In this two-part, soul-stretching episode of Thuli Talks, Thuli opens her heart wide to explore one of the most misunderstood truths about love: real love is not supposed to hurt. But sometimes, when you grow up surviving chaos, you confuse struggle for loyalty, pain for passion, and turbulence for intensity.

Thuli takes you on a deeply personal journey — one where she admits something many of us are scared to say out loud:
“I was so used to toxic, inconsistent, painful love… that I didn’t know how to receive safe love. I didn’t know how to trust softness.”

💗 PART 1: Romantic Love — Choosing Softness Over Survival

In this first half, Thuli reflects on how her past shaped her definition of love, how normalised struggle became, and how her heart was trained to brace for impact instead of receiving care. She shares how her current relationship gently challenged her wounds, offering her something she never had before: safe love, consistent love, learning love, soft love.

She speaks about:

• mistaking chaos for chemistry
• confusing anxiety for connection
• why peace felt unfamiliar
• and how her partner’s presence helped her grow, heal, and redefine what love should feel like

This isn’t a fairy tale — it’s a testimony. A reminder that soft love is real, safe love is possible, and you deserve love that doesn’t require you to shrink, bleed, or fight to be chosen.

🤝 PART 2: Friendships — When Community Becomes Either Soft or Struggle Love

Love isn’t only romantic, and Thuli goes deeper by exploring friendships — the ones that felt like home, and the ones that drained her soul. She opens up about:

• friendships that were built on trauma bonding
• friendships that expected emotional labour but never gave it back
• friendships that equated loyalty with suffering
• and the power of friendships that feel soft, safe, and honest

She reflects on how friendship breakups can hurt more than romantic ones, how we outgrow even the people we love, and how choosing soft love also means choosing friendships that don’t drain your spirit.

💬 A Conversation for Anyone Relearning Love

This two-part episode gently guides listeners through:

• how to recognise when love has become struggle
• how to embrace healthy relationships without sabotaging them
• how to stop romanticising pain
• how to choose softness again and again
• and how to create a life where love doesn’t feel like survival

Filled with personal stories, emotional honesty, scriptural grounding, and gentle encouragement, this episode is for anyone healing from toxic patterns, learning to trust again, or rediscovering themselves in soft spaces.

💖 Final Message

This episode is an invitation — to release struggle love, accept safe love, nurture soft friendships, and remember:
Love will stretch you, but it should never break you.
Love will challenge you, but it should never consume you.
Love should make you better — not smaller.

Welcome to Thuli Talks. Let’s talk about when love shouldn’t hurt.