Self-Love While Single: The Deeper Work No One Sees

A reflective piece on sixteen years of being single, finding deeper meaning in time alone, and healing generational trauma.

Sometimes I smile when I hear people say, almost apologetically, that they’ve been single for two years. Or three. Or—heaven forbid—four. As if time without a partner needs to be explained. I smile—not to minimize their longing or to mock the ache of wanting to be held—but because my last relationship ended sixteen years ago. Imagine what people would make of that ;-)

Sixteen years of being on my own. And yet, I survived. More than that—I wouldn’t trade it for anything. My life slowly took on a deeper meaning. Not despite that time. But because of it. There's a story inside each of us that asks for attention before it asks for company. A whole inner world that usually stays untouched when life is filled with external noise. An inner world waiting to be discovered—far beyond the surface mind, beyond the five percent that narrates daily life. Secrets carried in heavy silence, passed down like a family heirloom. There’s trauma that happened before you existed, yet still lives on in your DNA. Fear-based patterns that solidified over generations. Nervous system reactions that speak before thought does. Triggers that carry memory. Time alone—especially in single life—is not emptiness. It's a place to meet the parts that don’t show up in relationships, because they’re too busy surviving.

If this post offers anything at all, let it be this comfort: a life without a partner doesn’t mean a life without meaning. Quite the opposite. It means life gifts you with sacred space to do the deeper healing work. The kind of work that goes unnoticed by surface-level standards. Work that isn’t applauded on the outside, but rewires a lineage—healing what never had words, restoring a sense of safety, so you and those who came before can finally breathe again.

This, too, is love. For those who enjoy images alongside words, I've also shared a short visual version on Instagram