You’ve loved deeply — maybe even given everything — and something still feels missing. This piece is an invitation to sit with why: what if fulfillment isn’t as simple as loving harder, or waiting for circumstances to change?
Something I’ve been sitting with this week has been the journey of love. Love. Allow that word to move into your body. What do you notice? Sometimes the word wakes us up from inner hypnosis and comes and clears the heart/chest. Sometimes the word fills like a stab in our xyphoid process (bottom of the sternum), hard and tensed.
Maybe it touches us as well feel our love for another or longing to receive it. Or, we sadden because instead we feel our loneliness and/or aloneness.
Love may be the most powerful force on this planet. Yet, why is there such an incredible mess all around us? Why do we see so much suffering when there may be enough for all, but the ones who have don’t share?
Or, why do we feel like we orient towards love, but somehow it’s elusive?
Ready? We got confused about love. Not in our minds. But more so in our hearts and bodies.
We feel guilty to be fulfilled when our mothers didn’t live a fulfilled life. We turned to our fathers hoping they were God, but we didn’t see they too felt scared or lost. And, we became stuck in the mission of saving our mothers and our fathers.
Consciously, we may tell ourselves we are adults and living our lives. And we do – we live, make decisions and choices for our own lives. Or maybe our parents have passed, so there isn’t anything we can do anyway to save them.
Still, somehow we don’t reach fulfillment.
It’s almost like we were programmed and we don’t know how to turn off our program. Love means not leaving behind our parents in their suffering. Some part of us doesn’t allow us to fully inhabit ourselves and our lives.
Maybe it’s circumstantial, we say. If this situation changes, I’ll be happy.
Or, we feel like the universe hasn’t brought us what we want and need. We may even feel incredibly joyous and fulfilled when we serve, give to others.
And still there is an emptiness deep inside.
This emptiness…this lack of fulfillment isn’t just you. It’s the greater part of humanity feeling this.
Part of it roots is confusion about Love. We forgot ourselves in our compassion and love for them.
Mostly, we don’t see it. We can’t understand, could this even be true? We may have even felt incredible love for our parents. Many I’ve seen on the spiritual path expand the heart to feel so much for them.
So, why question this?
We didn’t forget them. We forgot us in the way.
This is how we lose ourselves in the name of love.
Love isn’t either or – either I love them or I love me.
Right?
Say that to the emotional, innocent one inside who LOVES mom and dad. In totality. Even if you are 90 years old.
Often this is a deep program in our psyches that it works within us and completely out of our awareness.
One common example that I hear often is we can’t understand why we get attracted to the wrong people. Or even if we are with our real beloved, we can’t fully allow ourselves to feel this love and to enjoy the fulfillment of our relationship.
The first step is becoming aware of this – I’m here trying to alleviate their suffering and won’t leave them alone. No matter what.
In that moment, we emerge out of that program and feel ourselves. At least for a moment. But now, we can see where we get caught. Not a mystery. Not waiting for the universe to come and fix it (which we undo anyway because of our confusion about love). Not just hope.
This is hope mixed with the real – our own inner patterns and subconscious programs.
May we awaken to who we are, to our fulfillment – both in service to others and in service to our deepest fulfillment within.
If this resonated for you, even if you don’t know why… Or, if you find yourself caught in lack of fulfillment, that what you truly want is somehow elusive and you’d like to explore if there’s anything in you blocking your fulfillment or confusion about love, I’m here to support you.
I offer a free 20-minute consultation for those curious about this work. Available worldwide.
Learn more about Psychospiritual Integration →
If you’re South Asian, I’ve created a space for that ache. If you’re Middle Eastern, I think you’ll find much of this familiar too. South Asian Healing: Reconnecting with Your Ehsaas →
For many South Asian adults, this pattern of unconscious loyalty runs especially deep — woven into cultural expectations around duty, family, and what it means to be a good son or daughter. If this resonates, I offer somatic psychotherapy specifically for South Asian adults in California.
If this article resonated, you may also find support in these reflections on love, fulfillment, and psychospiritual integration:
- The Mother Hole — the unconscious program we form trying to heal our mother’s wounds
- Why You Can Feel Loved and Still Feel Alone — on the ache of being loved but not quite reached, and the Sangha your soul is seeking
- Our Deepest Trauma Isn’t What Happened to Us — on what we lost of ourselves, not just what we suffered
- Is It My Mental Health or a Spiritual Awakening? — when old patterns surface as anxiety, depression, or fatigue
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do I keep attracting the wrong people, or struggle to fully receive love even when it’s real?
Often this isn’t about the relationship itself. An old, subconscious loyalty — staying tied to a parent’s unlived life or pain — can quietly block the capacity to fully feel and receive love, even from the right person.
Is it possible to fully love someone else while also fully being yourself?
Yes, though it can feel like a contradiction. Often it isn’t something we were taught — it’s something we do out of real love for someone, without realizing that in giving so fully, we can lose track of ourselves along the way. Love isn’t actually either/or. Loving another and staying whole yourself aren’t in competition, even though it can take real awareness to feel that as true.
What does it mean to “lose yourself in the name of love”?
It means unconsciously sacrificing your own fulfillment out of loyalty to someone else’s suffering, often a parent, without realizing it’s happening. A more specific and deeper form of this same pattern, focused especially on a mother’s unhealed wounds, is what’s sometimes called the Mother Hole.