I manifested you.
“Are you going to write about overcoming doubt and fear of trusting in men, cause l’m not gonna lie when you said you’d matched with a pilot on tinder I wanted to tell at you to run and not look back. My first unhealthy thoughts were no he can’t be any bit of good. He has to have a family, he’s cheating, he’s a liar.... how did you bypass all those thoughts that old Raina surely would have had??? You can see where my struggles are keeping me single, can’t you?”
“Of course I’ll write about this.” I told her. How could I not, I thought.
I shared in my April Newsletter how I met MJ.
Totally random, it kind of felt like he came out of nowhere.
The truth is, when I met him, I was actively working through these things: the fear of allowing someone else back in, the trust that had been broken over decades of failed relationships, the insecurities around not being good enough, and abandonment issues. I’ve spent years in therapy and doing work on myself to try and heal a lot of this but part of me started to wonder if it ever would truly be healed.
I feel like nothing is ever “healed” - is that twisted to say?
I think we can develop tools and strategies, mindsets and beliefs that allow traumas like this to become dormant. But, do they really ever go away, I thought.
In my book, BARE, I was honest and vulnerable in sharing the truths about my marriage and long-term relationships I found myself in.
Each lacked trust.
Each lacked safety… each lacked a hell of a lot, if I’m being honest with you.
I was cheated on, often.
Money was taken from me.
I was manipulated, I was lied to.
I was talked down to, I was mocked.
I questioned my actions and beliefs, feeling like both were wrong.
I shape-shifted into another version of myself to adapt in these relationships, putting on a mask to hide the real Raina.
When those relationships ended, the trauma and lingering pains didn’t leave with them, they rarely do. Instead of leaving with the men, they grew.
I found myself in conversations with friends, insisting that I didn’t need a man. I didn’t need them financially, I didn’t need them sexually, I didn’t need them in any way, was the story I told myself. My kids and I would even joke as we did man things like reach high cabinets or open jars, laughing, “We don’t need no man!”
The experiences I had with men were toxic, damaging, and unfulfilling. I figured if there were things missing in my life, I’d need to learn how to give them to myself so that I wasn’t depending on anyone else for my own happiness.
“Whatever you’re upset about not getting in your relationship is what you need to focus on giving yourself…”
Okay, I thought. The next day, I made a list of all the things I felt like I was missing in my relationship and/or life:
● Adventure
● Laughter
● Affection
● Excitement
● Spontaneity
● Joy
I settled down with the list I’d made, deciding I could always add on later, if I thought of something else, but those seemed like the big ones. I then wrote next to them some ideas or ways I could give myself those things:
Adventure: Don’t skip your Adventure Saturdays. Plan the month with things on the calendar no matter what.
Laughter: When do I remember laughing the most? With my friends. I need local friends. I’m going to get out into the community and connect with people my age. I’ll sign up for yoga weekly and send a text to people I’d like to reconnect with, putting lunch dates on the calendar.
Affection: I just want physical touch. I think that’s my love language. Maybe I’ll get massages. I’ll start with once a month, splurging on a full-body massage.
Excitement: This ties in with adventure, I think. All of the above, really. Just thinking about it all makes me excited.
Spontaneity: I want to say yes more. As my community grows, trips come up, etc., I will say yes to the things that light me up.
Joy: Joey. Easy. Joey, my other boys—I feel the most joy when I get to spend time with my animals. Get outside with them. Allow them to be a piece of your adventure and spontaneity.”
Page 313, BARE: An Unveiling of my Naked Truth (available on Audible & Amazon)
“Live each day as if it were on purpose.”
I got to work. On myself and on the different ways I wanted to incorporate more joy, laughter, affection, excitement, spontaneity, and laughter in my life.
And it worked.
For the first time in my life, I really believed that I could do life on my own after years of self-doubt.
I believed that I didn’t need someone else to fulfill me, I could fulfill myself.
I crushed any feelings of loneliness that I had been stuffing down, meeting new people and developing new friendships, finding a new confidence in myself that I’d never had.
As I focused on myself and my bubble, I released the urge to meet someone and journaled on what I wanted in a relationship, from a partner. I allowed myself to daydream, picturing my vision and how I’d flow through the day, along with how the person meant for me would fit into that vision.
I wrote:
“I want someone madly in love with me.
A man who can’t help but stare at me when I’m cooking and who comes up behind me to move to the music we’re listening to, while holding me at the stove.
He’ll be cautious around the kids, sure, but he will be unapologetically in love with me.
He will calm me, ground me, nurture me, and touch me.
And because of that, all my walls start to break, because I feel loved and safe, cared for and appreciated.
Beautiful and strong.
He makes me shut off work and go for a bike ride.
He wants to be in nature on the weekends and off his phone.
He wants to capture memories and snaps imperfect photos of us constantly.
He winds down with me and kisses me every night before bed.
But also, being real, we aren’t perfect, but we hear each other, we challenge each other by asking questions with love, empathy, and compassion, knowing neither of us are perfect.
When my trauma shuts me down, he opens me back up.
Not from a place of judgment or impatience, but from a place of curiosity.
Ex-fucking-hale.”
…and then I allowed time & the Universe to do her thing.
When I joined Tinder out of boredom, I released any expectations I was holding onto as the “all men are the same…” story sat in the back of my mind.
Conversation after conversation, I felt the feelings still there. The disappointment, wondering if I should just accept the single life and lean into it. I knew I didn’t need anyone in order to make my vision a reality, so maybe this is just what my life will be? I’d rather be alone than constantly disappointed by the lack of action and follow through that most men seemed to struggle with.
And then, MJ & I matched.
I felt drawn to him immediately, like my soul recognized his from other lifetimes.
I leaned into it. I allowed the conversation to flow and first day we talked, when I asked “how will we make this work if you live in Atlanta and I’m in Denver?” he replied “I am very interested in you, I’m a pilot and I’ll fly in for a date.”
You’ll fly in for a date?! Ha!
Said no man, ever…. I thought. What kind of guy would fly in just for a first date? What kind of man would put in that kind of effort?
We put the date on the calendar and I allowed my doubts to sit on the back burner.
Actions > Words.
I’ve spent years of my life clinging onto words with no action to back them up.
It always left me disappointed and unsatisfied, feeling like I needed to step into my masculine energy more and more.
If they can’t step up, I’ll have to. I thought.
On April 1st, 2024, we met for the first time in person after he landed in Denver.
I knew, right then and there, on that first day, this was the man I’d been waiting for. It wasn’t the man I’d been waiting to “save me” - he was the man I’d been waiting for, to hold space for me, to make me feel safe, protected, wanted, and needed.
MJ opened every door for me, stared into my eyes, only breaking eye contact to thank the waiter or grab his wallet.
He spoke to me, with such kindness, his gentle voice absorbing into every piece of me, comforting me. Our conversations just flowed.
My hand fit perfectly in his, my arm around his waist like that’s where it belonged.
And deeper than that, I felt like I could be myself.
I could laugh.
I could be silly.
I could be feminine, soft, and gentle.
With him, I felt the hardness melt away as the brick walls crumbled.
I felt my fire.
I’d never met a man that stood so confidently in his masculine, allowing me to be fully in my feminine. Taken care of, held, and safe.
Every week from that date forward, he flew into Denver to spend the weekend or his days off with me.
He’d drop in on a random weeknight just so we could sleep for 6 hours in the same bed.
He’d fly me to Atlanta to meet his family and I’d travel to Houston, just for more time together between flights, while he worked.
So, when I was asked: “How do you bypass all of those thoughts that old Raina surely would have had?” I want to say:
When people show you who they are, believe them.
I also want to say, take the time to heal. Don’t strive for healed but be a work in progress.
Get crystal clear on what you feel is lacking in your life and release the idea that you’re going to find those things in another human being.
Once you’re on the self-love train, be there. Really, be all in it.
Be okay if the path for you is a single life. Be okay with creating a new vision that doesn’t have someone else in it, one that depends on no one else.
Be okay if the person you’re meant to be with takes a decade to find you.
Get clear on what you do what that person to have, be, and act so that when you do meet him, there’s no doubt in your mind that he’s (or she’s) it.
I read that journal entry I wrote above, to MJ just a week or so after we met. I read it and we both smiled, realizing he was exactly who I was writing about.
MJ & I tell each other all the time that we’re so happy we found one another.
Yet, we know that we couldn’t have met any earlier than we did. We both had lives to live and lessons to learn in order to become the humans we are today, wide open and ready to love one another. I even wrote a journal entry a few weeks ago, thanking his ex’s.
I’m thankful for them, really. Without them, he wouldn’t have turned into the man I get to love today.
Without my ex’s, I wouldn’t be the woman I am today, open enough to accept the love I’m receiving.
And without the self-love I grew, I wouldn’t have even recognized what I needed in myself and in someone else.
The bar has been set high.
