🌬️ Love Isn’t Possession — And God Never Asked for Performance

(What I’ve learned about freedom, intimacy, and the difference between being loved… and being owned)

I was taught that God loved me.

But it was a love that came with a warning label.

A love that could be taken away.

A love that depended on my obedience, my surrender, my ability to stay in line.

I heard it in Sunday School songs.

I felt it in sermons.

I lived it in my body—this quiet fear that no matter how much I gave, it might never be enough.

God loved me…but only if I followed the rules.

Only if I stayed pure.

Only if I silenced my doubt, my questions, my personality.

Only if I performed.

So I did.

I gave everything—my time, my energy, my body, my voice.

I made myself small to be “safe.”

I stayed quiet to be “holy.”

I shrunk into a version of myself that would never be accused of being too much.

Because that’s what I thought love was.

And when that’s the first version of love you’re given—a love that demands your compliance—you carry that story into everything.

Especially relationships.

I Thought Love Meant Being Claimed

I thought being “the only one” was the highest form of devotion.

That love meant being chosen… and kept.

That if I was truly loved, I would be the only one they ever wanted.

And that if they ever wanted someone else—

emotionally, sexually, spiritually—then I had somehow failed.

That belief ran deep.

It shaped how I saw my marriage.

It shaped how I saw myself.

And for years, I carried the silent pressure to be everything—the perfect wife, lover, mother, muse, support system, emotional container, spiritual leader.

And I tried.

With everything in me, I tried.

But deep down, I was suffocating.

Not from lack of love—but from the kind of love I believed I had to maintain.

Love that only worked if I stayed small.

Love that wasn’t safe unless I was the only one.

The Truth That Set Me Free

It wasn’t until we started asking different questions that I realized:

Real love doesn’t require shrinking.

It doesn’t punish desire.

It doesn’t call you selfish for wanting to be fully known.

The love I know now—the love we’re building through ethical non-monogamy, radical honesty, and deep presence—isn’t about control.

It’s not about being claimed.

It’s not about being the only one.

It’s about showing up, again and again, as our full selves—

and being chosen, not because we’re perfect, but because we’re real.

And What About God?

If we say God is love, then we have to ask—what kind of love?

Because the version I was handed…looked a lot like fear dressed up as faith.

A God who keeps score.

A God who’s always watching, always disappointed.

A God who’s threatened by your curiosity,

ashamed of your pleasure,

and uncomfortable with your voice.

A jealous husband.

A controlling father.

A divine figure built in the image of patriarchy.

But that’s not the God I believe in anymore.

Because I’ve tasted something truer.

I’ve seen love that expands.

That trusts.

That empowers.

That allows you to grow, speak, change, desire—without punishment.

If God is love, then God is not afraid of your fullness.

God doesn’t need to own you to stay close.

I Don’t Want to Be the Only One

I don’t want to be someone’s possession.

I want to be their partner.

I want to be their truth.

I want to be their chosen yes—not their obligation.

And I want that in every form of love.

Human and Divine.

So no—I don’t believe love means being the only one.

I believe it means being the true one.

The one who’s allowed to grow.

To feel.

To speak.

To choose.

And that, to me, is what makes love sacred.

I am no longer performing for love—I am living it.

Unclaimed.

Unashamed.

Wildly human.

And still, fully held.

—Kami 🤍

Yours, Mine & Ours

spiritual life coach| relationship liberator | presence practitioner