28 hard lessons about love
A public post for all subscribers
Hi there,
I wanted to share with you a note I started while I was flying home from a speaking engagement this weekend. I love those moments in the air where I can be alone with my thoughts, without the distractions of life on the ground. Staring out the plane window, I started to make a list: these urgent truths that I desperately wanted to share. It’s not exhaustive, and there will be many more flights for thinking and writing.
Let’s get into it.
Chemistry without safety is chaos.
The fantasy of who someone could be often blinds us to who they actually are.
Love asks you to accept imperfection, not to change it.
Love alone isn’t enough to sustain passion—you also need adventure and freedom.
The most powerful relationship you’ll ever have is the one with yourself.
Why I Broke Up with a Good Person
·We’re taught to look for the “good ones.” The ones who are kind, ethical, emotionally safe. We’re told that’s the foundation, the baseline — and it’s true. Partnering with a good person is non-negotiable. But here’s what nobody tells you: Just because someone is a good person doesn’t mean they’re the right partner for you.
Every relationship will frustrate you. Maturity is choosing which frustrations you’re willing to live with.
Happiness in love depends more on your habits than your circumstances.
To receive love fully, you must first believe you deserve it.
Letting go isn’t giving up — it’s trusting that what’s meant for you will never require chasing.
Love is messy, unpredictable, and often inconvenient, but it’s still the most beautiful risk we’ll ever take.
When Your Life Is Not What You Thought It Would Be
·We have blueprints for money and for our careers. For the house we’ll buy one day, and we even have blueprints for our health. You didn’t pull your blueprint out of thin air. All of our blueprints are connected to our values, our conditioning, how we were raised, and our belief systems. And for most of us, our blueprints are tied to our concept of good — a good home, a good family, a good life.
You can’t make someone ready for love by loving them harder.
Sometimes self-love looks like deleting their number and booking a trip.
If you have to guess how someone feels about you, they’ve already told you.
The relationships that fail are often the ones that were meant to wake you up.
A healthy relationship feels like two people choosing each other over their egos.
How to move on after a situationship
·When we we walk away from a situationship, we’ve never had the experience of truly being chosen by the other person. So while we may think our heartbreak is only about missing that person, it’s really about the deep wounding that comes from not feeling chosen — thus rejected.
The quality of your romantic relationship largely determines the quality of your life.
You don’t get what you want in love. You get what you’re willing to work for.
The person you marry is the person with whom you’re building a future and a value system. Choose accordingly.
We must stop asking love to heal us and start asking it to teach us.
You can’t build connection from your inner child. It takes your wise adult to love well.
How to Actually Love Yourself
·This is a long post — and it goes deep on increasing your self worth and confidence and my own path to self acceptance. I really, truly believe that this message applies to everyone — I’ve never met a single human who doesn’t struggle with their worth at some point. The truth is that most of us struggle with our self worth a lot. Most of us at some point or another fear that we’re not smart enough, attractive enough, successful enough, or just plain enough.
The version of you that fell for the wrong person is the version that needed to learn their own worth.
People don’t change for love. They change when they’re ready to face themselves.
The person you choose to partner with will shape your mental health more than almost any other decision you make.
Love is a practice, a choice, a verb.
It’s better to be alone than in a relationship that diminishes your spirit.
To love well, you must confront the parts of yourself that fear vulnerability.
Love is a choice that gets harder — and more meaningful — over time.
Accountability is the most underrated love language.
I’m planning to dive deeper into these truths in future newsletters, and so I’d love to hear from you. Where should I start? What resonates with you?
Love,
Jillian
"If you have to guess how someone feels about you, they’ve already told you." #13 resonated with me
Please talk more about #8 (which coincidentally is my favorite number)!