You’ve found it! You’ve finally found it… Love… You’ve been dating for a few weeks now, it all seems great, the attraction between you is great, the sex is great, new and exciting. You ask lots of questions and become intrigued by each other. This is so exciting, a chance to be with someone and to not have to be alone any more.

But wait…… Do I deserve this love? Am I good enough? What if I lose them? I mustn’t let them in my heart, they might see inside me and realise I’m not as confident as I seem, I have secrets in my soul. No! They can’t see that. I’ll keep them at arm’s length, but I wouldn’t want to lose them.. I’ll do anything to hold onto them. This is my chance for love. But I’m so scared to let go.

This is the internal struggle we are having in our relationships. They are based on fear. The fear of opening our hearts, the fear of being hurt, the fear of rejection, the fear of having it all and then losing it all.

Now in this fear, your relationships with others become tainted – full of dishonesty, your hearts are closed off, you become possessive and controlling.

Or it goes in another direction, you become needy, attached, the “be nice syndrome” appears, being nice to get something back such as validation, approval, sex, doing anything for them just so they stay in your life. Pleasing others in anyway you can.

In this mindset we can’t truly give in the relationship because we are making it about ourselves. Everything we are doing is to protect ourselves. To not lose out, to not feel pain.

We want to be loved, that’s our deepest desire above all else. But we don’t know how to love ourselves and we don’t know how to love others.

We certainly don’t want to let others know that our desire is to be loved, no.

So we put our guards up, we get angry, we control, we push our insecurities onto the people we think we “love”.

Because surely if you don’t do these things, they will then see you are vulnerable, they might be able to see inside your heart and if this happens they will have power over you, you have then surrendered yourself to them.

You are scared of the pain this might bring. Or you are scared that the pain you have felt before will come again. It was too much, you feel you must push it down, so you feel nothing, your heart goes cold.

So what’s missing? Why are our relationships turning out this way? Why do they start with good intentions and eventually become toxic and sour?

The answer is this –

Love is missing.

Real love is kindness for all, real love isn’t just for someone you have one day found attractive and let into your life.

Love is for yourself so that your inner love can overflow to everyone you encounter in your day to day, it’s for your friends, your family and of course it’s for your partner too.

Trust happens easily when love is there. Without fear trust becomes natural, you give freedom to your partner and freedom to yourself.

Real love happens when you are courageous, real love happens when fear drops, real love happens when you are vulnerable, when you allow your insecurities, pains and fears to come forward and show themselves to the world.

Love happens when you open your heart, love happens when you surrender.

If you are in a state of control you are not coming from love, it’s not possessive, possession is for things, not people. Love can’t exist if you are projecting fear and trying so hard to hold onto people, manipulating them to stay in your life.

Love also isn’t there when you are scared to really give without needing anything back.

People are nice to each other yes, but being nice isn’t enough, in this niceness there is a conscious or unconscious need to get something back from what you are giving, and that isn’t love. Because since when is being nice on the condition of getting something back love? It can be felt by the other, it feels unnatural and they will start to repel from your nice ways. Love has no condition.

Real love is kindness, unconditional. There is no catch, you just keep giving no matter what comes back to you, because you’re whole already. You have everything you need.

Real love for others, comes from loving yourself, from accepting yourself as you are.

It comes when you can love and care for yourself, putting your needs first.

Real love comes when you care for another’s heart as much as if it were your own, it comes from empathy, compassion, it comes from sharing.

Love is something you are, not something you find in another.

Overflow with love and it will reflect back at you.

Let’s be courageous and love unconditionally, each moment is a chance for love to shine through.

It’s your choice.