Stop Shrinking
Partner khojo, little bit about healing, fuck lame positivity and more.....
Hi folks…
April was a bit of a whirlwind. House hunting, moving pieces around, and somewhere in between, I turned 26 on 10th April 🎂
The past year? Nothing linear about it. Just new beginnings… a lot of experimentation… and figuring things out as I go.
I finally found a place, and I’m still in the middle of setting it up 🏡
So yes, this week’s newsletter took a little longer than usual.
But this one… it comes straight from the heart.
Hope you feel it as much as I did while writing it 💛
Dive in ✨
Partner Khojo, Project Nahi
This one dawned on me recently and it quietly changed how I see relationships.
I used to think compatibility was about shared beliefs. Find someone who checks the same boxes, and you’re good. But I’ve realised it goes much deeper than that. It’s not just what you value but, it’s how much, and to what degree.
Take health. I value it. Someone else values it too. But for me, it’s a morning run which is non-negotiable, woven into my day. For them, it’s ten minutes of yoga and they’re done. We’re both right. But we’re not aligned.
Communication. I value consistency. It’s non-negotiable for me in a relationship. For someone else, two or three times a week is plenty. Neither is wrong. But we’re not aligned.
Making your partner feel important. We both agree it matters. I show it through small, everyday gestures. They show it through one grand gift and expect that to carry the weight for months. Again, not aligned.
One person values health, togetherness, and showing up for the people they love. Another values deep work, solitude, and absence from the group. Both valid. Completely incompatible.
Now multiply that across every dimension of life. Ten thousand micro-misalignments, and suddenly two perfectly good people become really bad for each other. Not because either is broken, but because the calibration is off.
When you can’t bridge that gap? You either become unbearable or you start shrinking yourself to fit a life that was never yours. And slowly, quietly, you begin to resent the person you once chose.
A friend said it best: partner khojo, project nahi. Don’t turn someone into a renovation project. Find someone where more than half the alignment is already there and someone who will celebrate you, respect you, and show up for every part of your life that brings you joy.
That’s not settling. That’s clarity.
Healing is not linear
I was in a relationship a year ago, and I became a totally different person. Some aspects I learned from being in one were — I became more expressive, I learned how to give even when I was angry, got better at conflict resolution, became more adaptable, and learned to judge less.
As someone who had a “date-to-marry” kind of mindset, the breakup took a toll on me. Healing was a process I thought wouldn’t take effort because I was clear I didn’t want that person in my life anymore. But that’s not how healing works.
We shrink ourselves sometimes to be with someone. I did too. I became less adventurous, stopped going to the gym because my time felt limited, and slowly started becoming someone I wasn’t. My natural state of being and the version that felt acceptable to that person created a conflict so intense in my mind and heart that I started disliking myself.
When you come out of something like that, you have to start all over again, to find your identity, to understand what you stand for, what you want to feel, and how you want to live your life. It takes time.
Pro tip: don’t date anyone during this healing phase. You might end up trying to find love in someone who is not meant for you, someone who doesn’t celebrate or respect you because you are operating from a void. And that void is yours to fill. No one else can do it for you. Be single for at least a year and build your sense of identity, whether you’re a guy or a girl.
There will be days in the initial phase when you will crave company. You’ll feel like calling someone just to share something, or you’ll achieve something and want to celebrate, but there will be no one. Before being with someone, you did all of this alone. But after experiencing that companionship, going back to being alone feels like a completely different game.
The funny thing is, you don’t really miss the person. What you miss is the feeling. The euphoria. The emotional expansion that came with sharing your life with someone. You miss the validation. You miss the version of yourself that came alive in that space.
You don’t choose your parents. You don’t choose your siblings. But your friends and your partner, those are choices. The right partner will make your life easier, will never make you feel like you’re not enough, will never shrink you, and will celebrate who you are.
As humans, we are constantly evolving. Two or three years down the line, you and I won’t be the same people. But the willingness to accept someone fully and to be secure within yourself, it matters. And that only comes when you know how to live completely on your own, without needing someone to fill a space in your life.
You don’t expect. You don’t overthink. You don’t over-explain. You just are… and you let the other person be. You don’t walk on eggshells, and you don’t make someone else feel like they have to either. You simply enjoy being around each other.
Happily single. And thriving.
Fuck Lame Positivity
We’re told to chase positivity. Does it work? Maybe. I’m a big believer in hope and optimism — but I’ve stopped faking it. Instead, I’ve started asking a different question: what if negative emotions aren’t the enemy?
Society labels them. Makes you feel broken for having them. You spend energy “fixing” yourself instead of using what you feel.
So fuck feelings — literally. Fuck them to the core. Don’t ignore them. Don’t slap a positivity label on them and call it growth. Learn to drive them. Because buried inside every uncomfortable, ugly, inconvenient emotion is fuel, and most people are too busy managing their feelings to ever use them.
Here’s what I know from my own life: my biggest growth didn’t come from calm (I like being calm, you will hardly find me anxious). It came from anger. Anger at where I was, terror at not meeting my potential, frustration and exhaustion that refused to let me stay still. I tried the patient, positive, stay-put approach. Nothing wrong with it. But it wasn’t me.
My superpower is that I’m impatient. I’m aggressive. I’m a go-getter with a fire that needs fuel.
So instead of chasing some polished, 1000-steps-ahead version of myself, I flipped the goal. I didn’t try to become something I wasn’t. I just committed to being less of what I didn’t want to be: less lazy today, less of a cribber, less all talk. That’s it. That gap between who you are and who you’re afraid of becoming? That’s actually a powerful engine if you learn to drive it.
I’ve chased the wrong people. Put myself in uncomfortable situations. Made bad bets on relationships. But every single one taught me something I couldn’t have read in a book, because I was in it , making moves, making mistakes, and making sense of the world on my own terms.
Optimism isn’t pretending everything is fine. It’s knowing you’re in motion.
Delulu is Solulu
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Wish You Well
With Love
Nainika
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