“Despite how open, peaceful, and loving you are, people can only meet you as deeply as they have met themselves. This is the heart of clarity.” ~ Matt Khan

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No matter how incredible someone is, we are only capable of loving them as deeply as we have learned to love ourselves.

There’s a bitter clarity that tinges upon the edge of love that prevents us from falling any deeper for another soul than we have ventured within our own soul. We can’t understand the depths of another if we have chosen to not traverse our own, and no matter how much we love someone, we can’t love them beyond our own limits.

This is why it’s so important to not only love ourselves, but be willing to get lost within our depths.

If we make the choice to only swim at our surface, to never look at the whys and the hows of who we are, then it will become impossible for us to do that for another, and whatever type of love we do share will only end up being shallow.

In order to receive deep love, we first need to learn how to love in this specific way.

We are all evolving; many of us are transitioning from the type of love and relationships that have been our societal norm for decades into a new and different sort of union. It’s not enough to just care for someone because we are craving soul connections. We want to feel inspired and transcendent when we are in the midst of our lover.

Yet, we can’t ask another to fill us up or to provide for us what we are unable to give them.

In the best types of love, there is balance, an equanimity that comes from each person not necessarily being the same, but still complementing the other in such a way that both souls—and lives—are enhanced.

So the task then becomes being bold enough to venture within our own depths, to swim around in the murky waters of our subconscious learning who we really are and what motivates us. We have to become acquainted with our darkest demons, because the reality is if we haven’t yet made friends with our dark side, then no potential lover will be able to either.

If we are still withholding unconditional love, acceptance, and trust from ourselves for what we have lived through, then we will also do the same for any potential partner or lover who comes into our lives. In order to be able to have that crazy, deep love, we need to learn how to give it to ourselves first.

We are not meant to be perfect in this life—only seasoned.

We are meant to live, to make mistakes, to hurt others, to fail miserably, and to sit and cry in the dark about where we went wrong all of those times, and why it never seemed to work out. We are supposed to face our shadows because it is only though offering them love and acceptance that we will truly be able to heal ourselves enough to actually move forward in this life.

If we still cringe when we think about things we’ve done or heartbreak we’ve experienced, then we haven’t yet forgiven ourselves for being human—we haven’t yet made the choice to go deep enough within to discover what was the root of everything all along.

In order to love deeply and be in the place to accept that once-in-a-lifetime love, we need to have healed from all of the times that we didn’t receive that love, and from all the experiences that helped us learn who we are and what we want.

We have to forgive and choose to heal from the decisions that were the hardest to make.

The truth is that love is why we are here—there is no greater reason, no big surprise at the end of life. It simply has and will always be about love. Yet before we realize this, before we can live it, we need to learn how to practice it.

Love isn’t just about words, but about action. It’s about the ability to show ourselves, and not just others, the act of love, and not just when we are in a relationship.

Love is the universal language, but that doesn’t mean that we speak it in the same way.

Some people prefer words, others prefer actions, and for some, gifts are the way to their heart. It’s not about one way being better than another, but about learning how we love. This is a truth that is found by getting real with ourselves about what we really want and need in order to feel cared for.

Many times we think that what we want doesn’t exist when it comes to love, or that there won’t be one specific person who can actually satisfy us in all the ways our souls crave—but that way of thinking is just an easy out.

We all can have that lover: the one who can give us everything we’ve always wanted and can love us like we’ve always dreamed. But they won’t show up until we have learned to do that for ourselves.

This person, this lover, is not our salvation, but merely a key to help us learn more about love and who we are once everything we thought we were has been stripped away.

It’s about realizing that we are only capable of extending the love toward others that we have already shown ourselves, and so if we want a deeper love, we first have to be willing to go deep.

Because it’s only in the depths that we can find true fulfillment.

Author: Kate Rose
Image: Audrey Reid
Editor: Nicole Cameron