“Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~Rumi
Have you ever wondered if there is such a thing as true love, like in the good old movies of Casablanca or The Notebook? Maybe you’ve found your true love. Or perhaps you’re still searching.
When I was a teenager, I was mesmerized by this dream that someday there would be someone who would love me so unconditionally that he would literally die for me. After all, you see that all the time in the movies.
After the tangible basics of food and water, love is our most essential need for surviving and thriving as living beings. We first experience love through our parents when we’re young. This lays the basic foundation for our growth and journey in life.
Since I was unable to recall being loved or shown any affection as a child, I held onto this dream that someday, somewhere, someone would truly love me. Subconsciously, this underlying desperate craving and desire for love drove all my relationships.
I expected romantic relationships to fill a spot deep inside me where there was a colossal empty hole. Whenever I fell in love, my heart would open up totally and engulf the other with an ocean of love. But my love came with a condition, that they should and would love me back unconditionally.
I’d asked my first true love once, “Why do you love me?”
He replied,“Because you love me so unbelievably much, I can’t not love you.”
That was my dream come true, or so I thought. I ended up marrying my true love, had three beautiful children, and committed diligently to a roller coaster ride of a nineteen-year marriage.
My marriage of true love had intense polarities similar to my emotions and mental states. I would swing from divine happiness when he met my expectations to the crushing and wrenching of my heart when my needs remained unfulfilled.
To avoid painful conflicts, I trended toward being accommodating and then slowly progressed into being passive and abject—just to make sure I would always have his love.
We shouldn’t let another person or event define our sense of self and worth, for this places us into the role of the lesser or the victim. When we play that role, then obviously we will attract or sustain relationships that will mutually fulfill that role.
This passive submission became quite natural for me, as my sense of worth was totally defined by my husband. I thought I knew he loved me, so I would do anything to maintain his approval and love.
The dynamics of our relationship remained such over the course of our marriage until I started to heal from my childhood past and my true self started to emerge.
Gradually as my true self of worth, esteem, and courage started to take shape, I started to look for respect and mutual understanding. This challenged my husband’s passive controlling role, and we started to drift apart.
Divergence toward opposite poles led to differences in values, interests, and wavelengths until our soul connection died a slow death and we eventually parted ways. I used to cry myself to sleep, alone, on most nights. My true love was not as real or lasting as I thought.
Later, I met a beautiful African drummer who freed my spirit, as his music would touch and fill that colossal hole that was still there. His exotic, handsome looks and charming manners made me feel like I was the most important and beautiful woman in the world. Again, I poured my heart open and gave all my conditional love.
In the early part of any relationship, we can be blinded to the true nature of the person if our internal lack and need form our filters of perception. We will only see what we seek to find, and the other will consciously or unconsciously reflect what we crave and need.
As our relationship progressed, I started to see his true colors.
My African god wanted me to marry him as a free ticket into my country as much as I wanted unconditional love in return. He played on my neediness for love by using demanding and chauvinistic behaviors to control me.
I ended that relationship promptly and spent weeks nursing the pain and tears of a broken heart. Why was I not able to find someone to love me as much as I loved them? That was all I wanted in life, to be loved unconditionally.
If we love from the place of lack, no person or event can ever fill that hole. Moving from one person to another might change the scene and scenario, but eventually the same conflict, issues, and imperfections will surface again.
A few years later I went on a trekking trip to the Nepal Himalayas and fell in love with a mountaineer and his quiet strength.
In him, I sensed the spirit of the mountains and the freedom of his soul. He carried within him the peace and calm that filled my colossal hole again. In him, I experienced tenderness and wholeness.
He carried my photo with him to the summit of highest mountain in the world. No man had ever declared such extent of love for me. I was certain this was true love. But alas, he was a married man. So the only love that I thought was true love was not to be had.
This was the most devastating pain since my marriage ended. I knew that true love simply did not exist, or if it did, I didn’t deserve it.
In deep grieving I wept, curled up for days in bed, and slinked back into the hole of despair. Without love, this life was void. It was like breathing without air and living without a heartbeat.
In the depth of that suffocating pain, my soul was stripped bare, and in that totally exposed and vulnerable state, I surrendered to life. In the total surrender, acceptance held me within the pain and hopelessness. And I slept.
Over the days that followed, a peace emerged, and then as spontaneous as the sun can shine again after the clouds have moved, something shifted within me.
I was already present there as unconditional love itself. Unconditional love for the imperfect me, the hurting, lost, unloved child; the desperate woman I had grown to be, who sought for the definition of my worth through everyone else but myself.
I thought I would find it in another human being who would be the love of my life because I never had it from my parents. I craved unconditional love but I never loved unconditionally because I never knew it in myself.
When I dropped the search and surrendered, it simply unfolded. I realized my true love had been right here all along, within me. It was me, in my purest form, when all my layers of pain and perceptions had dropped. There was no more hole, for I had found my true and divine love, and this love now overflows not from lack but from abundance.
So if you’re still searching or wondering what true love is, know that it’s right here within you. It’s your purest essence—unconditional love for yourself and for others.
Heart in clouds image via Shutterstock
About Patsie Smith
Patsie Smith is a spiritual author, self-healing and self-realization facilitator, meditation and yoga teacher. She can be connected at www.spiritpond.com.
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 
This article was beautiful! This is what I need. Sometime I feel empty about myself and I don’t know my own worth. I have a guy who loves me but I want to be able to love myself but it’s a journey for me. Thank you for the article. It what I needed to start my day!
Glad the article resonated with you, Joy 🙂 Many best wishes for your journey. Love is such a beautiful thing, even more so when it’s an overflow from our own fullness. Blessings!
Somewhat resonates for me. I craved for love and attention, from parents, siblings, grandparents, relatives, friends…but never found it. I tried to please everyone, just so I would be loved. I do that with my husband because I want approval. But over the last few years, it has been draining, exhausting exercise. I feel used, not loved when I go against my instinct and do something just to make someone happy, so I feel appreciated and loved.
Have to start working on ‘self-love’. thank you for this lovely article.
You’re most welcomed. I know the feeling, around in circles, chasing and looking, when all along it actually begins right here within. Sending you lots of love so the love from within you can start to blossom 🙂
Thank you 🙂
After a half-century of never-enough love, given or received, I feel now even emptier though more mindful and aware that the love I have now has in some way kept me from
Dear Paolo some love stay with you forever, this life and more. I am very sorry for your loss. This life and death is but just one doorway. Unconditional self-love is not ego self-love or survival self-love, it comes from the shift and realization of a truly greater reality of love that transcends all boundaries including life and death. May you come to continue to realize That love within your pain and survival, and That love to encompass your letting go. Sending you love and peace… thank you for sharing and being open.
Just beautiful and something so close to home. My stories are different but the essence is the same. I’m sure it will hit home with lots of people. Very beautifully written!
Thank you Joyce, for your kind words. Blessings!
i’ve been with a guy for almost three years i acted like his wife…gave him all my love but found out just now that he was just using me all those years…i’ve been looking for true love but seems like i haven’t found it 🙁 i think you’re right i need to love myself first.thanks for the article!
Such a beautiful article! Allthough i’ve read lots of great articles on Tinybuddha this is the first time I felt the need to reply, because the article touched me so much it made me cry. I feel like i’m on a constant search for true love but can’t seem to find it. I feel like I need the love and approval of another person to feel whole. I know that I’m the one that can fill the emptiness inside me and that I should learn to love myself first but it’s really challenging to learn this. Hopefully one day I’ll learn to love myself enough so I don’t need any unhealthy relationships anymore.
Oh. Your reply surprises me. I appreciate your thoughtful words. You speak from a level of awareness I cannot relate to. Yet I believe that my sharing with you (and with others before) has helped me get closer to that ‘transcendent’ realm, as you call it. Yes, life and death for me too are lesser realities but life as is now, as I experience it in the moment and have experienced it in many more moments, is an obstacle. My existence, perhaps, my consciousness help whomever/whatever (perhaps). Or there may be no sense at all, nothing to seek, nothing to find. Unconditional self-love you call it, don’t you? That which gets one closer to transcendence. Fascinating. Your words reawaken long earned (and lost) awareness. This life and more.
Our true essence never dies, for it was never born. As souls we connect for the purpose of learning, growth and evolution toward ultimate union of true self within. If I may be permitted to impart, you and your dear loved one have connected always and will again in physical realities if there are still evolving and resolution to be done for both. But in true essence beyond physical, you are always connected, even now, for this physical existence is only but one dimension of reality. If I may also add, letting go with peace doesn’t mean letting go of love, for true love is never bounded. Our biggest lesson and growth in letting go is the transcended love, for it is such that each soul can be free to evolve further on their path, and not bounded by attachment. .May you continue to know and connect with that love that is real to you both, that is not confined by the physical. But to know and do this, you have to release yourself from the confinement of the physical pain. Blessings and Light to you…
Started out good until she fell in love with a married man. Then the words came to mind “hot mess.” Another lost soul with the oh so often realization that all along Dorothy had the power to go home, it was within her. No need for the Wizard of Oz. Yawn. Here is a tip: if a guy is in a relationship or married and he is doing you on the side, its not love. Its sex & he/she is using you or mentally unstable (“trying to find themselves”). Period. This is common sense. And yes I lack compassion.
Thank you for your feedback Patries. I’m touched that the article resonated so deeply with you. Sending you light and love that your quest may begin inward instead of outward, to the source of that true love, which will then naturally blossom into attracting the right other to share your abundance. Blessings!
This was so well written and beautifully expressed. I feel a little less alone just reading these words and remembering I am not the only one who travels this difficult journey of self-love. I have learned some hard lessons the last few years – the biggest one was to not base my self-worth on how much someone loves me or desires me. I didn’t even realize I had done that until those two things were taken from me. It resulted in my world crushing around me and my marriage being changed forever. I wanted to be loved and desired more than anyone else – to the degree where no one else but me mattered. I wanted to be loved the way I love. I am still grieving the loss of that dream. I thought I had it and was ridiculously happy for 20 years and then all of a sudden it was gone. I am trying to learn how to let go of that dream, without losing my love for my husband. It may be the greatest challenge of my life. Thank you for sharing your story.
You’re welcomed Naneth, I’m sorry for how you’ve been hurt in your relationship. Pain and adversities can be turned into our nuggets for growth and transformation. I’m glad some words spoke to you. Light and Blessings for your new journey within 🙂
BEAUTIFUL post!!!! So raw, vulnerable, and intense! Hit home for me, thank you for sharing your lessons learned, and wonderful insight! Awesome 🙂
Yes indeed Amanda it’s common sense 🙂 Yet one who is ignorant and so lost and blinded as I was, failed and simply couldn’t even see it at the time. Not initially anyway, blinded by my own lack. But excuses aside, there were huge soul lessons for us both through that connection. And there was a higher purpose for that brief connection that is very clear to me now, from my current level of awareness. A lot of things in life are never just black and white, and only those in a relationship knows exactly what shades of grey they may be. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Thank you Amanda for your kind feedback. Thanks for sharing your story and struggle. Sending you Light for the creation of a new dream, from a more restored and centered heart 🙂
THank you for your kind words, happy you enjoyed it 🙂 Blessings to you!
oh thank you for the reply didn’t expect it 🙂 you’re article touch my heart and made me cry…i wish i will be strong like you
Loved the article! I can relate in more ways than one. My parents, especially my father was very distant and cold. He never once said I love you to me. I’m in my early 30’s now and as I get older the love I have for myself grows deeper. I still struggle with self-esteem and self-confidence issues, but definitely not like when I was in my twenties. I went from one abusive relationship to another. I finally “woke up” and stopped dating so that I can focus and love myself and my life before I can love anyone else. Thanks so much. I enjoyed the read. 🙂
That strength is already there within you, you’ll just have to come to realize it 🙂 Find your true self… love to you
Thanks for sharing your story. I can defintely see the truth in what you’re saying as I am working my way through something similar at the moment. Yesterday it dawned on me to ask myself ‘what can I give’ instead of ‘what am I getting’ when I feel doubts about my relationship. For me, that question led me to recognize that I have a lot to give regardless of whether or how it’s being returned, and that I shouldn’t stop offering love just because it’s not responded to in the way that I’m hoping.
Thank you for this article. I am always asking myself why I am still single. I have been for 3 years and I have been celibate for over 2 years. I feel very lonely and I miss the affection and the intimacy but lately I feel shut down, I feel numb and I haven’t had any interest in anyone. I guess you could say that I am very frustrated, And I have been working on myself but it gets difficult sometimes. I feel like I am missing out on so much.
I don’t even think I will ever get married because I am not an easy person to live with. I am not the type of woman who is a hopeless romantic. I think I am difficult to love. Every relationship I have been in has ended with the guy giving up on me. Now I guess I am scared to get into another one because I have no idea if the next person will accept me the way that I am. I know this sounds sad. But your article really got me thinking.
thank you!!!
Dear Talya, as human beings we’re all wired for love, affection and intimacy. But romantic love is very different to true love. True love emerges from knowing, confronting and working into our own lack toward our innate wholeness. Then romantic love becomes not a need or fear, but an overflow and by-product. You are totally worthy of love provided you fully realize that in yourself. “I think I am difficult to love” “if the next person will accept me for what I am” if I may be permitted to add, perhaps turn it around and look into “do I find it difficult to love myself” “do I accept myself as I am” I love a quote I heard somewhere once. ‘Attend to your own garden first, and then the bees will come own their own’. I might add, and the bees are just right for the flowers 🙂 Blessings and love to you for your journey..
Thanks for sharing your words too Daniel. It’s so beautiful! Such a beautiful shift for you, I can feel it from over here 🙂 Unconditional giving is so healing, rewarding and comes back tenfold, provided we’re giving from the space of genuine compassion and fullness, and not from lack, like I used to 🙂 Blessings to you!
You’re most welcomed. Thank you Kelly for sharing about your journey. You’ve come very far indeed! many Blessings and love sent your way for your continued blossoming on your right soulful path… the more your inner soul grows, the more self-esteem and self-confidence will naturally result, and the ‘right’ person will come along 🙂
Thanks a lot Patsie. Had a horrible day fighting with my inner demons, worrying about my relationship (where did our love go?) and feeling terrible in general. Your article came as a wonderful gift. Thank you so much!
Beautifully written and absolutely true!! Self-love was the key to finally finding happiness for me, after many failed attempts to find “true love” and fill that hole in myself! After not finding my own true love (MYSELF) until I was 40, I’m trying to impart this idea to my daughter while she’s still young. Thanks for sharing your life lessons and connecting with so many!
Thank you so much for sharing your story! I am in the process of recovering from my childhood and a love-less parent. Sometimes it feels I’m alone in my journey, so I so appreciate your words. I’m learning to give myself that unconditional love.
Patsie I almost cried reading this. I have pretty similar experience. Growing up in a family that lacks love from parents, constant fighting, abusive father, non calm communication. I found myself desperately looking for unconditional true love. But yet constantly failing because not realizing true love is within myself. From my past 2 relationship, they are both great guys. I was just not satisfied. Need assurance all the time. Insecure. Testing their love all the time. Throw a lot of negativity into relationship. Pushing them away. They got tired and fed up. Its really sad. I was the one that sabotaged the relationship. It was like I didnt believe I was lucky enough to have that love.
Hope I can learn from this. Next relationship i can let it grow with abundance.
I loved your article and was moved by your story, thank you so much for sharing this.
You’re welcomed KC, glad it resonated. As you heal from your childhood pains and lack, your unconditional love will naturally reveal. Move and Blessings!
You’re most welcomed, am touched that it resonated 🙂 Blessings!
Dear Korikorihi isn’t that funny how so many of us share similar vulnerabilities and sometimes journeys that are quite similar and different as well. Indeed true love can only come when we know it within, are worthy of it, and attract it ourselves. Through childhood wounds, if I may say,from not having love, we will come to realize our own true love. For the reality is, even our parents are not the source of true love. Blessings and Light for your journey toward abundance…
Thank you for your kind words SSmiles. I can relate too, as have two daughters of my own. Though very conscious and in tuned young people, often I’ve found myself having to step back at times and respect their own soul and life journeys and lessons as well, while being there for them. Blessings!
You’re welcomed Monika. Hope the words find their own way to speak to you as they’re meant to. Sending you Light and peace…
Dear Patsie,
So glad to see many comments on this posting. I love how you write from your heart, with wisdom, and with truth.You respond with compassion and kindness.
I was pretty fortunate that I didn’t feel the overcoming need and desire to fine “the One”, in regards to romantic love. I just happened to get lucky and have been with my guy for 30 years.
Friendships, not so lucky. I’ve never had more than three people that I would have called “best friends” at any given time in my life. I only had one person my age to play with as a young child. I learned early on how to be by myself, but I wanted to be wanted by the other kids in school. That missing part…College finally connected me with some great ladies. Eventually we all got married, moved away, lost touch…. lost myself in raising my kids. When I was working, people at work weren’t interested in socializing. I was always searching, searching for some friend to be “the One” friend. This went on for 20 years….
About 5 years ago, I had figured out that I needed to look inward. Searched the internet, ended up starting a new life journey and learned to love my true self. I’ve met some spectacular 😉 people on line who are on their own journeys like me. I am content to know that I am fine, just as I am.
Dear Stella, so beautiful, thanks for sharing your journey with us. So at peace and content, and now your world is flourishing 🙂 Many continued Blessings!
I saw myself quite a bit in this article too. One thing I have learned through trying to get the love I give reciprocated is to ask for my needs to be met. I guess I had an unspoken list of “rules” for “If you love me the way I love you, you would do this…” and my partner had no idea. I experienced so much grief for the ways my love wasn’t reciprocated, but stayed with my partner because I loved him so much. I realized this grief was my way of letting go of these unfair expectations. If I speak up, make a request, it can be turned down, but if I don’t express it at all, I can’t blame him for not reading my mind or behaving as I felt a lover should. At first it was very hard to speak up, and very hard to even know what I wanted, but I began by stopping before giving any favor (as I was very willing to do as my demonstration of love) to consider why I was doing this favor, and what I may be expecting in return. Then I started asking what he would do in return before granting a requested favor. It felt awkward and petty, but after awhile, my partner has at least become more aware of my needs and what he can do as a partner. More importantly, I’ve begun to learn that I have needs, and they deserve to be addressed. It’s not a matter of who loves who more, but of knowing what I want and speaking up. I’ve also learned to separate love from behavior and personality, and realize that someone can love me very much without showing me that love in the way I want to receive it. It hurts, but it also helps to realize that I am loved by my partner and my family, and it’s up to me to figure out how to get these needs met if their love isn’t in the form I want it.
I have my one true love and yet something was still missing. I didn’t love myself unconditionally. When I learned to accept and let go I finally realized that the love I needed was my own.
We all journey to find our truth, our authentic selves and mistakes will be made along the way. I was impressed that your responses to such judgments about your mistakes were so compassionate and full of love. That shows real character.
Thank you MJ for your feedback and sharing of your almost similar journey of learning and growth. Indeed our journeys are filled with imperfections to lead us to wholeness. As much as I hold everyone in the space of compassion, that can only come from holding myself within that compassionate and higher understanding. Judgements come from the limitations of the mind. I sense peace in your words, sending you continued Blessings and love ! 🙂
Thanks for sharing your insights Jackie. Most certainly the closest relationships in our lives helps us grow in the deepest possible way. You sound like your healthy relationships are progressing together toward such growth, because of your vigilant self-awareness. True words, know our wants and needs, then stay true to them. Blessings to you!
Thanks for sharing dear Patsie. Well, I am just the opposite. I’d always known that there weren’t any true love, or unconditional love, so I’ve always loved myself the most. The so-called romantic love for me was always shoot-lived, it lasted maximum, maybe for six months , so I consider myself quite calculative and selfish. But your story makes me wonder again that it seems only (or most of the time) through severe suffering do people suddenly experience a conscious shift. Can’t we just happily realise ourself, find our true self?
Wow. Thank-you for sharing your story to help other people. That is really beautiful.
You’re welcomed Shannelle, thank you for reading it! 🙂 Blessings!
Dear Pui Wing, interesting question… often it is through brokenness we can come to be whole. Somehow the truth of polarities at play. Without pain perhaps we can’t see the joy, without lows we may not know the highs. It is by being fragmented we can come to be whole, that is already the course we have taken when we decided to take existence in physical form on this journey of physical existence that inevitably involves separation and suffering in some form or other. I don’t think you’re selfish at all, perhaps it’s self-preservation?! Love and Light to you 🙂