Do We Really Need To Love Ourselves To Attract In Love?
Image: Sam Hiscox
We hear the advice that before we can let in love we have to first love ourselves, all the time. While obviously well-meaning, this advice can cause us to doubt whether we deserving of real love (and capable of drawing it into our lives) even if we don’t yet have the best relationship with ourselves. Let’s break this down.
To have something greater in our lives, we need to believe we are deserving of more. You might be able to attract something greater into your life even if you don’t feel deserving of it — whether that be a sum of money or a certain person — but chances are you will not be able to keep it because self-sabotage will kick in.
Self-sabotage is really just self-protection. It’s a reaction to not feeling safe with a certain feeling or experience. If subconsciously you have beliefs such as:
When you trust people, they let you down
Opening your heart leads to hurt; or
I’m not good enough as I am
then your subconscious will do whatever it can to ensure it keeps you safe from feeling those feelings.
This is what causes us to make seemingly irrational choices, which actually make complete sense when we understand it’s just a protection mechanism. For example, we say we want a relationship but we keep ourselves closed off or we keep making time for people who are wrong for us (people who are emotionally unavailable, who we’re not really attracted to, who we can’t be with etc) because it feels safer than the possibility of truly being seen and loved for who we are.
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In The Four Agreements Don Miguel Ruiz writes: “the limit of your self-abuse is exactly the limit that you will tolerate from someone else. If someone abuses you a little more than you abuse yourself, you will probably walk away from that person. But if someone abuses you a little less than you abuse yourself, you will probably stay in the relationship and tolerate it endlessly.”
These words have always stuck with me, but I would extend them even further:
The level of emotional avoidance we have with ourselves, determines how much emotional avoidance we accept from another person (e.g. mixed signals, ghosting, lack of commitment).
The level of self-rejection we carry, determines how much rejection we accept from another person.
The level at which we ignore our own needs, determines how much we let others ignore our needs; and so on.
This is why it is so important to look honestly at our patterns and beliefs, and to start cultivating self-love and deservingness. If we don’t, we’ll simply keep attracting and settling for situations that do not serve us. We’ll keep getting lessons, rather than the real thing.
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But here’s what’s also true: we don’t need to be in a state of complete self-acceptance and self-love for the right things to come to us. We can still have insecurities, fears and self-doubts and draw into our lives an incredible and healthy relationship.
I remember a few instances in the early stages of dating my partner where I had some insecurities and triggers come up. I look at these situations as a blessing in disguise because 1) I had to learn to communicate how I was feeling rather than just shutting down or becoming defensive 2) It allowed me to see how my partner responded to conflict and how he responded my feelings (not just the ‘positive’ ones) 3) It reinforced my sense of self-worth because I was willing to walk away if my needs and boundaries were not being respected.
We are relational creatures so some of the deepest healing we can experience comes from being in a relationship and from being seen and heard by the person we’re with. We don’t need to come into a relationship radiating self-love and positivity, but we do need to start feeling that we are deserving of what we want (I deserve consistency, I deserve something real, I deserve to be seen for who I am, etc.). And, we need to be willing to let go of anything that falls short of this.
If you are done playing out the same old dynamics and want to connect with the love you are deserving of, I invite you to our self-paced workshop on The Energetics of Love + Partnerships. This workshop is designed to help you access your most clear and empowered version of self through a combination of breathwork, self-inquiry and enegetics. Download the free 6-page guide here and learn about the 7 love and relationship archetypes that we delve further into in the workshop.
—Kat