How to Be the Love that You Need
The love you feel when someone special enters your life isn't their love.
It's yours.
When we fall in love, we are somehow able to give ourselves permission to access the love we already have in our hearts. But most of us mistake this as an external feeling given to us by another person. We feel that they complete us, that we finally belong or are accepted.
And when they leave, we feel unloved, broken, lost, and empty.
But here's the truth: The love we feel when we are connecting with a partner is actually our own love. It originates from within us. It has nothing to do with the other person. Serious!
Have you ever had a break-up that was so devastating you thought you'd never love again? But what happened when time passed? You found a new partner and you thought, "Wow, this is so familiar. I never thought I'd feel like this again!"
It's familiar, comfortable, and juicy because it's YOU. It's your essence. It's from your own heart. You're recognising you.
No partner gives us love. We simply project it onto another person, and they mirror it back to us. Tricky, right? It makes us think the love we feel is coming from them, but that would be like looking in the mirror and thinking, "Man, I wish I looked like that person." It's YOU, ya dolt!
Thanks to modern social conditioning, our brains need an external trigger in order to give us permission to feel love. This is why we usually only feel in love when we are interacting with another, special person, and why Hollywood tells us we need to find Mr or Mrs Right before we can find complete happiness.
When we are in a relationship or crushing on someone, our brain gives us permission to access the love component of our being and our heart-centres shine open. But the relationship isn't the source of this love. It's simply the trigger that tells our brains, "Ok! Now!"
Society tells us love is allowed to radiate when two people fall for each other. But we can't wait for love to be given to us from an external source because it doesn't come from there! When we understand that love stems from us, we can change the story.
We are the Love we Feel
We are 100% pure divine love. Seriously. Ask any spiritual guru and or religious academic and they will tell you that Oneness and Source Energy is 100% love, which we are all a part of. Since it's us, it's ready for us to access 24-7! We just need to side-step the conditioning that tells us the myth that only when another person is giving us love can we feel it.
This is really good news. It means that with mindfulness and understanding we can access the juiciest version of the unconditional love we crave, with or without a partner in our lives! And we can feel inspired, creative, uplifted, and in a state of honeymoon-bliss with ourselves -- permanently!
It also means we can share this feeling abundantly and confidently with our partners, friends, and family, never having to fear being left, broken, empty, or let down in love again.
And here's the bonus: We don't have to create love - it's already here. We don't have to learn how to love ourselves. We are love, ourselves! It's simply a matter of bypassing the brain's limiting beliefs that say we need an external trigger in order to love ourselves.
How?
TRY THIS:
Sit quietly.
Remember the last time you fell in love with someone. Maybe you're in love with someone today, maybe not. Bring up a love you felt for a crush or a partner or a spouse from the past or present. You can even bring up the feelings you desire to have with a future partner. Bring up whatever makes you feel in love.
Now focus solely on the feeling. Got it? You can let go of the person you relate the feeling with. You don't have to forget them or get over them. I simply mean that you are focussing on the feelings of love right now, and not any other person. It's about you today.
The goal is to feel your favourite version of "in love" as we begin to change the brain's pathways.
Gather up all the feels: the infatuation, the creativity, the warm butterflies in your tummy. Gather up the giggles, the joy, the bursting with excitement. Gather the wholeness, the feeling of belonging, the feeling of being valued.
However it is you feel, felt, or want to feel love, pull it up now and revel in it.
Now imagine all of these feelings combining to form a spiral-galaxy that originates from the Big Bang that is your heart. Give your galaxy some colour and texture, and watch as it begins to pulse and rotate.
In your mind's eye, begin to see the galaxy of love pulsing bigger and bigger. Watch as it radiates out from your chest and expands to every inch of your body. A universe of love is within you.
Feel the feeling of new love as it ignites through every cell, every body part, every inch of your skin.
Feel belonging spark across the tops of your ear lobes.
Feel giggles trickle down each strand of your hair, infusing each follicle with your unique and juicy version of love.
Feel unconditional running down your neck, and acceptance stroking your back.
Feel joy forming buoyant planets in your stomach.
Feel happiness spiral down your legs and in melt into pools of radiant bliss between your toes.
In your head, while you visualise this over and over, repeat:
"I am this love. This love is me. I am love. This love is who I am."
Visualise love - your version of love - throughout your entire body again and again. Let a smile shine across your face as you begin to develop the awareness that this love is you. It is who you are!
Everything you've ever looked for - the good feelings, the belonging, the infatuation, acceptance and unconditional love - is already you!
And it has been you all along.
It was never him. It was never her.
It's who you are beneath all the conditioning.
It is who you will forever be.
No one will take this away, and you cannot lose it.
"I am this love. This love is me."
Do this every day when you wake up in the morning, and do it again when feel you have forgotten who you really are.
Begin to believe that you no longer need to look for love - because you are love. You're the perfect version of the love you've been seeking. You can share it abundantly with whoever you choose... without desperately looking for it in return.
Because it's already yours.
Words by Marisa Falconi