gold medal in Attractiveness Through Overfunctioning.

By block three, though, came the clarity:

A healed person doesn’t need to be chosen.

A healed person has already chosen themselves.

That line didn’t just land — it redecorated the interior of my brain.

Because when you genuinely choose yourself?

Everything rearranges.

You stop auditioning.

You stop performing.

You stop handing someone your self-worth like it’s a customer loyalty card you hope they’ll scan.

You become your own anchor.

And suddenly love stops being a survival kit you keep shoving into someone else’s hands hoping they don’t drop it.

Your love becomes oxygen —

not a panic button,

not a bandage,

not a CPR machine.

Steady.

Abundant.

Breathable.

Yours.

Their affection becomes a bonus — not your pulse.

Their attention becomes connection — not identity.

Their presence becomes partnership — not salvation.

And THAT kind of love?

That’s the kind that can actually hold.

And just as I was heading home, sweaty and spiritually overcaffeinated, the final question rolled in like divine shade:

“Am I loving to prove something…

or to become something?”

That question is not gentle.

That question does not knock.

It lets itself in and rearranges your furniture.

If you’re loving to prove you’re worthy?

You’ll chase.

You’ll contort.

You’ll shrink.

You’ll become an emotional acrobat no one asked you to be.

If you’re loving to become —

more grounded, more open, more honest, more alive —

you’ll grow.

One version drains you.

One version builds you.

One has you searching for mirrors.

One helps you build windows.

You feel the difference instantly —

not because THEY changed,

but because you did.

So yeah.

That was my morning sidewalk therapy session.

Just me, the city, and one unsolicited epiphany that showed up uninvited but absolutely needed:

If your love comes from your wounds,

you’ll chase.

If your love comes from your healing,

you’ll choose.

And choosing — truly choosing —

is the kind of love that feels like steady ground instead of emotional cardio.

Now exhale.

Let it land.

And if you need to keep walking,

I’ll meet you at the corner.

Leisa