Midlife Butterfly: Self-Discovery, Women Empowerment & Life Transitions
Midlife isn’t just a phase—it’s a powerful catalyst for transformation. Whether you’re navigating divorce, an identity crisis, a breakup, feeling lost, a spiritual awakening, empty nest syndrome, moving to a new city or country, or grief—this chapter of life is calling you to heal, grow, and reinvent yourself.
I’m Kena Siu, your host and Self-Love & Empowerment Guide, and I’m here to help you embrace midlife as a time of expansion, self-discovery, and joy.
Join me and my guests as we share personal stories, mindset shifts, self-care practices, and spiritual tools to support you on your journey. Midlife is not the end—it’s a new beginning. It’s time to prioritize yourself, reclaim your power, and create life on your own terms.
Follow and listen for inspiration, healing, and practical steps to transform your life from simply surviving to fully thriving.
You are the creator of your life. Let’s co-create together so you can spread your wings and fly.
Much love 💜,
Kena Siu
Midlife Butterfly: Self-Discovery, Women Empowerment & Life Transitions
#23 - Love Doesn’t Hurt—Self-Abandonment Does: Healing Heartbreak & Reclaiming Joy
In this powerful solo episode, Kena Siu unravels a belief that many of us have carried for far too long: “Love hurts.” But what if that’s not true? What if what really hurts are the attachments, conditions, expectations, and the ways we abandon ourselves trying to be loved?
Midlife woman, if you’re walking through the sacred in-between—divorce, loss, reinvention, or awakening—this episode is your call to reclaim your sovereignty, rewrite your story, and return home to your truth.
In This Episode, You’ll Hear:
- Why “love doesn’t hurt” might be the truth that sets your heart free.
- The real reason heartbreak often feels unbearable—and what it’s actually pointing you to heal.
- How we unknowingly abandon ourselves in the name of being loved—and how to stop.
- The one simple shift that can help you love again—even after divorce or disappointment.
- What happens when you finally reclaim your emotional sovereignty (and stop waiting to be chosen).
Reflection Questions for the Midlife Butterfly:
- In what ways have I abandoned my truth in exchange for love or acceptance?
- What conditions have I placed on love—both given and received?
- What would shift if I began to love myself like I’ve always longed to be loved?
If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who needs to hear this message. Join my Facebook community, Midlife Butterfly, to share your thoughts and connect with others. For deeper work with these teachings, I have one-on-one coaching available – reach out at hello@ midlifebutterfly.ca or tag me @midlifebutterfly.
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You can find all the podcast details right here: http://midlifebutterfly.ca/podcast
Download the Midlife Butterfly Guide with 5 Radical Practices to Heal, Take Your Power Back & Rise
Follow Kena on Instagram: @midlifebutterfly
Join the Midlife Butterfly Community: http://www.facebook.com/groups/midlifebutterfly
For Coaching, Courses & More Visit Kena's Website: http://midlifebutterfly.ca/workwithme
Request a Free Empowered Call with Kena if you're interested in working with her: https://midlifebutterfly.ca/empoweredsession
Song: Reborn by Alexander Nakarada
Love doesn't hurt. I know it's an unpopular opinion and that's exactly what I want you to. Keep listening to me, midlife butterfly, a woman in the sacred in between. She's not who she once was and not quite who she's becoming. Yet she's unraveling, awakening, remembering. She's navigating life transitions, divorce, loss, reinvasion moves, with a burning desire for freedom, joy and solid living. She feels the pull to rise, to fly. She's no longer afraid of her own wings. Welcome back to Midlife Butterfly.
Kena Siu:I am Kena Siu, your, you, your host in this space. We explore life transition and how they can help us remember who we really are, and in today's episode, which is called love doesn't hurt, I'm about to challenge this belief that many of us carry because it has been implanted in our minds since we were born. That's the truth, because you probably heard hundreds of times love hurts. But let me tell you something, my dear Love doesn't hurt. What hurts is everything we attach to it. We attach to it Okay. So keep listening, please.
Kena Siu:I'm going to start by telling you a story of me when I decided to leave my marriage, and the truth is it was not because there was no love. It was because, despite the love, other important things were missing. We lost connection and intimacy. We didn't create more activities and goals together and we started walking different paths. So it meant that you know the pushing like mainly from my side to control, to manipulate, you know, for also wanting this person to meet my expectations, I freaking, got exhausted, I did. I got to a point I mean, we were together for almost 10 years and in the last three years or so of that relationship, it's when I grew a lot because I got into the spiritual path and until I realized that he was not ready to go in that path with me, I noticed that I couldn't wait anymore and it took me around three years to accept this. And the wildest thing is that not even a couple of weeks after we separated, we actually realized how much we loved each other, More than we thought we spoke about it, and when I get you know to think and reflect about it, it was probably because, for the first time, we actually saw each other, beyond the roles that we were playing within the relationship, beyond the expectations that we were having for each other, beyond the pressure that we were putting to be a certain person, to behave a certain way. And that's when it really hit me that love wasn't the problem. The attachments, the beliefs that we put on that were the problem. So I invite you to dive in with me in some of the circumstances that make us believe that love hurts when it doesn't.
Kena Siu:I think this is one of the main ones the irrational expectations that we place in others. You know, we want them to read our minds, to fill up our voids, to you know, to save you for yourself, and we give them the responsibility to make you happy, to give you the love. Have you ever thought about that, giving that responsibility to someone? It's so fucking heavy if you think about it. Because now imagine yourself in the shoes of that other person. Imagine yourself having to be responsible to making someone happy, to making someone to feel loved. No, no, no, no. That's really a program from the matrix. They make us believe that we are dependable from others, so you actually lose your independence and your sovereignty. Do you get it? It's so twisted. Do you get it? It's so twisted.
Kena Siu:Another thing that we believe that love hurts is when we think that our dreams have died because that relationship died. But the thing is this many of the dreams that you have, they are probably coming since you were a child. They're probably there for many years and either you can achieve those dreams on your own or you might do it with someone else. Might do it with someone else either if it's a partner or a friend or a business partner who knows. So think about it. Your dreams are yours. So, even if you think that that love because it finished it between quotes with this person, that relationship is not there. No, your dreams are still there, so keep going after them.
Kena Siu:Okay, what actually hurts is not love. It's conditional love. How many times I need to? Yeah, I need to tell the truth here. I used for a long time and I still use it sometimes saying unconditional love. The thing is, love is love way. It is already the nature of love. It's a conditional. But when we condition love, you know when we say someone oh, I love you if you behave this way, I love you if you do that for me. I love you if you achieve this goal. I love you if, if, if, condition, condition, condition, or I love you only when you do things my way. Oh, my god, I can relate so much to this during my past relationships. So love doesn't hurt is the conditions that we put on it. Love is free, it is free.
Kena Siu:Another thing that we think that love hurts is when we attach to a specific outcome. You know, we believe, we think that things are going to unfold or should unfold in a certain time or form or behavior, whatever way. We just imagine it in our head. And if it doesn't have the specific outcome that we're thinking, then we suffer, we suffer. Outcome that we're thinking, then we suffer, we suffer. And again, love is fluid, it drives in freedom. So just freaking, let it flow, that's it. Let go of the attachment, otherwise you are just creating suffering and more suffering. This is a true bomb.
Kena Siu:Not loving yourself first hurts. Why do you think you're giving that responsibility to another person to love you? Because you think or you believe that you are not capable of giving that love to yourself. So you get to our sourced. Probably because you think you are unworthy, because you're expecting someone else to complete you. You know, remember Jerry Maguire? You complete me. No, fuck. No, you are already whole. You are already whole. We're here to complement each other and to share that love with others, with others. Don't give your power away, please. I did it for so many decades and it was so fucking painful. Learn to love yourself. Learn to love yourself. Your life is going to transform immensely. When you do that At least that's what happened to me, that's my experience Abandoning your truth to be love hurts.
Kena Siu:When you have to drink, when you have to silence yourself, you know to shape shifts just to keep someone or to feel like that you belong, or whatever it is that behavior that you might be doing, you end up betraying your essence. Because not loving your truth is what hurts and what's that pain? It is your soul's calling. Calling your soul is calling you back. It's calling you to reconnect back. He's calling you home to you, to your presence. So stop abandoning yourself, please.
Kena Siu:Confusing control or possession with love hurts. I mean, who makes us believe that we are actually able to possess or own someone? That is so twisted. It is so twisted because it's not a you belong to me. No, it's that. I see you, I choose you and I keep choosing you every day until I might not choose you anymore and I set you free because I love you freely, in between quotes unconditionally, conditionally, conditionally. Losing ourselves to be loved, that's the real heartbreak. When we put ourselves the last in the list, you know. So other people can choose us, or you know so other people can choose us or you know, can choose you or like you or love you between quotes because if it's just for that, for the benefit of the other person, it's insane.
Kena Siu:Why do you think a lot of people struggle with being a people pleaser and then they feel all this resentment inside? Yeah, because you are abandoning yourself to please others instead of pleasing yourself. So don't blame others for manipulating you. It's your responsibility. I'm sorry, but I just speaking my truth here. And another thing believing that someone else holds the key to your joy, to the love that you deserve, fuck, no, that hurts. That hurts. Why would you give the responsibility to someone else Again? No, claim your power back. Knowing that the joy, the happiness, the peace, the love, the honor, the presence that you deserve, knowing that it comes from within you, that's your power and we give it away Again. That's the programming from the matrix.
Kena Siu:The idea here is for you to start reflecting on what I'm saying, to get you out of there, because when we give that power away to others, it's exactly when we feel and think that love hurts. When the truth is the love that you feel it's yours, who's feeling it? You are feeling it. It's simply that the other person awakens that in you. That's, that is already within you. You are the source, you have always been the source of love. Again, it's about tuning in with it, tuning in with that frequency that is already in you and once you understand that, love is gonna stop hurting.
Kena Siu:Between quotes so how do you keep love flowing if, even after a breakup or a disappointment or a heartbreak, or a disappointment or a heartbreak, one of the practices that I did after the second time that I read the book of Michael Singer, the Untethered Soul, was to, no matter what, keep your heart open. Yeah, even if it trembles, even if it hurts like hell, keep the heart open. Otherwise, if we start creating this shell around it, we don't allow others to love us back and you don't allow yourself to love again. Don't do that. If you have a shell like that, little by little start cracking it because love that love that you have felt, that love that you have felt, that love that you feel even when it hurt and you know many of the reasons. I already spoke about it. Don't allow those reasons not to love again. Be open to it. It is worth it, despite the pain that we can feel sometimes. It is worth it, so go for it.
Kena Siu:Another thing that I want to tell you is to remember that love is not a transaction. It's a transmission, because the truth is, when we give love, just as is, again, without the conditions that we put, most of the time we just give it. We are not expecting someone else to give it. We are not expecting someone else to give it back to us Because, again, you already know that you are loved. You already know that that love is within you, so you just actually get to share it with others. How cool is that you get to share your love with others. You know what? When I realized that love is not a transaction, it's thanks to my father. He transitioned, he passed away already and I still love him so much and it doesn't matter if I don't have his presence to feel his love physically right, because I know he's still around, I know he's still with me. So that's when I realized that love is not a transaction. I can just give it. It doesn't matter if I don't receive it back, because I'm the one feeling it, it's part of me and it's so fucking good to feel it. Give it a try. Please give it a try.
Kena Siu:And if you want love to keep flowing, don't allow it to think that it needs to be safe. Love simply is let it flow, let it be sacred, let it stretch you and strip you and and soften you and bring you that joy, and sometimes it will bring you sadness. Just let it be. It is safe to love. When we remove all those expectations, you're gonna notice it's safe to love, ah, and love yourself, even when they can't love you. Don't expect someone else to love you when they are not even able to love themselves. Remember that a person cannot give what it doesn't have right. So just give that love to that person, and that means many times that you might get to walk away. You don't have to be by that side because then, if you are expecting then that person to love you back, it doesn't work like that. You're going to suffer. It doesn't work like that. You're going to suffer.
Kena Siu:So take away yourself from relationships, from situations with people that are not ready to love, because, unfortunately, most likely it's like you cannot teach them. Don't put yourself at the Sabre in there and thinking that, yeah, if I love them so hard at one point they have to love me back. It could be in some cases, yes, but it's when that other person is also willing to. And some people are not willing to because they are not ready, because they are, don't want to do the inner work to heal their wounds, to start loving themselves. Another way to start flowing more with the energy of love it's to be yourself emotionally sovereign, because remember that your emotions are your messengers. It's just, you know, it's the little whisper of your soul guiding you back home. So when you let them flow, and mainly when there's grief to process because, again, the losing of someone, the breakup, the disappointment, etc. Allow yourself to feel that grief. Because what grief is? What is it? It's love. It's another way of loving, it's another way of loving.
Kena Siu:And about grief, what I have experienced is not only about giving that grief, sorry, not only to process that grief towards the other person, but also to process self-grief for the part of you that died with that relationship. Personally, I believe that that's how we are able to move on slowly and steadily as possible oh yeah, yeah. And steadily as possible. Oh yeah, yeah. And another thing that we have to do is really drop the fairy tales. I mean the happily ever after, at least for me. I know it doesn't exist. I mean after two divorces, hmm, well, I'm going to reframe that because if I I can't believe, yes, in the happily ever after, now that I know that I am the creator of my own happiness, now that I'm not giving that power away to someone else to make me happy, so yeah, I'm reframing that now, right here, right now. I am living now in my happily ever after, but it's because I'm the one in charge, I'm the one responsible for that, no one else. That's it.
Kena Siu:And talking about fairy tales, I mean thing. It's a relationship with two people. It means it's two humans there, two humans where there are different wounds and trauma and personalities and any other aspect of it. And the thing is you get to attract people who are similar to who you are. That's it. That's the way the universe works. You are going to attract people who are similar to who you are. That's why relationships are your biggest teachers, because when somebody is triggering you, that person is actually reflecting back to you as a mirror. What's something that you get to work on you? What's that that you get to work on you? What's that that you get to heal on you, and that's where the real magic happens, because your relationships help you grow and evolve as a human being. How cool is that? Hmm? So my invitation for you is to rewrite your story.
Kena Siu:Love doesn't hurt. What hurts is trying to control it With manipulation through victimhood, wanting to be saved or rescued by others, or being the people pleaser, which is also another way of manipulation. What hurts is the attachment that you create with others so you can feel needed, which is actually codependency, or you want to feel respected or accepted or loved, or simply as avoiding loneliness. What hurts, it's expecting it to fix you. You don't need to be fixed, because the truth is that you are not broken. What happened is every time you get hurt, or every time you know you got a wound or trauma, you divided yourself by ignoring those part of you that got so hard, so hurt. That that's what make you believe that you are broken. But no, you are whole. You just need to learn to accept and understand and love all those parts of you. It's then when you're going to feel whole again and you're going to understand that you are not broken.
Kena Siu:What hurts is forgetting that you are it, that you are love, that you are the source of it. That's what hurts, and if you're in a massive healing journey right now, I feel you. I've been there. It's a roller coaster. Let me tell you that you are not alone. I see you, and once you lean into prioritizing your self-love, your life will transform Because you'll realize, finally, that you are love. So you are no longer going to beg for it, you will just be open to share it as you wish. That's it. That's all you get to love. You get to share the love that you are, and then love doesn't hurt anymore because you are love Doesn't hurt anymore because you are love.
Kena Siu:It's been a while that I wanted to share this message and I did struggle to put it into words Because self-love, for me, has been. It has been quite a journey and, like I started, I know this is an unpopular opinion that love doesn't hurt, but the more we get to love ourselves and understand that we are the source, you are the source of it. It's about healing those parts of us that has been wounded through our human experience and that could be decades right. So be patient with yourself, be kind, be compassionate and listen to this again, if you think, because I probably triggered a lot of things in here in you, and that's good. That's the work. That's the work needed for you to tune back in with your heart, to tune back in with your soul, because your soul is calling you back. It's calling you back home to who you truly are. The soul doesn't know about controlling, doesn't know about attachment, she doesn't. So allow yourself to open that heart, to start listening to it. Start listening to her. It's there. It's there. It's there, and the more self-love you nurture, you share, you cherish whatever it is, the more alive you're going to feel and the more your soul will like to experience this life.
Kena Siu:If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who needs to hear this, and I also invite you to come to my community on Facebook, the Midlife Butterfly, so you can share your thoughts over there and introduce yourself. The community is growing slowly and I would like to really be more of a community itself. I feel sometimes that I'm just kind of like a monologue and trusting that that's going to start shifting as more people listen to this podcast and as more people tune in and resonate with what I have to say. I really appreciate your time and if you would like to go deeper with these teachings? I have one-on-one coaching open. There's a space for you, so please reach out at hello at midlifebutterflyca. It'll be my pleasure to serve you. Or just simply tag me at midlifebutterfly and remember that you are loved. You are love, so now go out and be it. Much love to you, my dear.
