True Love Begins Within

It’s easy to fall in love. What’s hard is finding someone who will truly catch you.

We grow up hearing that love is destiny, that it arrives unexpectedly, that we cannot control it, that we are at its mercy. And in many ways, that’s true. We cannot decide to fall in love on command, nor can we force someone to love us back. There is no fixed formula, no guaranteed recipe.

But there is one love we cannot escape: the love we have for ourselves.

For years, we have been told that finding true love means finding another person. Yet what if the most important love has been present all along? What if true love begins the moment we decide to love ourselves properly?

By midlife — around 40 for many — this realisation becomes urgent. Healing past wounds, breaking repeated patterns, and recognising what is toxic for our system is no longer optional. It is necessary. We can no longer afford to ignore red flags, suppress our emotions, or tolerate dynamics that diminish us.

The right relationship will never require you to shrink yourself. It will not ask you to silence your needs, abandon your boundaries, or pretend to be “low maintenance” when you have real desires. Healthy love does not demand self-erasure.

To love well, we must first understand our own inner world — our needs, our emotions, our limits, and our truths. Avoiding conflict by abandoning ourselves only leads to deeper loneliness. Real peace comes not from the outer world, but from within.

When you heal, when you express yourself honestly, when you stop shrinking to make others comfortable,  that is true love in action.

And once you learn to love yourself well, you no longer search for someone to complete you.

You look for someone who complements the wholeness you’ve already built.