The Illusion of Love vs. The Real Thing.

Have You Ever Been in Love?

I used to say yes.

Now, I say no.

Let me explain...

and it's not because I haven’t felt deep connections, or because my heart hasn’t ached for someone. I’ve fallen hard. Stayed too long in the wrong places and yes – there are even one or two I still think about that I once thought were “the one.” But looking back, with my updated perception, having taken the time to understand myself, I realize what I called love was often just... chemistry, movie moments, obsession, attachment, craving, longing, or maybe even fear (of loneliness) - wrapped in the illusion of romance.

Learning the Hard Way What Love Isn’t

I’ve been in relationships that felt like storms - beautiful in their intensity, but destructive in their aftermath. The kind where misguided passion was mistaken for depth. Where neediness, jealousy, and co-dependency were confused with devotion. The kind where I thought love was supposed to hurt, to challenge, to demand constant compromise... until my bar went from high to underground. I’ve been the people-pleasing giver, pouring from an empty cup, believing that if I just loved harder, they’d see me, value me, appreciate me, and love me the way I wanted to be loved.  

I’ve also been the one clinging to imagined potential, mistaking their scraps of affection for love. Then I've also been on the opposite side of that coin afraid to commit, stringing people along, or unintentionally promising more than I was capable of giving.

Why? Because regardless of which side of the coin you’re on - you can’t give what you don’t have. If internally one or neither of you have stability, trust, self-awareness, consciousness, or self-love.. you can try but you can’t give that to anyone else..

So No - That Wasn’t Love

You can have all the ingredients - adoration, appreciation, devotion - but without a true energetic foundation, it will eventually crack. And that foundation? It starts within. I didn’t have it. Looking back, neither did they. So we couldn’t give it to each other.

Love isn’t supposed to be painful, overwhelming, on-and-off, scary, or dramatic. It’s not a cycle of guilt trips, bullying, eggshell walking, and emotional rollercoasters. It’s not one-sided, or being someone’s emotional service animal (punching bag). It’s not fear dressed up in commitment or a constant battle between fear and safety, stress and peace, hot and cold.. If it constantly leaves you second-guessing your worth, that’s not love.

 

Why We Stay When We Shouldn’t

Here's the uncomfortable truth: a lot of us stay in relationships not because they make us happy - but because they’ve become familiar, and because change feels scarier than staying miserable. We convince ourselves that the comfort level of farting in front of someone without feeling shame or embarrassment - is intimacy, that shared bills equals partnership, and that untangling your life sounds harder than fixing it. So we settle.. we say, “this isn’t so bad.”

It’s the uncomfortable comfort zone. Not because it’s love - because it’s easier than the alternative - starting over. We stay because starting over is terrifying. We stay because separating a life is messy. We stay because intimacy - even if it isn’t real - is a level that takes time to achieve.

Eventually, we confuse familiarity with happiness. And we settle. Not because we're fulfilled, but because we've made discomfort feel like comfort and living in it saves us from:

🌀 Relearning someone's quirks

🌀 Figuring out new compromises

🌀 Rebuilding trust from scratch

🌀 Navigating the dating world again

But here's the question we need to ask: is the unknown a scary place or hiding the key to our happiness?

The Real Missing Piece: You

It took me years to realize that the problem wasn’t in the other person - it was the relationship I had with myself. Until I got real with me - got raw, honest, vulnerable, curious - I couldn’t get real and raw with someone else. Until I learned to feel, hear, respect, appreciate, and honor ME - I couldn’t create real love with someone else.

Simply put - you can’t give what you don’t have. And you can’t fully receive love either if you don’t believe you’re worthy of it.

Which brings me to the invisible blocks we carry…

You Might Be Carrying Things You Can’t See

Trapped emotions.

As an Emotion Code practitioner, I've seen firsthand how trapped emotions and old beliefs you inherited or picked up from childhood shape our lives, creating subconscious fears and insecurities running in the background whispering things like:

🔕 You're not good enough.

🔕 You have to earn love.

🔕 If you don't sacrifice, you'll be abandoned.

🔕 Nothing good ever comes easy.

🔕 You don't deserve to be treated better.

🔕 This is as good as it gets.

These invisible (and sometimes not so invisible) blocks and societal layers shape our relationships in ways we don't even realize on a subconscious level - working sneakily in the background of all we do. And without even understanding it 90% of the time, we attract partners who mirror our unhealed wounds, replaying the same dynamics over and over, wondering why love is so fucking hard.

But the truth is, you’re attracting what your nervous system believes is safe. And most of the time? That safety is rooted in trauma.

Maybe you:

🌀 Struggle with self-worth, so you settle for less than you deserve.

🌀 Fear abandonment, so you cling to relationships that don't serve you.

🌀 Carry old heartbreak, so you build walls instead of bridges.

These emotional blocks aren't just "in your head." They're stored in your energy, influencing your choices, your attractions, even the way you show up in love.

Beginning the Shift Away From Self-Sabotage

As an Emotion Code practitioner, I’ve seen firsthand how trapped emotions and subconscious patterns shape love, connection, and self-worth, causing us to:

🌀 Settle for less because they don’t feel worthy

🌀 Build walls instead of bridges because of past heartbreak

🌀 Chase unavailable partners, repeating childhood patterns of rejection

🌀 Sabotage good love because the nervous system equates calm with “boring”

You can’t see it until you start peeling back the layers… but once you do… everything starts to shift.

When Love Starts to Blossom Within

The shift happens when we stop searching for love outside ourselves and start cultivating it within. It starts small, sometimes forced, but over time with practice and with care... a (self) love story can emerge.

I've watched clients - and experienced it myself - go from feeling stuck in cycles of unhealthy relationships to attracting connections that feel easy, safe, and aligned. Not because we lowered our standards, but because the external always reflects the internal. The brighter you shine on the inside, the higher your bar, the healthier your boundaries. The better you know you... the more aligned your relationships become.

When you:

🌀 Release trapped emotions that keep you stuck in fear or unworthiness...

🌀 Rewrite limiting beliefs that tell you love has to be hard...

🌀 Finally believe you deserve a love that feels good...

...everything changes

The Love You Want is Real. But it Starts With You.

I’m not saying it’s easy - I’m saying it’s possible.

When you clear the old weight, the emotional residue, the fears that don’t belong to you—you create space. Space for peace. Space for love. Space for someone to meet the version of you who finally knows what you want and what you deserve.

So if you’re tired of repeating cycles… if you’re ready to finally feel loved, seen, and safe… let’s clear the patterns that keep pulling you back into relationships that don’t reflect your worth.

💫 Click here to learn more about Emotion Code

Because the greatest love story you'll ever experience…

Is the one you create with yourself.