“You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.” – Maya Angelou

A few days ago, I attended a seminar. It was supposed to be just another routine event—professionals gathering to exchange ideas, nodding through keynote speeches, networking over lukewarm coffee. I didn’t expect anything transformative.

But then I met her.

She was radiant. The kind of woman who doesn’t just walk into a room—she arrives. Her presence was magnetic, almost cinematic. There was a grace in her gestures, a calm strength in the way she held herself. Her smile sparkled with a kind of kindness the world doesn’t see often anymore. She laughed generously, her voice like soft thunder—but it was her eyes that stopped me in my tracks.

They were deep. Lonely. Like oceans holding back stories no one dared to ask about.

And yet, I did. Or maybe I didn’t even need to. Sometimes souls connect before words do.

We started talking. Light, casual at first. But then, as if the universe willed it, the conversation deepened. She opened up—slowly at first, then with raw honesty. She told me her story. And something in it cracked open a part of me I had kept tightly sealed.

Her story wasn’t just painful—it was loud. A cry. A scream into the world’s indifferent silence. A reminder of the hidden violence women endure in broad daylight—emotional abandonment, being gaslit into invisibility, made to shrink themselves for love, and made to apologize for needing anything at all.

As she spoke, I felt chills on my skin. Not because her story was alien, but because it sounded hauntingly familiar.

It mirrored mine.

From as early as I can remember, I had been choosing people who never really chose me. They admired me, liked my company, complimented my softness, my silence. But they never saw me—never fought for me, never stayed when I needed them most.

Every relationship I’d ever had—from naive teenage crushes to serious commitments to a marriage that unraveled quietly—had followed a pattern.

I would give.
They would take.
And I would bend to be liked—until I broke.

I made myself small in love, over and over. I muted my voice, softened my needs, dressed in their preferences, and convinced myself that asking for presence, honesty, or depth would drive them away. And when conflict came, I didn’t fight. I fled. I shut down. I turned lovers into friends and exits into polite conversations.

I wanted love so badly, I forgot to ask for it. I wanted to be chosen, but never dared to demand it.

“I kept choosing people who never made me feel chosen.”

And all this while, I kept blaming myself.

I thought maybe I wasn’t beautiful enough. Maybe I was too emotional. Too intuitive. Too complicated. I wore shame like perfume—disguising my truth so I wouldn’t feel unlovable.

For last 5 years I have been practicing mindfulness, that has helped me in identifying the patterns and I now I have the tools to understand what was happening to me or for me or around me.

I remembered what my coach once said:
“We all have a Krishna and an Arjun within us.”

Arjun, the confused warrior in the midst of battle, overwhelmed by emotion and fear.
Krishna, the divine guide within—the voice of clarity, strength, and higher wisdom.

To truly grow, we must allow both voices to exist. But we must also learn to let Krishna speak louder. Only then can we dissect the patterns of our life. Only then can we win the battles that happen quietly, in the mind, in the heart, in the soul.

Few years back, something shifted in me. Not because time heals everything—it doesn’t. But because time reveals everything. It shows you the weight you’ve carried, the stories you’ve outgrown, the truths you’ve avoided.

And it gives you one powerful choice:

To either keep repeating your past
—or—
To choose differently.

For me, that means:

• No more shrinking in relationships.
• No more loving silently, hoping to be seen.
• No more “being okay” with being sidelined.
• No more friend-zoning people just to avoid confrontation.

I will now speak. Ask. Express.
I will state my needs, not whisper them.

And I will expect reciprocity—not because I’m arrogant, but because I finally understand that love is not charity. It’s energy exchanged with care and clarity.

The Lessons I Carried Forward

1. Expressing my needs is not emotional burdening
   I learned that communication is not drama. It is clarity. If someone is scared off by what I need, they were never ready to hold my heart.
2. Setting boundaries is not being selfish
   Boundaries don’t keep people out—they protect the sacred parts of you that deserve to be honored.
3. Not everyone has to be kept in my life
   Being kind doesn’t mean keeping people who wound you. Closure is sometimes just choosing peace.
4. Choosing someone who chooses you back is the bare minimum
   And it should never be begged for.
5. Self-forgiveness is essential to healing
   I finally forgave myself for the years I stayed silent. For the people I accepted. For the times I didn’t walk away sooner.

“And still, after all this time,
The sun never says to the earth,
‘You owe me.’
Look what happens with a love like that—
It lights the whole sky.” – Hafiz

That’s the kind of love I want. Not just from someone else—but from myself.