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Am I Loved?

a resource for Jewish women & queer folks navigating love in hard times

Grounding · Resilience · Healing

Where are you right now?

🌿
I need to ground
Before a date, during a spiral, when the world feels loud. Let's come back to your body.
🕯
I want to build resilience
Ongoing reflection rooted in meaning, values, and what still matters to you.
🫂
Something painful happened
A date revealed bias. You hid part of yourself. You felt erased. You're not alone.
This is not a crisis resource. If you're in emotional distress or need immediate support, please reach out to a licensed therapist or contact the Crisis Text Line (text HOME to 741741) or call 988.

Developed by Paula Kirsch, LCSW, CST  ·  © 2026 All rights reserved

Am I Loved?

Grounding Practice

Let's come
back to your body.

You don't have to be calm to use this. You just have to be here. Start with your breath — it's always available, even when nothing else is.

Tap to
begin

Breathe at your own pace, or let the circle guide you.

Five Senses Check-In

Notice, don't judge. This is just observation.

👁 See

Name five things you can see right now. Let your eyes move slowly.

🤲 Touch

What does the surface beneath you feel like? Press your feet into the floor.

👂 Hear

What sounds are present? Near ones first, then further away.

👃 Smell

Take one slow breath through your nose. What's there?

💛 Anchor

You are here. You are whole. You belong to yourself first.

One Grounding Phrase

"My safety lives in me, not in their acceptance."

When you're ready — not when you feel perfectly okay, just when you're ready — you can close this and go. You've done something good for yourself today.

© 2026 Paula Kirsch, LCSW, CST  ·  All rights reserved

Am I Loved?

Resilience Practice

What still
matters to you?

Viktor Frankl wrote that meaning is not something we find — it's something we create, even in the hardest conditions. These reflections are an invitation to locate yourself in something larger than the fear.

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response."

— Viktor Frankl

What does being loved — truly loved — look and feel like to you? Not what you've settled for. What you actually want.

Name something about your Jewish or queer identity that you consider a gift — something that has given you depth, perception, or connection.

What are you protecting when you stay small or hide who you are? Is that protection still serving you?

What would you tell a younger version of yourself — the one who first learned the world could be unsafe — about love and belonging?

"The striving to find a meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man." You came here. That means something. Your desire to connect, to love, and to be loved — that is not naive. It is one of the bravest things about you.

Paraphrase, Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

© 2026 Paula Kirsch, LCSW, CST  ·  All rights reserved

Am I Loved?

Processing Together

Something happened.
Let's name it.

You don't have to minimize this or get over it quickly. The first step is just putting words to what occurred. Select what resonates — you can choose more than one.

You protected yourself. That makes sense.

Concealment is a survival strategy, not a character flaw. When someone has learned — through experience, not paranoia — that revealing their full self carries risk, hiding is a reasonable response to an unreasonable situation.

The question isn't whether you were wrong to hide. The question is whether the person in front of you has earned the real you yet. Many haven't.

A body practice for this: Place one hand on your chest. Take three slow breaths. Say quietly: "I kept myself safe. That was wise. I am still whole."

What you felt was real. That was bias.

When someone reveals prejudice — casually, defensively, or dressed up as opinion — it lands in the body before it lands in the mind. The sick feeling, the hypervigilance, the sudden calculation of how safe you are: that's not overreaction. That's wisdom.

You are not responsible for educating people who harm you. You are allowed to simply leave.

A body practice for this: Shake your hands out slowly, as if releasing something. This is literal — your nervous system responds to movement. Let the encounter leave your body before it moves into your story about yourself.

Your identity is not up for debate.

Being told your experience isn't real, your identity is a choice, or that you're too sensitive — is a form of erasure. It's disorienting on purpose, even when it isn't intended that way. You are allowed to trust your own knowing of yourself.

Other people's confusion about who you are says nothing about who you actually are.

A body practice for this: Stand with your feet hip-width apart and feel the ground. Say your own name aloud, quietly. Then say one true thing about yourself. You exist. You are specific. You are not an abstraction.

You deserved to be known, not collected.

Being someone's "interesting experience" — their Jewish girlfriend, their queer adventure — is lonelier than being alone. Your identity is not an exotic detail. It is the whole story of how you came to be the person you are. Someone who sees it as a feature hasn't met you yet.

A body practice for this: Bring to mind one person who has truly seen you — a friend, a family member, anyone. Notice what that felt like in your body. That feeling is your reference point. It exists. You've been known. That is possible for you.

You shouldn't have to choose. And yet.

The pressure to compartmentalize — to be Jewish in one room and queer in another, or to love someone whose world has no room for your community — is a real and underacknowledged grief. You are allowed to want a love that holds all of you.

That is not asking too much. That is asking exactly enough.

A body practice for this: Take one full breath for each part of yourself you felt you had to set aside today. Breathe it back in. All of it belongs to you.

The world is heavy right now. That's not in your head.

Rising antisemitism, anti-Zionism weaponized in social spaces, the grief of watching communities fracture — this is the water Jewish people are swimming in. When that enters your romantic life, the weight compounds. You're not being dramatic. The fear is proportionate.

You are still allowed to want love. The world's difficulty does not cancel your desire.

A body practice for this: Step outside for one minute if you can. Feel air on your skin. You are allowed to exist in the physical world, fully, even now.

After you've been seen

What do you need right now — not from anyone else, just from yourself?

Painful interactions leave marks. You're allowed to let this matter, and you're allowed to eventually let it move through you. Neither one cancels the other. You are someone who keeps showing up. That is not small.

If this has surfaced something deeper that needs support, please reach out to a licensed therapist or the Crisis Text Line (text HOME to 741741) or call 988.

© 2026 Paula Kirsch, LCSW, CST  ·  All rights reserved