Love is not a feeling. It is an attitude.
Love is one of the most frequently used words of our time—and one of the least questioned. For many women, love is not a romantic feeling, but a standing order: to care, to hold, to function. It is emotional labor, care work, constant availability. And it is exhausting.
Rebecca Lina radically contradicts this idea. For her, love is not a feeling that comes and goes, but an attitude. A conscious decision. In conversation with Belle&Yell, the actress, bestselling author, and podcaster talks about why women so often confuse love with performance, why self-love has nothing to do with self-optimization – and why it is high time to say goodbye to the role of the female guardian of love.
This text is an invitation to rethink love. And to finally start with yourself.
Love as an attitude – not as an achievement
When Rebecca Lina thinks of love, she says she first thinks of a feeling. Only to correct herself a moment later. Love is not a classic emotional state, she says, but something that surrounds us. A kind of keynote that we carry through life. This perspective is crucial. Because if love is an attitude, then it is not something we have to earn. It is something we choose.
This is precisely where female exhaustion begins. Women learn early on to associate love with functioning. Love is someone who cares, organizes, balances. Women are still considered the emotional infrastructure of society – open around the clock. They hold relationships together, keep families running, balance moods – and call it love.
“Women are often in a spiral of absolute exhaustion,” says Rebecca Lina. “Because they have learned: I am lovable when I do a lot.”
The guardian trap
The idea of women as guardians of love sounds positive, almost spiritual. In reality, it is a narrative of excessive demands. Those who guard bear responsibility – for harmony, closeness, emotional stability. Above all, for that of others.
Rebecca Lina has consciously moved away from this role. She says that today she is no longer the guardian of love for everyone, but the guardian of her own love. That sounds selfish, but it’s not. It’s self-protection. Because if you constantly forget yourself, you will eventually lose not only your self-respect, but also your ability to form genuine connections.
For Rebecca, self-love does not mean mantras and scented candles. It starts with attention. With the decision not to always put yourself last. Especially in the morning, before your cell phone, messages, and expectations take over, it’s important to take a moment to be with yourself. To breathe. To feel.
That sounds esoteric. But it’s not. It’s everyday life. And a question of mental health.
Unconditional love – but please not only outwardly
As a mother, Rebecca Lina knows the experience of unconditional love very well. The love for your own child is overwhelming, she says, non-negotiable. And therein lies a contradiction that many women are familiar with. This unconditionality almost always applies only to the outside world. Many women remain strict, performance-oriented, and uncompromising toward themselves.
With children, love is never negotiable. With ourselves, it is. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why so many women are emotionally exhausted long before they are old.
For Rebecca Lina, however, love does not only mean closeness. It also means letting go. Saying goodbye. Ending. She talks about how she let go of her own company after thirteen years. A project that shaped her. “It served me well,” she says. “And then it didn’t anymore.” Letting go is not failure, but self-care – both professionally and privately.
Connection instead of exhaustion
In women’s spaces, Rebecca Lina often experiences a different quality of togetherness. Less competition, more equality, more genuine listening. Not because women are fundamentally different, but because they share similar experiences: conformity, boundary violations, invisible work.
Sisterhood is therefore not a buzzword, but an alternative to isolation, which leaves many women exhausted.
Rebecca Lina also advocates a change of perspective in the professional context. Many women work out of fear – fear of not being good enough, of not remaining visible, of not progressing quickly enough. This form of drive rarely leads to lasting success, but often to burnout. Those who work out of connection, on the other hand, remain capable of action in the long term.
In the end, Rebecca Lina reduces the concept of love to a single word: connection. Love arises where we consciously connect – with ourselves, with other people, with life in small ways. Not loudly. Not spectacularly. But sustainably.
Perhaps that is the uncomfortable truth of this conversation: self-love for women begins where we stop overlooking ourselves.
About Rebecca Lina
Rebecca Lina is an actress, bestselling author, and founder of Elfenkind Berlin. In her podcast “Liebe” (Love), she explores love as an attitude, frequency, and way of life—beyond romance and self-optimization. Her topics include self-love, body awareness, mental health, spirituality, and female creativity. Rebecca Lina lives in Berlin.
