I went through a "cat lady" phase...and it changed everything

(As a close confidante so gracefully called it 😆)

A while back, my Higher Self (the closest aspect of me to Oneness consciousness) presented me with a challenge that made me sick 🤢:

To get into a space where I was 💯 okay with 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 being in a relationship again…
and to 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 that I would still have an 𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 life.

Ugh. 😑

Not my favorite.

And I reacted so hard it put me into full-body convulsions.

Because the truth was—I had been in relationships consistently since I was 12 years old.

I had oriented my entire being around the certainty of a long-term loving partnership. My choices, my healing, my vision… all of it was tied to that “knowing.”

So being asked to release that?

It felt like being asked to give up my heart.

To live some kind of half-life without it.

I used to call myself a romantic 🥰

But what surfaced underneath that identity was something much deeper.

Without parents to stabilize my psyche, my child mind made a decision:

That the only way I would ever feel accepted, safe, protected, and loved…
was inside a romantic relationship.

So when I was asked to become okay without one, what I heard was:

“You have to give up ever feeling loved.”

(When in reality, I was being invited to become the source of those things… instead of outsourcing them.)

And once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.

There were layers of beliefs woven into me that I hadn’t fully touched yet:

❌ I’m not whole without a partner
❌ Happiness needs to be witnessed to count
❌ I’m not safe on my own
❌ Romantic love is the highest form of love
❌ There’s some “club” I’m excluded from without a relationship
❌ Life experiences are less meaningful without someone beside me

And honestly?

I felt disgusted. And ashamed.

How could I be this deep into my healing journey and still carry beliefs like that?

But that was the moment everything started to shift.

Because I could finally see clearly:

My standard for love is EPIC.

And anything built on those old beliefs would never meet that standard.

So I had to do something different.

I had to unhook love from dependency.
Unlearn the idea that someone else was responsible for my safety, worth, or wholeness.
And build that foundation within myself.

That was my “cat lady phase.”

Not about being alone forever…

But about becoming whole enough that I didn’t need someone—
only chose them.

And from that place?

Everything changed.

Because now, being in a relationship doesn’t feel like survival.

It feels like expansion.

It feels like choice.

It feels like love… without the distortion.

Or as one of my best friends Tiffany put it:

𝐼𝑡’𝑠 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑒𝑛𝑗𝑜𝑦 𝑎 𝑠𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑦 𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑠𝑢𝑛𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑒 🥰☀️

And that season gave me everything.

Abi 💜