"I've Got You."

A phrase with the power to change everything

We talk about wanting to be chosen. We dream of what that means to be with a person and feel completely, deeply and utterly CHOSEN.

I choose you. It’s poetic. It’s the stuff of vows and grand gestures and the kind of love songs where the notes penetrate the soul. Choice matters. It does. It feels special. Out of all of the people….I was the one they chose. Ahhhhh.

But I want to talk about what happens after the choosing.

Because here’s what no one tells you about being chosen…it doesn’t answer the question she’s actually asking.

Successful, high-achieving women are used to being selected. Chosen for the job, the team, the role, the room. They’ve been chosen their whole lives…for their competence, their output, their polish, their ability to hold it all together without flinching.

And somewhere along the way, they learned something dangerous.

That being chosen is conditional.

That the choosing could be reversed if she performed poorly. If she showed too much. If she took up too much space. If the version of her that showed up wasn’t the version they signed up for.

So when a man says I choose you, even with total sincerity, some part of her brain is already running the calculation.

Yes, but which version of me did you choose?

What happens when you see the rest?

What do you do with me when I’m not easy?

Being chosen is a door opening….

“I’ve got you” is what happens inside.

There’s a difference. A seismic, life-altering difference exists between I chose you and I’ve got you.

I chose you is past tense dressed up as present. It’s the moment of selection. It’s beautiful, and it’s real, and it is not enough.

I’ve got you is present tense that refuses to leave. It’s not a moment. It’s a posture. It’s ongoing, active, load-bearing. It’s a promise.

“I chose you” says: you were the answer to a question I was asking.

“I’ve got you” says: whatever question comes next, I’m here and I’ll figure it out.

Let me be specific, because this matters.

“I’ve got you” covers the rain she’s most ashamed of.

Not the pretty rain. Not the sad movie tears or the graceful vulnerability she’s learned to perform because it reads as endearing. I mean the other rain. The 2am spiral that doesn’t make sense. The controlling thing she does when she feels scared. The way she goes cold instead of crying. The perfectionism that turns cruel when she’s stressed. The version of her that isn’t soft, isn’t easy, isn’t the woman she’s trying to be.

That rain.

An umbrella that only works in a light drizzle is decorative. “I’ve got you” is the kind that holds in a storm.

And here is what most people don’t understand about a high-achieving woman…she has been her own umbrella for so long that she has forgotten it was ever exhausting. She doesn’t know what it would feel like to put it down. She doesn’t know if it’s safe to put it down.

What she needs, and what she is waiting for without even knowing she’s waiting, is not to be chosen.

She needs to be covered.

To the men reading this:

She doesn’t need you to fix her. She doesn’t need you to understand every part of her or to have the right words in the hard moment.

She needs to know you’re not leaving when the hard moment does show up.

That’s the whole thing. THAT is the shift.

When you say “I’ve got you”….and mean it, and prove it, and keep proving it in the small ordinary moments that don’t feel romantic but are actually the whole structure of trust…something happens in her.

She exhales.

Not the polite exhale. The real one. The one that’s been held in for years.

The armor that she has been wearing, not to keep you out, but because she genuinely forgot she could take it off, starts to feel optional. And when a woman like this finally feels safe enough to put down her armor?

She loves in a way that will undo you. In the best possible way.

But she can’t get there if she’s still holding her breath, waiting to see what you’ll do when you find out who she really is.

I chose you is the beginning of the story.

I’ve got you extends far beyond the early lines and opening scene.

There are women reading this right now who have been chosen many times. Loved, adored and cherished. And still they felt profoundly uncovered. They still felt like they were one bad moment away from being too much.

If that’s you, this is what I want you to hear:

You are not too much. You were simply not yet held.

And there is a difference.

This is the work.

Not the choosing. The holding.

Learning to say “I’ve got you.” Learning to mean it. Learning to receive it when it’s offered.

“I’ve got you” just may be the words she has been yearning to hear and ready to melt into.