Every Love Story Becomes a Lesson in Self-Love

I was in my early twenties when my grandmother told me: “Be careful not to miss your chance—remember, you only love twice in your life.”

Wait, what? There’s a limited number of chances to love?

This was the first time I heard someone say we only have a limited certain number of opportunities to love. Although I didn’t agree with her , part of me wondered:

“What if she’s right? What if you really only love twice and I’ve already had my first chance?”

This idea silently shaped new beliefs in me - beliefs that didn’t always serve me well. As those beliefs grew, so did my expectations for my partners and relationships.

First Love and the Belief It Will Last Forever

Loving for the first time is wild, sincere, often reckless, led by the heart with very little logic. When it ends and you go your separate ways, you're convinced you'll experience a love like that again. And in reality, you're not wrong.

That kind of love, you won't have again. A different kind - the one that reveals even greater depths of your emotions - certainly, we will. When a relationship ends, no advice can truly ease the pain. The last thing you want to hear is that you’ll love again.

You don’t believe the sadness will ever pass. The pain hits you not just emotionally, but physically too. It feels impossible to shake off and you're afraid to fully feel it. After all, who really wants to feel that kind of pain so consciously at that age?

How You Love Yourself is How Others Will Love You

The relationships we enter after our first serious one depends on our level of awareness. We can only love others as much as we have learned to love ourselves.

If we’re unaware and enter relationships as such, we tend to be attracted to what's visible on the surface. What we see, combined with our expectations and our desire to feel loved, shines with the brightest (but often false) glow.

When we enter relationships fueled by hope, expectations, longing - we almost inevitably meet our wounded, shy, scared and neglected parts of ourselves. Time and experiences illuminate our illusions. Not just illusions about romantic relationships, but also those about who we are.

Self-love is a foundation for understanding all the relationships we build. It's a big challenge to love ourselves and even bigger one to realize that’s exactly what we’re missing.

Only when the lack of self-love manifests in the relationships we build, we notice which parts of ourselves we haven't fully accepted and cared for yet.

Relationships That Strip Away Our Illusions

After - and often during - intense relationships full of emotional triggers, we lose sight of ourselves and who we thought we were.

We tend to remember relationships that left a mark, even if they were short-lived. Complicated ones that unfolded away from everyone's eyes. Relationships where we found ourselves in a triangle, fighting to prove "we’re worth more than the other person.” Relationships that repeated the same patterns, where the showing us that old habits still ruled.

What do all these relationships have in common? They are “mirror” relationships, showing us where we hold ourselves back. They force us to see where we lacked healthy boundaries and why we settled for what we did. These partnerships shine a light on our unhealed wounds, childhood needs that went unmet and scars that never truly healed.

How Long Will We Keep Repeating Emotional Patterns?

The simple truth: until we learn to love ourselves. Self-love should be the most natural thing, something we don’t need to learn or discover - but for many, it’s the biggest lesson of a lifetime.

When we commit to healing, understanding our behaviors, thoughts, actions, then we can finally see our relationships clearly. We bravely accept that we lived in an illusion and consciously choose to stop hurting ourselves.

Everyone holds certain beliefs. It’s important to recognize them, because they shape our reality. When we work on changing limiting beliefs, we don’t just change ourselves, but also the relationships we attract. When we realize our worth, that we are enough, worthy of love and care - we draw in partners who share healthy beliefs too.

From Butterflies in the Stomach to Inner Peace

Since childhood, we’re told that falling in loves gives “butterflies in our stomach.” It's a sweet metaphor, but many people spend most of their lives chasing that feeling, always equating it with love.

But is that flutter really love or just a widely accepted belief?

There's a long way from teenage fantasies like, “I want my partner to be tall, dark-haired, with a great smile” to “I want a stable, mature person who knows how to communicate.” As our experience and awareness grow, teenage wishes fade in importance. That butterfly feeling in the stomach we consciously trade for a sense of peace.

The love we truly seek is real and comes after accepting ourselves - as physical, emotional, spiritual, experiential beings. Then, we find ourselves in a relationship where we expand the boundaries of love, both towards ourselves and towards our partners. We feel ready to be vulnerable, to show our wounds, imperfections and fears. And we're not afraid of rejection.

When we tear down our own walls, no one else will have anything left to tear down inside us.

And then..

We realize there’s no situation that can’t be solved through honest conversation.

We learn to live fully in the present moment and appreciate every second.

We understand the value of creating a shared life path, but also our own individual journey.

Then we say “I love you” both verbally and nonverbally.

Then we stop saying "forever", because we know “forever” is a limitation.

And such kind of love has no limits.