About Karel

June 2021… I felt like giving up.

My boyfriend of 4 years had broken up with me, and I couldn’t understand why. It felt like it came out of nowhere, after I had spent several years working to trust him and finally thinking that I had security in the relationship. I had felt certain that he was “the one.”

And now it was gone, and he wasn’t open to letting me try to fix it, like I had tried many times before, with him and with every other relationship that had ever slipped through my fingers.

The long list of boyfriends come and gone, questionable relationships that I’d gotten myself into, embarrassing situations where I’d given my love, body, and power away… came rushing back in a cascade of shame.

I was 38, childless, and staring down the path of a future of loneliness, endless rounds of the dating game, vulnerability that would just end in more disappointment, and more heartbreak.

I was a mental health therapist who had done my own personal therapy for over 10 years and it felt like nothing that I knew from all that experience could help.

I honestly thought I’d rather die.

This was a familiar feeling to me, having weathered multiple heartbreaks in my life already. But this time… was one time too many. It cut right into my heart and soul. It was the last straw.

I was hanging by a thread. I could either give up – on dating, on love, on living – or I could pull out all the stops in a Hail Mary attempt to truly, finally find the answer to the peace, happiness, and safety in love that I’d been looking for my whole g-ddamn life.

I chose the latter.

A Dozen Hail Marys

When I say “pull out all the stops,” I mean it. 

• I doubled down on therapy.

• I listened to endless spiritual and self-help podcasts.

• I binged YouTube videos on dating in your 30s and 40s.

• I tried Reiki and other energy work.

• I spent hours in crystal shops looking for rocks that promoted trauma and heart healing and increased love in your life.

• I prayed to God, Jesus, and the Buddha.

• I studied the Enneagram and how to use it in healing.

• I kept a Law of Attraction journal to manifest love in abundance.

• I read books about how to treat men in order to keep them around.

• I hired a femininity coach to help me decipher how I might be unknowingly driving men away.

• I started a devotional practice to Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion, to try to purify my wounds and open my heart.

• I meditated. For hours. And hours. (And hours…)

And finally… something started to shift. I felt… lighter, more hopeful.

I realized that this desperation and willingness to try anything and everything to heal and be happy was the depth of my love for myself, but I had never been taught to see it that way. I had been taught to seek love and wholeness outside of myself, through status, accomplishments, and — above all else — though partner relationships.

As soon as I made this connection, things began to flow. Every hardship I’d experienced, every trauma I’d endured, every mental health affliction I’d had throughout my life – anxiety, depression, suicidality, bulimia, food and nicotine addiction – made sense.  It all stemmed from a chronic emptiness, a belief that I was inherently unlovable, unworthy, and undeserving of lasting happiness.

I could see that every heartbreak could be traced to my own disconnect from love for myself.

And I was sick and tired of heartbreak. I wasn’t willing to feel this way ever again.

So I never looked back. My singular mission became learning to love every last bit of me, including the parts that felt the most broken, hurt, and shameful.

If I wanted to find true love, I needed to know the purest form of love within myself first.

A Radical Shift in Perspective

Once I had developed a strong and confident love for my whole self, I was able to see and understand crystal clearly where almost every single bit of dating and love advice I had been exposed to had led me straight into chaos and disaster.

I had been taught to reject the very parts of me that needed to be honored, cherished, and loved in relationship.

I had been encouraged to compete with the man that I was trying to build a life with, instead of allowing our inherent differences to magnetize us and create something indelibly powerful together.

I had been fooled into thinking that I “didn’t need a man,” when in the very same breath I wanted to be able to rely on him for security and protection.

I had been terrified of surrendering control and letting a man truly love and take care of me, so I shut out any form of generosity and leadership in the name of being a “strong and independent woman.”

Humbly, I began to unravel everything I thought I knew about who I was as a girlfriend, what I had to offer a man in relationship, and what I honestly, truly valued in life and love.

Once I put everything back in its proper place, I felt like a changed woman. Like I had shed a heavy, itchy skin that had been weighing me down for years. My eyes were finally open and I knew who I truly was.

I was not a “strong and independent woman” (and never had been). I was resilient and resourceful; years of abandonment and singlehood had necessitated that. But I was also soft, sweet, deeply sensitive, tender-hearted, and vulnerable to the world in a way that invited trust in masculine protection. My power lay not in my assertiveness or self-sufficiency, but rather in my warmth, compassion, and attunement to others.

I had dishonored and suppressed these parts of me for so long because I believed they made me weak and lesser than men. But now I was finally able to see that these were the parts of me that men wanted, loved, and appreciated. The parts that my ex had been missing in me, the compliments to the provision, guidance, and leadership that he was offering me as a man. There was no “greater than” or “lesser than.” There was only the strong union that exists when the masculine and feminine is in balance and harmony.

When I saw all of this, I connected with a deep love for the girl, the woman, the soft yet resilient, yielding yet persistent, powerfully loyal feminine within me. This was what I carried in this world as a woman. This was what I truly had to offer, both to myself and the man I loved.

So… I went back to him.

Literally a Dream Come True

Going back to an ex was something I used to think was weak, desperate, and shameful. Sometimes I felt the urge to stay angry and indignant, say “F—k him!,” and ride off into the sunset with some better dude.

Yet when I stayed open to my truest and most tender heart, she kept saying, “There is no better dude. He feels safe. He feels like home.”

And I realized that for our entire relationship, I had been resisting the safety that this deeper part of me had already found in him.

Whenever I’d thought I was fighting with him, I had actually been fighting with myself.

The more that I deepened love for myself and allowed myself to receive that love, the more openhearted we both were around each other.

The more we could relax, truly see each other, and rebuild the trust that had been broken between us.

I could feel a significant shift in the relationship, and I knew that I was no longer in fear and desperation mode. My defenses had melted away because I had found such strength and trust within myself.

I was in pursuit of him, but I was also open and receptive to him in a way that I couldn’t have been before. This openness invited more openness from him. 

It really felt like a dream come true… and I finally invited it in fully.

This was – and still is – the love I had been waiting, fighting, hoping, dreaming for my whole life. I know without a doubt that I’m on his mind and heart every day, and his number one focus is providing a life that serves us in the best way possible. I respect his knowledge, efforts, and authority, and he feels this by how I show up with him. He loves me unconditionally, without an ounce of control, so that I have full autonomy and also know that I can rely on him in an instant if I need him. There is an ease, trust, comfort, and safety that gives me faith that everything will be okay.

I couldn’t be more grateful.

Now it’s your turn. 

Is this your story, too? A string of failed relationships and utter confusion and hopelessness about what went wrong and what comes next?

Has your heart been broken one too many times? Do you feel like giving up while in the same breath still wish and hope for true love?

Does it feel like you keep trying to improve and do better with each heartbreak, only to run into the same frustrations and anxieties in dating and relationships?

It doesn’t have to be this way anymore.

You don’t have to keep finding the same stressful, dissatisfying relationship over and over.

You don’t have to get your heart broken time and time again.

You don’t have to keep feeling nervous and afraid about putting yourself out there.

And you don’t have to give up on love in order to feel safe.

You can find the healthy, secure love you’ve always wanted.

That you’ve always deserved.

There’s no answer but yes.

Your heart has been waiting for it for too long.

It’s time to give yourself exactly what you want and need… deep, transformative love and connection that you can rest in.