20/01/2025 - My pride stood in the way of self-love.

Hello readers,

I'm in Bali with my sister and dad, and we've been here for five days. And wow, peace is a luxury. The simple life I sometimes crave and miss. The cliché one, too. Beautiful cafés with acai bowls, yoga hubs, and the overall touristic vibes in town. Well, sometimes things are popular for a reason. I have to admit, I like this kind of lifestyle, everything feels easy and affordable.

I was here almost exactly seven years ago with my then-boyfriend. And now, it feels like the final closure of a cycle. A cycle around love and romantic relationships. If you've been following my other articles, you know I reflect a lot on human connections, particularly my own. I love analyzing, decrypting, and uncovering various subjects, but my real passion is people.

While I study biology, anthropology, psychology, or physics, these fields often feel two-dimensional. I move through them, observing from different perspectives. Even though they evolve, they're built on patterns that Time makes understandable. People, however, are different. The added factor of embedded consciousness makes them exhilarating to study.

An aware person is like a free electron. Just as quantum physics revolutionized our conception of fields, a person who chooses their own reality becomes, by all means, unpredictable. No longer ruled by unconscious behaviors and repeated patterns born of conditioning. In other words, not enslaved by limiting beliefs but existing as a free human. That’s my type right there.

Just like Neo, it took a meaningful decision to choose the path of freedom. Taking the red pill and waking up. Realizing I’ve never been a victim of my own life, that my reality is the sum of actions I chose to take. That the circumstances I had no control to choose (family, background, education...) were never there because I deserved to suffer, but to learn. It requires accountability and forgiveness. Humility and ownership. Bravery and discipline to adopt this particular perspective.

Anyway, I’m not trying to write an essay on The Matrix and how to peek through it. I don’t even believe this is everyone’s path. What I believe, though, is that these past seven years have been a sequence of situations revolving around partnerships, or, more precisely, my relationship to partnerships. It makes sense when I consider my South Node in Aries and North Node in Libra. It’s the axis of individuality and community within my birth chart, and for my fellow 1996 people, this theme resonates deeply.

For us, it’s about balancing individuality with connection. Learning to compromise, let people in, and create fairness and harmony in our relationships, all while maintaining a strong sense of self. It’s finding peace in solitude and trusting our instincts. The risk? Losing our identity to the will of others or becoming so fiercely independent that we see others as enemies, never learning to trust.

Over the years, I’ve learned so much about this balance. Living in solitude brought me peace, but at the cost of loneliness. I also experienced the pain of losing myself to please others, especially men, trying to fit into their worlds, becoming what I thought they loved.

This past year, I’ve faced rejection many times. Men choosing other women over me. Not feeling seen or heard. Being dismissed, neglected, and treated with little regard for my feelings. And if I’m honest, I chose this for myself. I’m the one who pursued those connections, even when I realized they weren’t healthy for me. I don’t blame myself, or them. These experiences taught me lessons I needed.

To what extent was I willing to accept less, to ignore red flags, or to stay blinded by actions that confirmed my unconscious beliefs about what I deserved? I needed to confront my fear of rejection, to hit rock bottom in matters of love, and destroy the shaky foundations I’d built: my need for validation, my desire for obsession, and my instinct to reject before being rejected.

What I’ve learned is that rejection, when not taken personally, is simply redirection. But my pride often stood in the way of true self-love, acceptance, and trust. I believed I could control who I wanted to be with, that by shaping myself into something different, I could get what I wanted; the men who rejected me.

And let me tell you, writing this pragmatically doesn’t erase how hard it was. Knowing I have so much love to give, yet feeling unable to share it with someone for so long, was painful. But it was necessary. I recalibrated my pride, cleared my need for validation, and built authentic confidence. By not being loved, I learned to love myself.

I am a treasure, hidden from the eyes of those who cannot see. I shine brightly enough to attract a pirate, a rebel, a free man. I am an encryption, the solution to which lies in the complex yet simple art authenticity. I am the final destination for a journey only the brave will take.

But most importantly, I am a home. A home for myself, built on a foundation of love that doesn’t waver depending on who chooses to stay or leave. The kind of home I once sought to build in others, I’ve now created within. It’s not perfect, but it’s mine, and that is enough.

As I sit here in Bali, surrounded by the easy beauty of this place, I feel a quiet kind of closure. Not just with the men who rejected me or the relationships that didn’t work out, but with the version of myself that thought I needed them to feel whole. These past seven years taught me that love isn’t something I need to chase or demand. It’s something I already have in abundance. It’s mine to give, and when the right person sees it, they’ll recognize its worth.

So, to anyone who’s ever felt unseen, unheard, or unchosen, remember this: love doesn’t determine your value, and rejection isn’t a reflection of your worth. Sometimes it’s just life redirecting you to someone, or something, better. And in the meantime, the best thing you can do is build a home within yourself, so no matter who comes or goes, you remain whole.

With love, Loune.