If You Feel Deeply, You Deserve to Be Held, Not Left

There’s a certain kind of pain that comes from feeling everything so deeply and still feeling like you have to carry it alone. It’s not just the sadness itself, it’s what follows it. It’s the moments where you reach out, even quietly and the response isn’t what you hoped for. It’s the way conversations change, the way people pull back, the way you can feel someone becoming distant right when you needed them to come closer- you seem to just be left there and it's not just hurting from what you felt but from the absence of being held in it.

If you’re someone who feels deeply, you’ve probably learned how to make yourself smaller in those moments. Most likely because you’ve told yourself not to say too much, not to show too much, not to need too much. You’ve convinced yourself that maybe if you were a little easier, a little lighter, a little less emotional, that these people would stay. So you sit with things quietly and you sit alone processing things on your own. You become the "strong" one, the "understanding" one, the one who says “it’s okay” even when you know deep down it really just isn’t.

Because the truth is, it was never about you being too much, it was about your heart being in a place that deserved more than it was given.

People who feel deeply don’t need to be handled, they just need to be met where they are. So if this is you, you don’t need to be fixed or quieted or rushed out of your feelings. You just need someone to sit beside you and say, “You don’t have to go through this alone, not ever.” You need someone who doesn’t disappear when things get heavy, someone who doesn’t treat your sadness like an inconvenience to them and someone who understands that leaning on them is not weakness, it’s connection in its purest form - the world needs more of this.

For those of us who know this first hand, it hurts more than we can even put into words, when we give so much of ourselves to others, when we show up everytime and when we care, always listen and then the people we showed up aren't there - it's the moments that we need that love back more than ever but it just isn’t there in the way we really needed it. These moments make us question ourselves - and it's only human to feel that way. Times like this can make us question if we just asked for too much, maybe expected too much or maybe we should just learn to need less.

The hard reality is though (and re-read this as many times as you need to - we were and are never asking for too much, not ever. We are asking for presence, for understanding, for some love from someone who said they loved us enough to stay no matter what this life throws at us. Asking people who tell us they love us to show up for us are not unreasonable things to need and actually these are just human things to need.

Your feelings are not a burden and they're always valid, your sadness is not something that makes you harder to love, your depth is not something that should push people away - it simply reveals who is capable of meeting you where you are and who is not.

It's a hard painful truth to swallow but it is also such an important one to recognise. The right kind of love does not leave when you’re struggling. In fact, the right kind of love will never ever leave you.

Love from your people shouldn't require you to hide the parts of yourself that feel heavy, it shouldn't make you feel like you have to be okay all the time to be worthy, it shouldn't ever step back when your heart opens or even breaks into pieces - it should just stay, holding you up and listen, holds space - even in the times when it doesn’t fully understand.

You deserve that.

You deserve people who don’t leave you when you feel deeply, the people who don’t go quiet when you’re hurting and the people who don’t make you feel like your emotions are something you have to apologise for. You deserve to be around people who recognise your heart for what it is.

Until you’re surrounded by that kind of love consistently - try and be gentle with yourself, especially in the moments where it feels like you’re alone with your feelings. Try and remind yourself that your capacity to feel is not a flaw and that it will in time be your strength. These times are part of the reason you're able to love so fully, care so deeply and connect with people in ways that so many people struggle to.

You are not too much. You are someone who feels in a world full of humans that often avoids feeling deeply because we've been conditioned to.

The next time you find yourself holding something heavy, hugging youself by yourself and it feels like no one will ever understand your heart enough to love it, remember this:

You are not hard to love.

You have just been in spaces that didn’t know how to love you properly - one day, in the right spaces and with the right people, you won’t have to shrink your heart to be held.

You’ll be met exactly where you are.

We got you.

El xx