💔 When Protection Looks Like Distance 💔

✨Shame, Misalignment & the Collapse of Connection ✨

❤️🎶☕️ Love Beats & Brew / Episode 4 Recap ❤️🎶☕️

🛋️ From the Couch 🛋️

✨Have you ever loved someone so deeply, that you forget to love yourself? Sometimes we stay at tables to long at tables that don’t feed us anymore…just because they used to feel like home.

Today’s episode gets real and heavy as we get deep on our personal and lived in experiences. From grief we’ve both had to carry, in silence and even more so in survival. From family ties that feel frayed and gone to trying to be understood and still somehow ending up alone in the room.

Today’s episode is about what it costs to be the one who draws the line or establishes the boundary.

What it feels like when love…doesn’t feel safe anymore.

What happens when you’re left choosing between your peace and your people.

We dug into shame… the kind that is used as a weapon.

We talked about silence…the suffocating kind

We touched on misalignment…the kind that doesn’t always come from harm, but from growing in opposite directions.

Then we got into love…the messy and sometimes conditional kind. And what it finally looks like to say, “I love you, but I need space”.

If you’ve ever felt guilty for pulling away, or confused about why it still hurts to stay or why protecting yourself feels like distance…this one’s for you.

We made this episode for the ones who left the room to catch their breath.

the ones who feel like villains for walking away quietly…or loudly.

and the ones still praying for healing..

🎙️ Highlights from this Episode 🎙️

🎧 Protecting Yourself Aint Selfish 🎧

✨ Pulling back doesn’t always mean you don’t care. Sometimes it just means that you feel like you're drowning in expectations, guilt or trying to hold peace for everyone else other than yourself. Sometime silence is self - preservation not punishment.

🎧 Misalignment Aint a Sin 🎧

✨ When you love someone deeply and then suddenly you can’t seem to speak the same language…misalignment. The rhythm you used to move in now seems like one of you is skipping steps and the silence gets loud and before you know it, the frequency that used to fall into unison is absent.

✨ The truth is, misalignment doesn’t show up loud. It’s subtle. You start to grow in different directions. You may crave peace while they still crave the chaos they are used too. It might be generational and it might just be…

✨ We out grow dynamics and sometimes…we even outgrown people. We even outgrow the survival tools we once shared and depended on. Sometimes it’s fear wrapped in tradition. Sometimes it trauma disguised as a bond.

✨ So how do we heal? We recognize the misalignment…not as a failure…but as truth. We learn to honor it without shame, even when it hurts.

🎧 Shame as a Weapon 🎧

✨ Shame is one of the most dangerous tools in a relationship because it shows up wearing a mask of concern. It sounds like love. It feels like loyalty but with a leash.

“I’m only saying this because I care…You used to be different…You think you’re better than us now.”

✨ Those are not words of love….those are words of control.

✨ Shame doesn’t ask questions….it hands over a script.

✨ Even worse…when you soak in that type of shame… you begin to shrink. You start to filter your feelings or hold things back. Stay silent when you should speak up.

✨ Shame doesn’t just bruise your spirit..it teaches you to second guess your healing.

✨ So name shame for what it is and refuse to keep watering relationships that only grow when you stay buried.

🎧 Intentions Aint Enough 🎧

✨ Intentions are not the same as impact! Just because someone means well, doesn’t mea their words don’t hurt you to the core. It doesn’t mean their silence doesn’t feel defining and it doesn’t mean the damage didn’t happen.

✨ Healing requires honesty…and that means holding space for the fact that sometimes, the people we love the most…still hurt us. And the truth is..when love goes left..it can feel a lot like manipulation. When people don’t do the work to understand themselves, their idea of love becomes conditional, controlling and suffocating.

✨ Good intentions with poor self- awareness can be dangerous. You can love someone and still not be safe with them. You can forgive someone and still need distance. You can understand someone’s pain and still choose not to let them pour into you.

🎧 Unapologetic Healing 🎧

✨ Stop apologizing for needing space…for not being available to perform love in a way that makes others comfortable. DO YOU BOO! Your healing doesn’t always need to feel or look pretty. Most of the time, it's a hot mess! But it’s yours! Don’t dress it up, don’t make it comfortable for the people who are used to the broken version of you! Rise the EFF up out the ashes! (I’m trying not to cuss but the Kell in me really wanted too to get my point across lol) Seriously though, …Girl / Boy get up! Wake up! and VIBE THE EFF OUT to your own beat! Period!

💌 Kell’s Final Thought 💌

What if distance isn’t desertion..

but instead devotion to your own soul?

What if walking away wasn’t walking out…but walking in?

Into the quiet

Into the pain

into the truth that whispers..

If I don’t start to love me here…i’ll keep shrinking there

and maybe the collapse….of connection

was really the beginning of building a house of protection

Maybe the shame didn’t show up….to take us out..

Maybe is just pulled the curtain back…

and let in the sun…

✨ Reflection ✨ Soul Questions ✨ Journal Prompts ✨

💭 Who have I pulled away from because I needed to protect myself..but still carry grief for?

💭 Is there someone I’m silently shaming for not healing on my timeline?

💭 Have I mistaken control for care?

💭 What part of me still needs permission to be at peace, even if others never understand?

🎙️ Listen Now 🎙️

If you missed it, or you are ready to run it back, check out our latest episode and please share us with your friends, family or anyone you think would enjoy our flow!

❤️🎶 Ibrahim takes us deep with this week’s playlist…so go ahead, hit play and vibe out with us. 🎶❤️

🎵 Whether you’re on a late night drive, chillin’ on the couch with the lights low, or cooking up something in the kitchen..this one’s for the mood. No matter where you are..trust, it’s a vibe! 🎵