Five Myths about Love… Debunked
1) You have to love yourself before you can love someone else (or someone else can love you.)
This is one of the most common myths of love that I wish I could put the nail in the coffin around because it’s not true and it has created so many self imposed barriers around love. You do not learn how to love yourself in a vacuum. No one does. We learn to love ourselves and others through relationships.
How we love is learned through our interactions with our primary care givers. A relational blue-print forms (which becomes our attachment disposition) and then we typically re-create that pattern of relating in our adult intimate relationships. That blue-print can be a healthy and secure attachment orientation or an insecure avoidant or anxious one. And it can directly affect your relationship to and understanding of self-love, which is why this can be so confusing.
Self love is another type of love. It’s an important inward facing practice of learning how to be in relationship to yourself in a kind and compassionate way. Ideally, you have a strong sense of both— but self love doesn’t preclude you from falling in love or being in relationship. In fact, your relationship can function like a mirror for you—and show you where you need to grow, both internally and inter-personally.
2) You need to be “ready” for love.”
This is another fear-based block to love for some, but there are a few caveats with this one because sometimes it is true. There is a common mis-perception especially among women— that we have to reach an ideal of perfection, wholeness, or spiritual integration in order to be “ready” for love or “ready” to love. The truth is, you intrinsically are ready to love because human beings are naturally wired for connection and attachment. It’s how we survived as a species.
However, If you come from an abusive, traumatic or dysfunctional family and went on to form insecure attachments with adults who were also abusive and dysfunctional, doing the inner work to heal and become aware of unhealthy relational patterns is absolutely essential to re-negotiating existing relationships or seeking out new ones on a more solid footing. Also, if you are in the midst of addiction, freshly in recovery, struggling after a divorce or break-up, suffering from illness, or a major transition—you may not be ready for the next relationship. You may also have to recalibrate the expectations of the relationship you are in because your capacity to give is compromised. It’s important to discern where you are, as some situations might render you justifiably avoidant to relationship.
3) You will instantly know when you meet “the One.”
Some people do and some people don’t. This myth is essentially the belief that we have a pre-ordained romantic destiny where some of us win the jack pot while others of us are inexplicably unlucky in love. While sensing an instant, effortless attraction is one way of sensing an immediate connection, it isn’t always a sign that you met “the One,” but for many it is part of their love story. It’s difficult to know for sure if you have discovered your soul mate especially in those first heady months. It could be love or lust at first site. Conversely, dismissing someone right off the bat (unless you have a strong aversion to them) doesn’t give you or them a moment to get passed a superficial assessment and you may write off someone without giving things a chance to develop.
The “Soul Mate” myth has been so ingrained in us by the movies and the media, we may unwittingly close ourselves off to connections that take a little more time to develop into something deeper. We may have such a fixed, rigid idea of what we’re looking for in a potential mate, that we could also dismiss people that possess many of the right qualities, but don’t come in the exact package we imagine.
Another downside to the “singular soul mate “ myth is that it puts such heavy pressure on a partner, especially if we think we’ve found “the one” —than he/she needs to be everything to us. This level of expectation can be suffocating. And if we haven’t found “the one”, we can minimize and discount all the other ways we may be met, loved and seen by many other types of relationships in our lives. Some people do find one, long term relationship but for many of us, it may be a string of several monogamous relationships in our lives or alternative relationships or we may find ourselves single for long durations of time. It doesn’t mean that you are unloveable.
4) Don’t pursue love (as in actively date). It will find you at the right time.
This is another pernicious myth that is best known as “just give it up to the Universe.” There are many stories that reinforce the myth of magically falling in love after giving up on a fruitless search. If you are taking a spiritual perspective on things, this may seem like an appealing way to go and actually might be the right approach for a period of time, but if you were searching for a job or a new house to live in, would you treat the question in the same way? Give it up to the Universe? Probably not. As much as we fantasize about love being a pre-ordained destiny, it doesn’t hurt to be pro-active. For those who are dating-app averse, there are other ways of meeting and interacting with people, but it takes some concerted effort and imagination. Lastly, if you’re constantly striking out or finding fault with everyone you meet, it may be time for self reflection on your part. You may possess some of those “red flag” qualities you take umbrage to in others.
5. The right person will intuitively know how to love you (a.k.a. You shouldn’t have to work at it, and if you do, than it’s a red flag.)
Well…not exactly. In the first flush of mutual erotic/romantic love, it may seem that way because you can be blinded by projection and flooded with those powerful love neuro chemicals (dopamine, seratonin, and oxytocin) coursing through your brain, which MRI’s have shown to look very similar to a brain high on cocaine. But once those chemicals wear off, and you enter into the next phase of relationship which is companionate, then the relationship may begin to feel like work. This is absolutely normal. It’s not necessarily a red flag, but many people begin to doubt and even jump ship because their fantasy of love doesn’t align with their experience.
The truth is romantic love is never enough to sustain a relationship. It’s a starting place. However, as you progress into the complexities of relationship, you’ll discover you need skillfulness around conflict and communication, you need emotional intelligence, compassion and curiosity to attune to your partner, and the ability to stay present and engaged with each other. You’ll need to figure out what your love languages are. If you don’t possess these relationship skills, they can be acquired.
A strong relationship can feel like a tremendously fulfilling anchor in life, giving us a secure base to thrive and grow, but a narcissistic, adolescent conception of love as a sexual romance that never ends, narrows and ultimately confines what the experience of love can develop into.
Cultivating and practicing love both towards ourselves and in relationship doesn’t mean we can completely eradicate the influence of these myths, but we can become more aware of them when they arise are in our consciousness. And we can question their legitimacy especially if they play a role in our narratives around obstacles to finding love.