You Can’t Take Me Away from Me

I ALWAYS will have me!

I came up with this phrase during one of the hardest seasons of my life. It wasn’t said in a moment of calm or clarity—it rose up in the middle of chaos, when I needed something solid to stand on. You can’t take me away from me.

At the time, I was disentangling myself from a relationship marked by addiction and manipulation. It was painful, confusing, and deeply emotional. Looking back now, I can also hold compassion for the person my former husband was—a deeply troubled soul who struggled in ways I could not fix or carry for him. Two things can be true at once: I can feel sadness for his life, and still know I did the right thing to protect myself.

What stayed with me wasn’t the conflict—it was the realization that no matter how loud the outside noise became, there was something inside me that could not be taken, controlled, or erased.

Finding Yourself Again

For a long time, I believed that love, safety, and identity came from other people. From being chosen. From being approved of. From being needed. When those things were threatened, it felt like I was threatened.

But the truth is this: when we build our identity on someone else—on their moods, their addictions, their approval—we give away the most important part of ourselves.

Coming back to myself meant learning to ask different questions:

• How do I feel when I’m quiet?

• What do I value when no one is watching?

• What feels true in my body and my heart?

That’s where faith began for me. Not faith in an outcome. Not faith in another person. Faith in myself.

Love That Starts Within

We live in a world that constantly tells us we are what we own, what we earn, or how we appear. More money. Better clothes. A nicer car. The next achievement.

But none of those things tell us who we are.

Real worth is quieter than that. It shows up in how we speak to ourselves when we make mistakes. In how we honor our boundaries. In how we choose kindness—toward ourselves first, and then outward.

When we learn to love ourselves, something powerful happens: we stop asking others to define us. We stop needing permission to exist as we are. We stop outsourcing our identity.

You Are Still Yours

If you are in a season where someone else’s behavior feels like it’s shrinking you—whether it’s a partner, a parent, a job, or even an old belief—this is your reminder:

You are still yours.

Your values, your heart, your integrity, your capacity to love—those are not up for negotiation. They cannot be taken unless you hand them over.

Coming home to yourself is an act of courage. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it’s messy.

Sometimes it looks like walking away. Sometimes it looks like standing still and saying, No more.

And sometimes, it sounds like a simple truth you whisper to yourself until you believe it:

You can’t take me away from me.

Much Love,

Kena🌻