“Know all of the theories, grasp all of the strategies, however as you contact a human soul ,be simply one other human soul.” ~Carl Jung
For years, I poured myself into studying about love, relationships, and private development. I learn each guide I might get my fingers on, signed up for numerous courses, and surrounded myself with affirmations, instruments, and strategies that promised me the keys to like. I used to be on a mission, satisfied that with sufficient information, I might lastly unlock the door to a profitable, fulfilling relationship.
However regardless of how a lot I discovered, how a lot I reworked my mindset, or what number of optimistic affirmations I repeated, the items by no means fairly match collectively the way in which I anticipated them to. The recommendation appeared sound, and the adjustments I made felt empowering—but when it got here to issues of the guts, the solutions had been usually elusive.
Regardless of my greatest efforts to engineer an ideal love life, I had been making an attempt to manage one thing that finally falls past any framework, concept, or method.
In that second of realization, I lastly understood the true that means behind Carl Jung’s phrases. Though he initially used this quote in his work as a psychologist, highlighting the significance of connecting with others on a profound, human stage, I now see how deeply related it’s in romantic relationships. I wanted to satisfy myself on a human stage earlier than I might meet others.
Love, very like life, can’t be mastered via mind alone. It’s not about perfecting a algorithm or following a selected system—it’s about surrendering to the thriller of being human collectively, with all our imperfections and strivings.
The Pursuit of Perfection
Once I first set out on my journey to “develop into the one” or to “appeal to the one,” I used to be trying to find the magic system that may assure my ultimate relationship. I believed that if I mastered the fitting mindset, practiced optimistic pondering, and utilized the most recent courting methods, love could be inevitable.
However someplace alongside the way in which, I started to lose sight of the truth that love will not be a vacation spot—it’s an expertise. And that have doesn’t unfold due to probably the most polished model of myself; it emerges once I permit myself to be authentically human.
Inadvertently, I turned misdirected, shifting from residing within the second to striving to unravel a puzzle. The irony was that in my pursuit of perfection, I grew extra disconnected from my true self. I wasn’t searching for a real reference to one other soul; I unconsciously targeted on proving to myself that I might resolve this.
The Limitations of the “How-To” Guides
The extra I studied, the extra I spotted that the whole lot I discovered about love got here from the attitude of doing. These guides, books, and seminars taught me the best way to behave, suppose, or really feel as a way to appeal to or preserve love. However none of it resonated with an important side of affection: being.
Love can’t be managed by a set of ideas or strategies. We can’t engineer chemistry, pressure somebody to be the fitting companion, or create lasting connection via willpower alone. And that’s the place I went flawed.
Irrespective of how a lot I pushed, tweaked, or optimized myself, one thing was all the time lacking. And that lacking piece wasn’t about enhancing or refining myself—it was about surrendering to the thriller of affection.
What I wanted was a real connection to my very own coronary heart—uncooked, messy, weak, and human. It’s about stepping away from our minds and permitting ourselves to have interaction with one another, physique and soul, as the gorgeous, complicated beings we naturally are.
Studying the Guide Intelligence, However Bringing My Physique Alongside
I spent years absorbing the knowledge of books, pondering that information could be the important thing to unlocking love. However whereas my thoughts was soaking in all this info, my physique was nonetheless trailing behind, caught in outdated patterns. I spotted that no quantity of mental understanding might remodel these deeply ingrained emotional and bodily responses.
And so, I started to lean into them.
I started to acknowledge my compulsions—these deep, visceral urges I needed to search out drama, romance, and even toxicity. I acknowledged how I had usually fallen right into a sample of dependancy to like, pushed by an unconscious have to really feel validated or to avoid wasting another person as a way to really feel worthy.
What I got here to appreciate is that we’re all, ultimately, on the spectrum of dependancy formed by our tradition.
This time, as an alternative of combating or ignoring these patterns, I selected to work with them. I ended making an attempt to intellectualize the whole lot and began to pay attention deeply to my physique. I allowed myself to take a seat with the discomfort—to really feel the stress, the longing, the ache—and discover the deeper feelings behind these patterns.
It felt like I used to be standing on the sting of the deepest, darkest caverns of my soul, this little lady peering into them, not sure of what I’d discover. However I knew that to maneuver ahead, I needed to face what lay inside, regardless of how horrifying it appeared. I allowed myself to really feel past the concern, pushing previous the reflexive bracing that normally stopped me earlier than. Slowly, I started to make peace with them, acknowledging that these had been elements of me that wanted compassion and companionship.
By accepting and tending to my physique’s responses, I began to shift the emotional vitality that had beforehand held me captive. The extra I labored with my physique’s sensations, the extra I spotted that true therapeutic in love doesn’t simply come from the thoughts; it comes from integrating the thoughts, physique, and coronary heart.
Habit and the Conditioning of Love
One big piece I started to know as I labored via these emotional patterns was that we are sometimes primed by the world round us to hunt out high-intensity emotional experiences, significantly in the case of love. Our trendy world, particularly the fast-paced nature of courting in the present day, has skilled us to need quick gratification—each emotionally and bodily. We reside in such a sensory-driven world that we’d not even understand the diploma to which we’re conditioned to hunt depth in each second.
It was like I wanted to deal with my emotional therapeutic and physique therapeutic as a twelve-step course of, detoxing from the patterns of searching for fast fixes and instantaneous validation, and as an alternative, specializing in constructing one thing deeper and extra sustainable.
It was solely once I totally embraced these feelings, as an alternative of avoiding or dashing previous them, {that a} shift occurred. Sure, intellectually I knew the distinction, however I needed to work with the pulls of my nervous system in a different way. My physique was responding to the indicators of “connection” in these situations, however I wanted a brand new discernment about what I used to be actually feeling.
I started to know that the addictive pull of romance, drama, and pleasure was not the identical as true connection. True connection takes effort and time to construct—it requires endurance, vulnerability, and belief, slightly than the fixed chase for exterior validation and peak experiences.
The Thriller of Divine Timing
As I started to untangle myself from the addictive cycles of recent romance, I got here to appreciate one thing even deeper: the magic of divine timing. The pull of romantic need, with its highs and lows, was now not the driving pressure in my life. As an alternative, I started to see that the fantastic thing about love will not be within the chase, however within the quiet, mysterious unfolding of life.
Divine timing has a approach of creating us respect the journey, the ready, and the uncertainty of affection in a approach that we can’t predict. We can’t pressure love, rush it, or manipulate it into being.
However after we permit ourselves to be—after we combine the thoughts, physique, and coronary heart—we create area for the type of connection that really resonates with our soul.
There’s disappointment on this thriller, sure. The uncertainty, the longing, the ready—these are all a part of the human situation.
However there’s additionally aliveness in it.
It’s this area of not figuring out that teaches us to like tougher, to belief deeper, and to embrace the current second as it’s.
Divine timing will not be about ready passively, however about trusting that when the time is true, love will discover us. And when it does, we can be prepared—not as a result of we’ve perfected ourselves or our circumstances, however as a result of we’ve discovered to lean into the method, to really feel each second deeply, and to belief that love will come when it’s meant to.
Letting Go of the “How-To” and Embracing the “Being”
There’s a profound distinction between pursuing love via methods and opening your self to like by merely being your self. The previous can depart you drained and disconnected out of your genuine self, whereas the latter permits area for real connection to flourish naturally.
Once I let go of the concept that I needed to do one thing to make love work, I began to expertise relationships in a very new approach. I discovered to belief the ebb and circulation of connection, permitting the journey to unfold because it was meant to.
I additionally started to see love in a extra aware approach—now not restricted to romantic love, however as one thing multidimensional and throughout me. These tender moments of pure kindness, heat, or generosity from anybody, wherever, jogged my memory that I’m a human being, not a human striving.
As I replicate on the teachings I’ve discovered, I see that being a “human soul” means embracing the unknowns of life—particularly in love. No quantity of preparation or information will assure an ideal relationship.
What issues most is that we present up as our true, weak selves. And after we do, love will discover us—not because of our efforts to draw it, however as a result of it’s a part of the pure circulation of life.
Merely Be Human
Carl Jung’s phrases ring more true now than ever: we will know all of the theories, grasp all of the strategies, however on the finish of the day, we should permit ourselves to easily be human. Being a “human soul” additionally means permitting others to be human souls too—seeing their messiness with grace, accepting their flaws, and never making an attempt to mould them into one thing they don’t seem to be.
It’s about embracing the gorgeous chaos of being human, each in ourselves and in others. The journey towards love isn’t about reaching perfection or fixing a puzzle. It’s about being current, trusting the method, and embracing vulnerability. It’s about letting go of the necessity for management and trusting in divine timing.
The irony is all of the “how-to” guides and methods for love can solely take us thus far. In some unspecified time in the future, we have to transfer past following directions and permit ourselves to expertise love totally—uncooked, unfiltered, and human, from the within out.
I’ve discovered a deeper connection occurs after we combine our coronary heart, thoughts, and physique—after we cease compartmentalizing and let all elements of ourselves be current.
It’s about feeling deeply, pondering truthfully, and being grounded in our bodily expertise. Once we present up with this sort of alignment, love is now not one thing to chase or obtain however one thing that flows naturally from inside.
I feel it’s lovely—nearly transcendent—to consider love this fashion, as one thing that exists within the rawness of our true selves, not in some idealized model of who we predict we ought to be or a guidelines to be marked, however the energy of connection and the unimaginable growth it brings when it occurs.

About Emily Brown
Emily Brown is a trauma-informed REBT mindset coach, MBSR-trained mom, author, podcast host, humanities professor, and communications knowledgeable. With a grasp’s diploma in Girls’s Research and English from Previous Dominion College and a certificates in optimistic psychology from UC Berkeley, she explores relationships, parenting, and the ability of language in shaping values. Her work combines tutorial rigor with real-world expertise. EmilyBrownConsulting.com
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