I'm Not Anxious. I'm Alive.

I was doing the crossword this morning. Every answer I didn't know, my first thought was text Clint.

I wanted to be sitting across from him, doing it together. But he's 3000 miles away in England. Building airplane parts that keep engines from falling out, wings from tearing off.

So I'm knitting him a blanket instead.

Big soft chunky thing with 11 gauge plastic red needles. Not my usual work. I like small fiddly knitting that takes forever. But this wants to be done in a month. I want to give him something soft. Want to care for him.

It's not mothering. I'm not losing myself or needing him to need me so I can feel okay.

It's not codependency either. I'm not trying to manage his needs or take care of him like he can't take care of himself.

It's aliveness. It's my body responding to someone who makes closeness safe.

And that's terrifying.

Because I spent years learning not to want this.

Here's what nobody talks about when they tell women to "heal their anxious attachment" or "work on being more secure."

We closed down for real reasons.

We tried. Over and over. To have more depth. More closeness. More of what our bodies were actually built for.

And for so many of us? It wasn't met. We didn't get what we needed.

Worse than that. We got punished for wanting it.

Our desire for closeness got called needy. Clingy. Too much. We were told we were anxious, insecure, hadn't done enough healing work on ourselves.

So we stopped trying.

Gave up on being ravished. We let our poetry burn because the last men we wrote to couldn’t respond to a simple text, let alone send us letters across seas. So we stopped staring out to sea, waiting.

We learned to need less because needing more got us burned every time.

But many women, not all, but many, deeply desire the crave, the ache, the —more than chemistry- but the soul crushing love where we feel our heart bleeding. Not because there’s an asshole on the other end hurting us, but because we feel so much.

But, we got burned enough, so we felt we had to root it out completely or we'd end up swallowed by it.

What if a strong pull toward connection was not a red flag. A wound to heal. Something to manage.

But what if we got it wrong?

What if I'm not anxious. What if I’m just alive?

And I spent years trying to kill that aliveness because it was safer than risking it again.

The armor we built to survive loneliness became what keeps us lonely.

But I think we've done something worse than just teaching us to protect ourselves.

We're severing ourselves. We're not doing ourselves any justice by keeping our hearts closed.

Here's what actually happens when you close your heart down. You're not a full radiant being anymore. Literally. From the perspective of the heart as an organ, you can't get blood flowing through your whole body. You can't access your full aliveness. You can't tap into real creativity. You can't orgasm spectacularly if you're not open in this way.

You're operating at 15%.

Your heart is a major organ. It moves blood through your entire body. When it's not fully open, when you love but you don't love very big, when your heart only opens enough to let a tiny bit through then closes up tight, you're not yourself. You're acting from your trauma. Skating around the surface of that protection.

What happens when we don't fully utilize our hearts? We become less alive. We settle for less pleasure, less connection, less of everything that makes life worth living.

From a somatic perspective, I watch women's bodies tell the truth their minds won't admit. The tension in their shoulders when they talk about their relationship. The way they hold their breath when describing their needs. Their nervous system is screaming that something's off, but they've been taught to override it.

And here's where it gets complicated.

Because sometimes that tension, that held breath, that screaming nervous system? It's telling you the truth. This person isn't safe. This relationship can't hold your full aliveness. Your instinct is right to protect you.

But other times? You're safe and you don't trust it yet.

The deep challenge for women right now is learning to open while also learning to discern.

You can feel the difference between guarding yourself from someone who can't meet you and softening toward someone who can.

But you have to be honest about which one you're dealing with.

When you find someone who actually meets you, something in you recognizes it. It relaxes into wanting more. You're finally safe enough to want. Safe enough to be alive in ways you've been keeping locked down.

And that's when the real work begins.

Because your nervous system responds to present safety, not just past trauma. When you find someone who doesn't make you small for wanting closeness, your nervous system exhales. Finally.

But then what?

This is where most relationship advice falls apart. We're either told to protect ourselves completely or to be vulnerable without question. But the real work is both at once. Opening your heart while you read the room. Letting yourself want more while staying awake to whether you're actually being met.

We've been told that healthy love looks like two separate people who occasionally come together for support and companionship. That wanting more than that means we're wounded, anxious, haven't done enough healing work on ourselves.

But what if wanting devotion, wanting closeness, wanting to text your person about crossword clues and knit them blankets and be near them constantly when they make you feel safe, what if that's not a wound to heal?

What if that's you finally relaxing into what you've been built for all along?

When it's mutual, when he's building airplane parts and you're building softness, when the care flows both ways, when someone actually wants your devotion as much as you want to give it, you have a choice to make.

You can keep playing it safe. Keep that 15% going. Keep telling yourself you're being reasonable, boundaried, secure.

Or you can lean in.

I watch women apologize for wanting to text their person throughout the day. For wanting physical closeness. For wanting to share every small thing. They come to me asking how to be less needy, how to calm their nervous system down, how to want less.

And I tell them: if you recognize this person is safe, and they're actually showing up, and the care is flowing both ways, then the problem isn't that you want too much.

The problem is you're still protecting yourself from something that isn't there anymore.

When I want to text Clint about a crossword clue, when I'm knitting him a blanket, when I want to be near him a thousand times a day, I'm responding to someone who makes closeness safe.

I'm not anxious. I'm alive.

And the choice I have to make, over and over, is whether I'm going to let myself actually be this alive.

Whether I'm going to keep the armor on just in case.

Or whether I'm going to trust what I'm feeling and lean all the way in.

That's the real challenge. Not learning to want less. Learning to recognize safety and then actually open when you find it.