We're not supposed to want to be saved
Every book says it.
Every podcast. Every quote…
"Save yourself, princess."
And they're right. They are.
The only person who can save you is you.
I believe that with every cell in my body.
I saved myself out of a drinking habit. Out of a careers that would eat away at my spirit. Out of depression so thick I forgot what my own laugh sounded like.
I am the queen of saving myself.
But here's what I couldn't admit…
Not to my friends, not to my therapist, not even in my own journal:
There was a part of me that wanted to be saved.
I don't even know how to explain it without sounding pathetic.
Which is exactly the problem.
Maybe not saved…
Just... held.
A little girl part of me wanted someone to show up and say,
"You don't have to carry this alone anymore."
I felt so much shame about this desire.
Because I was supposed to be past this.
I'd done the work.
The retreats.
The plant medicine.
The silent retreats.
Travelled the world over.
At my 30th birthday party, my friend raised a glass and called me ‘courageous’.
I felt anything but.
That shame…
The shame of secretly wanting someone to complement and witness my life…
That's exactly what kept me stuck.
Not stuck in bad relationships.
Stuck in no relationship.
Nine years of singleness.
Nine years of hyperindependence disguised as healing.
Nine years of "I'm working on myself"
that was really just a very sophisticated way of hiding.
I could name every pattern.
I knew why I chose unavailable men.
I could trace it back to childhood in my sleep.
The immigrant household where achievement was rewarded with love.
Where tenderness wasn't the language.
Where I earned my place by being impressive, not by being soft.
I knew all of this.
And I was still alone.
Because knowing our pattern doesn't stop them.
In fact, self-awareness without tools is just front-row seats to our own suffering.
Understanding why you're attracted to unavailable men doesn't stop the butterflies when one walks into the room. Journaling about your attachment style doesn't stop you from ghosting the nice guy. Reading about nervous system regulation doesn't actually regulate your nervous system.
I had done all the work.
But I was going nowhere.
And the thing that was actually keeping me stuck wasn't the wrong men. It wasn't bad timing. It wasn't the universe testing me.
It was the shame of that inner child.
The one I'd locked in the basement because wanting to be held felt like weakness. The one whose voice I'd drowned out with productivity and independence and "I'm fine on my own."
She wasn't my weakness.
She was aching for my attention.
The breakthrough didn't come from another book.
It didn't come from another retreat, another therapist, another ayahuasca ceremony on a jungle floor.
It came when I discovered that what I was missing wasn't more self-awareness.
It was skill.
Three skills, specifically.
The kind nobody teaches us. Not in school. Not in any dating book I'd ever read.
I had a kindergarten education in intimacy.
Here's what I learned…the hard way
Over nine years of trial and error and sitting in my own wreckage:
The first skill was learning to observe my patterns in real time.
Not after the fact.
Not in a therapist's office three days later.
In the moment. When his text comes in late and my chest tightens.
When I'm about to self-sabotage and I can actually catch myself before my old programming takes over.
In all honesty, this is an ongoing mastery.
Infinite levels of it.
The second skill was expanding my nervous system's capacity.
My body had been running one programme since childhood:
People equal pain.
I didn't need to understand that intellectually.
I'd understood it for years.
I needed to actually rewire it.
Train my nervous system to feel safe with safe love.
To stop reading "consistent" as "boring."
To let someone hold me without my whole body screaming to run.
The third skill was learning to enhance my relationship ratios.
The invisible dynamics that make or break every relationship
Fun: feedback
Play: pressure
Mystery: familiarity.
Cute (friendly): sexy
(and 4 more relationship ratios)
The things no one measures but everyone feels.
Three skills. That's it.
I call them Relating Intelligence.
T
he acronym? O.N.E.
Observe your patterns
Nervous system capacity expansion
Enhance relationship ratio
O.N.E.
Because to meet The One
And to actually stay in a relationship with The One
I had to become The One.
And I had to keep becoming her.
Every day.
Not as a destination.
A practice.
12 days after unlocking the puzzle pieces of Relating Intelligence, I met my man.
The man I admire. The man worthy of surrender.
Women don’t want a man.
They want a man they admire.
And men, they too want a woman they admire.
We met each other on an app, of all places.
The same app I had been on for years.
Deleted and re-installed countless times…
With hopelessness and anguish in my eyes.
Who would have thought?
My nervous system calmed down.
My inner child felt safe.
The shame came to light and dissipated.
Shame thrives in the dark.
Shame dissolves in the light.
I think about the women who are still where I was.
The ones who've done all the work. Read all the books. Know their patterns inside out.
And are still alone. Or still choosing wrong. Or still running from the good ones.
Not because they're broken.
Because they're undertrained.
What we don't measure, we can't manage.
So I built something.
I turned everything I learned into a framework…
The decades of studies, the mistakes, the breakthroughs, the science, the heartbreak, the skills.
And I created a quiz.
Three minutes.
So you can see exactly where you are with each of the three skills.
Which pillar needs work:
Observing patterns?
Nervous system capacity?
Enhancing relationship ratios?
Your skill gap isn't the same as mine.
And the training you need depends entirely on where you're starting from.
The quiz shows you your gap, in just 3 minutes.
And then you’ll receive the training to help you close the gap today.
It doesn’t take years.
It takes knowing something you previously didn’t.
That’s why my clients get results in days, not months or years.
If you've been exhausted from working on yourself and going nowhere
If you secretly want someone
but the shame of admitting it keeps you performing independence.
If you know your patterns but can't stop repeating them
You're not broken. You're undertrained.
And that changes now.
See which of the three skills needs attention first.
Then let me show you what changes when you actually train for love…
Instead of just hoping for it.
Oodles of love,
Anna
relatingintelligence.scoreapp.com