How To Find Love?

It seems we are all looking for love… but perhaps we’re “looking in all the wrong places.”

I often discuss this issue with healing clients who complain about a lack of love in their lives, or their inability to find the “right” partner, or perhaps feel a lack of love in relationships with people who are already in their lives.

One thing which ultimately comes up in these discussions is a question about ‘where love comes from’ – which perhaps is the most important question to answer first if we’re looking for love.

I find it often helpful to use an anecdote which most of us are able to relate to, asking, “Have you ever had someone who had a crush on you, but you felt absolutely nothing for them?” “Has there ever been someone who perhaps totally adored you, was madly in love with you, but you were not at all touched – and really wanted nothing to do with them?”

If we have had such an experience, doesn’t it pose the question: ‘if love comes from outside of us, then why wouldn’t we feel absolutely filled with love in such a situation?’ How could we remain empty despite the waves of love that were being directed at us from outside of us?

Let’s consider the opposite scenario, and also ask the question, “Have you ever been in love with someone else, where just seeing them filled you with happiness, where their smile and their voice brought thrills to your heart, where you were totally in love but they had not even the slightest similar feelings toward you?”

Most of have had that experience too… So it starts to become clear that we can be fully filled and beaming with love, even if someone else doesn’t even know we exist — even if they have no feelings at all for us — and even if they don’t particularly like us!

So where does love come from?

Maybe feeling love comes from inside us – maybe when we ‘feel’ love and ‘give’ love, we ‘get’ love.

As we do our inner work, we may observe a greater love inside us more and more, which becomes less dependent on others and outside circumstances. Even in the presence of people who may not share our feelings, such as children or adults who may look at us with fear, judgment, or even hatred, we may find that we have love for them, which is not diminished by their feelings toward us.

Aren’t we inspired by popular social media videos showing how wounded animals who someone patiently approaches with love, compassion, and acceptance finally experience a turn-around? Despite the love coming from the outside toward them, the animals don't fully experience inner love and healing in themselves until they let go of enough of their fear and pain. This is not unlike how a Spiritual Teacher such as Ammachi (The Holy Mother), who used to have many people in Her village who doubted, feared, and even violently opposed Her, eventually melted their hearts through Her patient and unconditional love. Our hearts are similarly opened around such Divine love.

Amma blesses all who come to Her through an embrace

If we do not feel enough love in our lives, we can start to focus on doing the inner work needed to let go of the judgment and fear inside of us, which blocks our ability to fully love others. So instead of looking for love on the ‘outside’, we can make efforts toward trying to find love on the ‘inside’.

Love seems always to attract people. People around us sense that they need to make no special effort to please us, since we are already filled with happiness and acceptance for them! So they gravitate toward us.

Our neediness, on the other hand, repels people. This may be because subconsciously and intuitively, people feel like there is no way to fill a hole in someone which they won’t fill themselves. So it is an endless, unattractive prospect to engage with someone who is needy.

For each person in our lives for whom we work to love more, we end up sending out more loving vibes to people with similar qualities which we can now better understand and embrace, and it can only attract more good things and more good people.

Thus, if we start consciously looking for and finding love in the ‘right’ place – through working to love ourselves and others more – we may just find it glowing ever more brightly inside of us!