You're Brilliant at Everything. So Why Does Love Feel Like a Personal Failure?

The one missing piece that shifted my relationship pattern (that I now teach other leaders)

"What's wrong with me?"

That was the question I asked myself at 2 AM.

Lying awake.

Replaying conversations.

Trying to figure out what went wrong.

I'd crush a sales meeting like no one's business.

Fire an employee? Clear, direct, compassionate.

Coach clients through their messiest problems? Easy. Bring me your chaos.

But when it came to my own heart?

When talking to my significant other…

I'd crumble.

Freeze or check out.

Talk in circles until even I had no idea what I was saying.

If only someone had told me back then…

I wasn't broken.

Nothing was wrong with me.

I was just undertrained.

You see, healthy love, deep intimacy, real connection

Weren’t modeled to me as a child.

My immigrant parents taught me how to survive. 

How to work hard. How to have explosive fights.

They loved me deeply.

But for many years, their relationship taught me far more about endurance than about intimacy.

And nobody teaches this stuff in school.

So when boys and love came into the picture…

I was fumbling around in the dark.

Trying to find my way home to a place I'd never actually been.

Hunting for treasure with no map, no compass, and no concept of what that treasure even looked like.

No blueprint.

No framework.

No clue.

Professionally, people told me how impressive I was.

How much I'd done in such a short time.

But I looked around… my friends were getting engaged, married, having babies.

I wasn't jealous.

I was confused.

Because I felt like I hadn't fully lived.

Like I was collecting achievements but missing the thing that actually mattered.

Like I was running out of runway while everyone else had already taken off.

Too many first dates to count.

Too many "you're amazing, but…" texts.

When I was in relationships, it felt unequal.

Like I was doing all the heavy lifting.

Teaching him things, but learning nothing in return.

I got bored quickly.

Chemistry was rare.

And when I did feel a spark, it would fizzle out fast.

I longed for that person who felt like home.

Whom I didn't need to translate my soul to.

I wanted to be a power couple.

Be a boss. Date a boss. Build an empire.

I tried everything I could get my hands on.

Therapy.

Retreats.

Ceremonies.

Journaling.

The books.

The podcasts friends would send my way.

None of it worked.

Because none of it addressed the root:

I didn't have a model for what healthy love actually looked like.

I had a master's degree in achievement.

And a kindergarten education in intimacy.

I kept meeting emotionally unavailable men.

Or men I couldn't admire

Not enough depth, curiosity, sense of adventure, or zest for life.

I wanted to be with a man I respected, felt inspired by, and wholeheartedly admired.

The shift finally happened when I realized:

I didn't yet know how to be emotionally available myself.

This blew my mind.

How could I have expected emotional availability from myself or others

when I had zero experience or training in it myself?

I never learned it in the first place.

I was asking for fluency in a language I'd never heard spoken.

What I did learn was how to over-compensate everywhere else.

The performance looked great.

It was a protection mechanism from childhood.

So that the adults in my life didn't have to worry about me.

I got love and validation from looking like I was doing well.

Not from actually being well.

Not on a heart level.

My nervous system was choosing familiar hell over unfamiliar heaven.

The familiar hell?

Feeling cosmically lonely.

Deeply misunderstood.

Secretly unlovable.

The unfamiliar heaven

Real intimacy, deep connection… felt dangerous - the ultimate unknown.

My brain had years of data, giving me evidence that love was unsafe.

Love was chaos.

People equalled pain.

Connection came with a terms-and-conditions clause longer than an iPhone update.

Rejection was part of my operating system.

Evidence that people would hurt and/or leave me had piled up for years.

The only solution was corrective experiences.

New data.

My brain needed proof that love is safe.

That someone could see the real me… and stay.

After the initial shift, changes started to unfold.

I started by becoming more emotionally available - to myself.

I fixed the habits that were keeping me disconnected from my own body, mind, and spirit.

I stopped abandoning myself in small ways every day.

Breaking small promises to myself that seemed insignificant, but added up:

The workout I'd skip 

The drink I promised I wouldn’t have that day 

The late-night snack only I knew about.

The only way I could create a trusting, respectful relationship was if I’d create a life where I 100% trusted and respected myself first.

On every level.

To meet the one I had to be the one.

Almost overnight, I found myself in the most healing, loving relationship of my life.

It felt surreal.

Like I accidentally unlocked a level of the game I didn't know existed.

Here’s the thing about longer relationships. We start off by being the one. Then we get lazy, and complacent. We stop “dating” our beloved, we stop being the one for them. And things start to fall apart. 

Becoming and being the one is not a once-off thing.

It’s a lifetime of mastery.

This reminds me of a coaching client.

At the beginning, she was completely closed off to men.

Zero interest.

Found none of them attractive.

Had every excuse for why she wanted to stay a single mother.

I understood, she had gone through a lot of pain in relationships.

We worked on her habits.

The relationship with her body changed.

She started to love how she looked and felt.

I taught her to flirt with herself in the mirror.

Slowly but surely, she became emotionally available.

And amazing men started showing up.

Like magic. Except it's not magic. It's neuroscience.

When she became a beacon for love and admiration, then love and admiration couldn't help but find her. 

Now what?

You realize that loving relationships weren't modeled to you.

Great. Awareness unlocked.

Self-awareness without tools is just front-row seats to your own suffering.

After awareness, we need change. Real change that rewires the nervous system. 

That teaches your body (not just your mind) that love is safe.

That's exactly why I created Relating Intelligence™.

(Sometimes you’ll hear me call it Relationship Intelligence).

It's a 3-skill framework that spells out step by step how to become the one.

So that love can finally find you.

And more importantly…

So that love can finally stay.

I’ve created this video training. This link will take you to a page to fill out your details to watch the video.

The video will be sent to your email immediately. Please check your email.

This is an invitation to invest time in the most important area of your life - your love life.

If you don't learn at least one thing you didn't know before

I’ll owe you a coffee.

To feeling desired and admired,

Anna