The Need for Love

Do you have an urge to get love and then find that the well meaning things you do actually put people off? Let’s see what could be going wrong.

Excessive Compliments

Do you give others excessive compliments and at the same time put yourself down? Saying things like ‘I wish I could be clever like you. I’m just stupid.’ If you’re prone to doing this, you’ll have plenty more examples of your own! Unconsciously you’re hoping that these sorts of compliments will get the other person to love you. It’s more likely going to backfire. Excessive compliments don’t attract people, but actually makes them feel uncomfortable and puts them off. You’re more likely to end up feeling unloved.

Testing Relationships

Do you ever test a relationship to the limit until you’re rejected? All you’ve done is behave in a way that matches your self-image of being unlovable. Our behavior always matches what we believe about ourselves, even if the belief is in the subconscious. Sad but true!

Overwhelming Attention

Or maybe you’ve overwhelmed the person you love with so much attention that it becomes stifling for the other person who then bales out of the relationship. Once again this behavior done in the hope of getting love leads to rejection.

Unavailable people

Have you ever sought out people who are ‘not available’ or who are actually a bit rejecting? The unconscious belief is that there would be something wrong with a person who just accepts you as you are. So you target people who are more likely to reject you in the first place.

The Solution?

• Self love is actually very attractive and will draw others to you. Learn to love yourself.
• Getting involved in a wider range of interests can certainly help. If you focus on developing less intense relationships with a wider variety of ‘available’ people you won’t feel so desperate to get ‘love’.
• There are very many ‘ordinary’ people just like you who want love. Take the focus off yourself and focus on making other people feel loved.

We all want someone to love and someone who will also love us. Love is desirable but not a requirement for happiness. That would put our happiness under the control of someone else. And happiness is, after all, determined by our own thoughts, not by any outside event.

“Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It creates the failures. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.” Anais Nin (1903 – 1977) French-born American writer.