You Mean Well. But It’s Not Landing.
Why love without self-awareness can still wound….and how to change the pattern.
You love them. You show up. You try to do it better. So why does it still feel like something’s not connecting?
You love them.
Your kids. Your partner. Your people.
You don’t lead with malice. You lead with devotion.
You carry the weight. You show up. You try to get it right.
And yet…
They pull back.
Your words hit a wall.
Your presence feels more like pressure than peace.
They don’t say it outright…but you feel it.
In the distance. In the tension. In the way they look at you.
And in that split second of awareness, you realize…
You’re loving them through your lens.
Through your wiring.
Through your conditioning.
Not theirs.
And that’s when it clicks:
Love is not enough…..if it’s delivered in a language they don’t speak or understand.
It’s not your love that’s the problem.
It’s what it carries with it.
It carries your survival instincts.
It carries your inherited patterns.
It carries the echoes of what was modeled for you…
even the things you swore you’d never repeat.
Because what we don’t repair, we repeat. Or it gets repeated….Or Both
Even with the best intentions.
You say “be strong”…but they need softness.
You offer advice…but they hear judgment.
You protect…but it feels like control.
And then you sit there, stunned, thinking:
But I meant well…
Of course you did.
But good intentions don’t override unconscious projection.
And love wrapped in your own survival still stings…..especially when it’s not received.
I know this because I’ve lived it.
I was doing everything “right.”
I was a tactical, all-in, no-bullshit provider.
Emotionally, financially, physically, spiritually.
I was the kind of mom who made the impossible look easy… and paid for it silently.
But I was parenting from the only operating system I knew…
mine.
And my wiring as an Enneagram 8, shaped by old-school conditioning, didn’t translate for my kids.
My daughter needed space to dream.
I gave her structure.
My son needed gentle nurturing.
I gave him resilience.
I told myself I was doing it “better than my parents ever did.”
And in many ways, I was.
But the truth?
I was parenting from unexamined patterns…ones I hadn’t even realized I was carrying.
Until one day, I saw it.
The same dim look in their eyes I used to have.
That silent ache of not being seen for who you are.
That was the moment.
The fork in the road.
Repeat…….or repair.
That’s when the Enneagram walked in.
Not as a label.
Not as another “typing tool.”
But as a mirror.
A scalpel.
A map I never got….but one i desperately needed.
It showed me my wiring.
It showed me theirs.
And more importantly…
it revealed the conditioning I’d mistaken for truth.
Because your wiring isn’t wrong.
But if it’s coated in old survival strategies,
it becomes armor instead of connection.
And your love…..fierce as it may be…won’t reach them until you strip the armor off.
So now, I do it differently.
I lead with presence, not projection.
I pause instead of push.
I ask instead of assume.
I listen without fixing . Im the most curious person i know.
I see them….not just through my eyes, but through their wiring AND conditioning they have experienced.
And in doing so?
I didn’t just become a better parent.
I became an honest one.
And that’s what built trust. And credibility.
That’s what changed our legacy. And lineage I won’t even have the privilege of seeing.
Because kids don’t need perfection.
They need to be met.
Not molded.
Not managed.
Met.
This isn’t just about parenting.
This is about every space where you lead.
Every person you influence.
Every time you show up thinking,
If I just love them harder, it’ll land.
But love without understanding becomes performance.
And performance without presence becomes projection.
You don’t need to change who you are.
You just need to see clearly where you’re loving from.
And if it’s from fear, from control, from pattern?
You have a choice.
🎙️ Listen to the full episode: How to Get the Edge Up on Your Parenting
📎 [HERE]
If your stomach is in knots right now…good.
That means you’re awake.
Now be brave enough to do something different.
Your wiring isn’t the problem.
Your love isn’t the problem.
But your unexamined conditioning?
That’s the pattern.
And you?
You were born to break it.
LFG
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