“If you don’t love yourself, you’ll always be looking for someone else to fill the void inside you, but no one will ever be able to do it.” ~Lori Deschene
Two years ago, I sat in my basement with tears streaming down my face. I had just found a copy of an old letter I’d written to an old boyfriend years before. In it, I was practically begging for his love, and also complaining and even shaming him for not loving me well.
As I read, I was overcome by three insights, all of which brought up big emotions:
The first was that for well over the first half of my life, I had been so hungry for love, so needy for it, that in this and subsequent relationships, including my first marriage, I created a lot of pain and discord.
I was so desperate to feel loved that I constantly focused on how I wasn’t being cared for enough, how my current romantic partner was not loving me right.
Then I’d try to get him to do better by complaining, criticizing, having multiple-hour long talks explaining what I wanted, and crying to him so he’d see how deeply I needed his love and he’d finally change and give me the adoration I so wanted–which inevitably , disconnection, and feeling less loved and connected!
The second insight was that I did all of this because I simply didn’t love myself well. So the only way I could feel the love I needed (because we all need love) was from outside—which made it my partner’s job to fill that emptiness inside me. (I have since learned this is not a job anyone wants to do for too long, as it becomes burdensome, exhausting, and restricting, nor are many people well-equipped to do it!)
My big tears really came from this second insight. And such deep compassion for that old me. Tears of forgiveness, tears of
people
liking
feelings
