When We Stop Chasing

Why do we chase love, success, belonging, or recognition—and still feel as though we are never quite enough?

In this deeply personal conversation, I share how the need to feel chosen shaped my marriage and what I discovered when I finally stopped looking to another person’s presence to confirm my worth.

Together, we explore how childhood emotional wounds can follow us into our adult relationships, why achievements and external validation never fully satisfy the ache within us, and what begins to change when we stop chasing and choose ourselves instead.

Stopping the chase does not mean giving up on love, connection, or the life we desire. It means remembering that none of those things were ever meant to prove our worth.

Transcript

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Welcome to Dear Soul Rising, a sanctuary for remembering, rising, and reconnecting with the deeper wisdom within you. This is a space for the deeper conversations, the ones many of us didn't grow up having. I'm your host, Naomi Carr. You were never meant to chase love, success, or belonging. And yet, most of us spend our lives doing exactly that. Running towards something just out of reach. Believing that when we get there, when we finally have it, we'll feel it. But the getting never quite does it. Because the chase was never really about the thing. It was always about what we believe the thing would prove. Today I want to talk about why we chase, what we are really looking for underneath all of it, and what it means to finally stop. And before I go any further, I want to tell you something I have never actually said on this podcast. I share everything I share because I believe we heal through each other. Because when one person is willing to stand in the full truth of their life, something happens. They give others permission to be human too. That is why I show up the way I do. And in today's Heart to Heart, I'm going to get a little closer to home and talk about a relationship I protect with the same fierceness I do my children. My marriage. For much of my marriage I thought I was fighting against my husband's work. We married young, I was 20 and he was 18. And he dove into the provider role early. He took his responsibilities as a husband and a father seriously. That was never in question. But emotional presence didn't always come easily for him. And I couldn't understand why work seemed to receive so much of his time and energy while I waited for whatever remained. What I recognized now is that I wasn't simply asking for more time. I was chasing the feeling of being chosen. Somewhere along the way, his availability had become evidence of my worth. If I were enough, perhaps he would turn toward me. If I asked in the right way, tried harder, made him understand, perhaps I would finally feel important. And I want to be clear about something. This man is one of the most affectionate, loving people I know. I respect him more than anyone in this world. But he was walking his own paths, working himself into the ground to prove that he was enough to love me, enough to provide, enough to be chosen. We were two individuals, both chasing the same thing, just in different directions. And that pursuit created its own pain. The more distant I felt, the harder I chased, and the harder I chased, the more painful and contentious that connection became. Until I noticed the pattern. Not in him, in me. I realized I had been looking at my husband to fulfill something that was never his to fill. That my enoughness was not defined by his capacity to be present. That until he healed his own wounds and learned to love himself, he would never be able to show up the way I needed. And more than that, it was never his job to fill me emotionally. That realization changed everything. I stopped putting my energy into the chase. I started recommitting to myself, to the truth that love and belonging were not the things I needed to earn or pursue. They were my birthright. They always had been. And something shifted, not just in me, but between us. Because when you stop chasing someone, you stop making them responsible for your worth. And that is when real connection becomes possible. Today I'm deeply grateful for the relationship we have built together. We aren't afraid of the deep conversations. Yes, some days he shies away, but his love for me makes him try his best not to shut down. Everything hasn't become perfect because I saw the pattern and changed my focus. But our commitment to a relationship that has lasted almost three decades is still very important to the two of us. And I share this not because my marriage is a story, but because the chase inside of it is. Because I know I am not the only one who has looked for their worth in someone else's capacity to show up. Whether it's love, a promotion, a friendship that finally feels reciprocal, the house, the car, the life that looks like you finally made it, it doesn't matter what form it takes. Underneath every chase is the same quiet, aching question. Why don't they choose me? Why can't they see what I bring and give me the promotion? Why am I the one always showing up and still feeling invisible? Why do I have to jump up and down and say, hey, look over here, here I am, and still feel like I'm not enough to be seen. That is the voice of chase, and it is exhausting. And most of us, if we are honest, can trace the chase back to somewhere much earlier than we think. For me, it goes back to being one of seven daughters, to a mother who didn't have enough emotional space to go around. I learned very young what it felt like to be in a room with the person you needed most and still feel unseen. And something in me decided I will just have to try harder. Be more, do more. Find the thing that finally makes her look. That is how it works. What we don't receive in our earliest relationships becomes what we spend our adult lives trying to find somewhere else. But here is what I want you to hear. The reason that question never gets fully answered. No matter how many times someone does choose you, no matter how many promotions you get, no matter how much you accumulate, is because the question was never really about them. It was always about you and what you believed about yourself. What we are chasing is never really the thing. It is the feeling we believe the thing will finally give us. The feeling of being enough, of mattering, of being worth choosing. And when we outsource that feeling to other people, to titles, to things, we will always be chasing because nothing outside of you can permanently answer a question that lives inside of you. So what does it look like to stop? It doesn't mean you stop wanting things. It doesn't mean you stop pursuing a career you love, or desire a deep connection, or building a life that feels meaningful. None of that goes away. What changes is why you're reaching for it. When you stop chasing from a place of lack, when you stop trying to earn your worth through what you achieve or who finally decides you're worth loving, something shifts. You stop performing. You stop contorting yourself to be palatable enough, impressive enough, easy enough to love. You stop waiting for the world to hand you the verdict on your own value, and you start living from the inside out instead of the outside in. The promotion becomes something you pursue because you genuinely want it, not because you need it to prove something. The relationship you want is something you invite in, not something you beg for. The friendships in your life are chosen, not earned. The things you have are enjoyed, not used as evidence that you made it. That is what it looks like when the chase ends. Not emptiness or giving up, but a quieter, more grounded life. One where you are no longer exhausting yourself, trying to be chosen. Because you have already chosen yourself, and that is what puts you above the chase. And I will offer you the soul musing. Given a person's capacity or a result we pursue, the power to define our worth disconnects us from the truth of our birthright. To receive love in abundance without the chase or the proving. It is our own capacity to see our worth that returns us to the wealth of the soul by Naomi Carr. And as this conversation comes to a close, I want to leave you with these questions to carry with you today. What have you been chasing? And if you sit underneath the surface of it, what feeling were you really hoping it would give you? And maybe even deeper, where did the chase begin? Can you trace it back to the first place you learned that love or worth had to be earned? What would it look like for you to stop chasing and begin choosing yourself instead? If this conversation resonated with you and you're ready to continue your own return to self, I've created something for you, my free guided return to unconditional self-love bundle. You can find the link in the show notes. And if you want to be part of these conversations in this community, I encourage you to follow along to be part of future conversations. Because I truly believe that when we begin healing ourselves, we create more compassion, more understanding, and ultimately a better world for everyone. With so much love, I'll see you in the next episode, dear soul.