Standards, Not Walls

Every woman I know has built something to protect herself. You have. I have. The question is what you built, and whether it actually protects you or just isolates you.

There is a difference between a wall and a standard. Most women do not know the difference until the wall they built starts keeping out the very thing they actually want. I know, because I did it. I built a wall so thick and so high that I convinced myself it was a standard. It looked like strength from the outside. From the inside, it was just fear with better marketing.

Let me explain what I mean.

A wall says: nobody gets in. A standard says: the right ones get in, and they have to earn it. A wall is built from what hurt you. A standard is built from what you learned you deserve. A wall does not ask questions. It just blocks. A standard asks one question, every time: are you what I am looking for, or are you not? One keeps you safe but alone. The other keeps you safe and open. The difference is everything.

I wrote in my first book about the philosophy that carried me through most of my life. Harder, not impossible. That phrase came from Big Mama (what we all called my grandmother), and it shaped how I saw the world from the time I was seven years old. It taught me that the road would be harder for me than for most people, and that harder was not the same as impossible. It was a way of moving through the world.

But there was a season in my life where I confused harder with closed. Where I took the lessons about being careful, being selective, being guarded, and I turned them into a fortress. I was not born with a wall. I built one. I built it brick by brick, from every disappointment, every man who wasted my time, every room that made me feel like I was lucky to be there. And then came a heartbreak so devastating that I was not sure I would ever get past it. I will not tell that story here. But I will tell you what it did. It made me stack the last bricks faster than ever, until I could not see over the top anymore.

Here is what nobody told me: a wall does not just keep out the bad. It keeps out the good too. It does not discriminate. It cannot. That is its job. You build a thing to block everything, and it blocks everything. You do not get to build a wall that only keeps out the wrong men. It does not work that way. The wall does not know the difference between a man who is wrong for you and a man who is right for you. It just sees someone trying to get close, and it does what walls do. It stops them.

I had to learn that the hard way. Not because someone broke through my wall, but because I looked around one day and realized nobody was even trying to climb it anymore. Not because I was not worth the climb. Because the wall itself told them not to bother. A wall sends a message. The message is: stay out. And the men who respect that message are usually the ones you actually want. The ones who do not respect it are the ones you do not.

That is the trap. The wall repels the good ones and attracts the ones who see a challenge. The man who respects boundaries sees your wall and backs off, because he is the kind of man who does not push where he is not wanted. The man who does not respect boundaries sees your wall and thinks, I can get through that. He does not see a standard. He sees a game. And now you have built a wall that keeps out the man who would have honored it and lets in the man who treats it like a trophy.

I am not speaking theoretically. I lost someone I loved. I will not go deep into that story here, because it is not this book's story to tell. But I will say this. When you lose someone who showed you what real love looks like, the temptation is not to never love again. The temptation is to make sure no one ever gets close enough to take that much from you again. So you build. And you call it standards. And for a while, you believe it.

But here is the thing I had to face. Standards do not come from fear. They come from clarity. If your standards are really just a list of ways to keep people out, they are not standards. They are a wall with a prettier name. Real standards are not reactive. They are intentional. They do not say "you cannot come in." They say "here is what it takes to stay."

Big Mama told me something once that I did not understand until years later. She said, "Baby, a locked door is not the same as a standard. A locked door keeps everybody out. A standard is a door you are willing to open, but only for the one who knocks the right way." I did not get it then. I get it now. And as you will see throughout this book, Big Mama had a ready saying for just about every situation you will ever face.

So here is where we start. Not with tearing down your wall today. That is not the work, and it is not safe to do it all at once. We start with something smaller. We start with naming it. Call it what it is. If what you built is a wall, say so. If what you built is a standard, say that too. But be honest. Because the woman who calls her wall a standard will spend her life wondering why the right ones never get through. And the woman who calls her standard a wall will spend her life letting people through who never should have made it past the door.

Let me be clear about something before we go further. Everyone's standards are their own. Any examples I give in this book are my personal standards. Take the principle, filter it through your own standards, and apply the lesson accordingly. I am not here to tell you what your standards should be. I am here to help you look at standards as a function, not a specific. The way you vet, the things you require, the lines you hold, those are yours to set. What I can do is show you how to set them with intention instead of fear.

The work of this book is simple. Not easy. Simple. We are going to figure out which parts of what you built are protecting you and which parts are just trapping you. We are going to turn walls into standards, brick by brick, until what stands around you is not a fortress but a line. A line that says: I know what I deserve, I know what I am looking for, and I am not afraid to hold that line. But I am also not afraid to open the door when someone worth it shows up.

Standards, not walls.

That is where we are going. Let us get started.

Standards, not walls.