All I Need Is Love

On the path to happiness, I reached a significant milestone when I unlocked my heart. It was a moment etched in my memory forever, marking a profound step in my personal growth.

But how did I manage to unlock my heart?

It all started with my determination to address my singlehood. As a workaholic, I had neglected my personal life for far too long. So, I made it my priority to tackle this area head-on. I asked myself, "What's holding me back in this aspect of my life?"

That's when I came across a book that changed everything: “Calling in the One”, by Katherine Woodward Thomas. Oh my goodness, this book had so much to offer!

STEP 1: BREAK FREE FROM LIMITING BELIEFS ABOUT SELF and LOVE

For 7 weeks, I read one chapter a day. The book guided me through the process of releasing haunting and limiting thoughts.  First, I had to recognize my pattern: the absence of long-term relationships. Then, I embarked on a three-week exploration of my limiting beliefs, emotional wounds, toxic ties, and self-imposed agreements.  The limiting beliefs I discovered were things like "being invisible is safe," "I am boring," "if I express my emotions, I won't be loved," and "being vulnerable is weak." All those beliefs I had built from a very young age and had dictated my own adult behavior. Each day, as I read a chapter and did my "homework," tears flowed, carrying away the weight of my unconscious burdens. This process brought me a sense of liberation and lightness.

STEP 2: CREATE EMPOWERING BELIEFS ABOUT SELF and LOVE

Next step is to build a new system of beliefs, more empowering one. I transformed old thoughts into new ones like "vulnerability is the way to connect," "the more you give, the more you get back," "expressing my feelings will bring me more love and support".

STEP 3: RECONNECT WITH EMOTIONS TO HEAR MY HEART

Another major breakthrough was reconnecting with my emotions. The book introduced me to a new way of thinking about emotions: letting them guide me. I learned to say things like, "I feel... I can see that you're feeling... is there something you wanted to tell me?... What are you needing?... I can see you are needing..." This approach allowed me to establish a stronger connection with my own emotional landscape, and be able to listen more to my heart than my head. It could finally know what I really want to be, do and have.

STEP 4: SET INTENTION , VISUALIZE and FEEL IT:

Think it, Feel it, Be it

Once I let go of the baggage of limiting beliefs and underwent emotional rewiring, the next step was to set an intention for my vision of love and relationships. Initially, I struggled to even visualize it, which made my situation seem impossible. However, with daily practice of visualization, my clarity improved, and I could even sense neural connections forming. Yet, the most crucial aspect of this visualization exercise was the feeling associated with it—the feeling of love and all its attributes. From a thought to a feeling to a state of being: my personal image started to shift. I became more approachable, more open, and warm.

STEP 5: TREAT MYSELF AS I WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED (ACT TO HAVE)

Actions were the final crucial step to form my true love identity. What did it mean concretely? I learned to recognize the inner voice of my inner critics and approached myself with greater compassion, accepting things as they are. I celebrated every small step forward, valued my strengths, engaged in gratitude journaling, reconnected with my body and sensuality, and practiced attributes of love such as showing compassion, giving acts of kindness, and extending forgiveness to both myself and others.

By challenging myself every day with new actions that reinforced empowering thoughts, I gradually built my true love identity.

By the time I finished the book, I was already transformed.

Did I find my life partner? It was something even better and more profound—I had found my heart. All I needed is self-love.

Rumi poet wrote “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

What steps would you take to dismantle the invisible barriers standing between you and love, and unlock your heart?