What I Learned from True Love

I’ve come so far on this journey to myself that my mind finally stopped resisting and started believing it.

When I met him, I was broken: emotionally, spiritually, mentally. That was three years ago. After we first met, I went through a long Dark Night of the Soul. The energy inside of me was activated after we first kissed without me even realizing it for two years. Emotions I’d buried for years started surfacing that summer; anger, rage, grief. Slowly, I began reclaiming my self-worth, healing little by little, feeling a bit better. But my energy was scattered, low, and I didn’t even realize it.

I chased everything outside myself. I drank to process feelings. I went to church searching for answers. I slept too much or too little. I ran to nature at the first sign of discomfort. I smiled, laughed, pretended I was fine.

Then our paths crossed again. Slowly, I began to love myself. It started physically at first: the marks on our faces. I loved his. If I could love his, why couldn’t I love mine? That was just the beginning. Over the next two years, I learned how to love myself after realizing the unconditional love I had for someone so imperfect, scarred, but also amazing. 

At first, I was anxious. My emotions were urgent. I chased, I tried to control outcomes, I had expectations. I didn’t know anything about energies influencing life. Meanwhile, he had this appreciation for peace, for zen, for self-love. I hadn’t even heard of it before. From him, I started learning how to care for myself, how to build a self-love routine. I’m endlessly thankful for that.

I used to think he was selfish for focusing on himself. But what I didn’t realize was that true selfishness isn’t taking care of yourself, it’s never taking care of yourself and demanding life go your way. I had no life of my own; he was my entire world. Doesn’t sound healthy, does it?

I thought giving more meant earning love. I gave freely, loved deeply, but underneath, I was trying to be chosen. I wasn’t choosing myself, I wasn’t loving myself.

I noticed how, whenever I became clingy or anxious, he pulled away, even before I realized what my energy was doing. It took me a long time to understand my own energy. Intense focus can feel like the eye of Sauron: it puts pressure on everything it touches. And when we operate that way, nothing flows.

After we ended, I poured all that love I had for him into myself, but at first, only to avoid feeling the pain. It took six months to truly grieve, to cry, to let myself feel the loss of both my old self and him.

Three months in, my intuition woke up in ways I couldn’t explain. Dreams, visions… I started to “know.” I discovered the term “twin flames,” and realizing there was a whole community experiencing the same things stopped me from thinking I had gone insane. Accepting the path took longer. I still made it about him a lot, until I realized this journey was never about anyone else: it was always about me.

I followed twin flame posts, watched the collective lessons unfold. Some were ahead, in surrender. Some were going through exactly what I was: same lessons, same timing, same dreams, same realizations.

I had three other Dark Night of the Souls during major chakra clearings and openings. I know now after every DNOT, a new more blissful state appears. I learned to go with the flow with my own energy, myself, even when it brought tears and it was not at all love and light.

I chased, I ran, I loved, I hated, I tried to control, I focused on his path more than mine, though not always, just often. Even while running, meeting new people brought me closer to understanding, to compassion, both for him and for myself. Slowly, I made peace. Slowly, I lost my grip on control. I began choosing myself more and more.

When I met him again, I knew it wasn’t random. I understood how this worked. I didn’t know this stage would awaken my feminine energy though, even with the dreams I had, teaching me power, surrender, and release.

The first year was healing my masculine energy. Then, almost a year later, my feminine energy woke up: a dragon, burning control, burning the narratives that told me to behave, to stay quiet, to keep the peace. I felt the fire. I felt “enough.”

I saw how healing I can be. I saw that my choices create my life. I realized that most of my past struggles came from not loving myself enough.

I had never liked the term “twin flames,” because it always felt like I was dependent on the person to confirm if it was true or not. When I switched the narrative to “true love,” everything shifted. Because I know what I felt. I know all of this was possible through the power of love. Because I loved.

All the lessons were illuminated by love so that they were impossible to ignore. Not that I never had any opportunities to learn before, I had. But I had never paid any attention. Only when I really fell in love, into a love that was bigger than my human emotions – despite the fact I denied it for years that I was in fact in love – was when I saw it all. My patterns. My lessons. Me. Who I am.

Now, I feel stable, peaceful, independent of anyone else’s energy. That doesn’t mean I stopped loving him, love isn’t just an emotion; it’s a frequency. I’m grateful for this journey, despite the pain. Pain teaches, until we choose differently. Now I can love myself fully, love another without losing myself, without letting it control me, without abandoning my boundaries or my truth.

These journeys are often misunderstood: even by the ones experiencing them. Advice from anyone else is almost meaningless; it’s all in our own inner knowing. Right now, I focus on myself, on enjoying this newfound peace, these newly set boundaries, this joy of feeling whole without needing anyone else to complete me.

My ego resisted this path. Resisted him. I let that go. The past can’t be changed. What matters is the lessons I’ve learned, the self I’ve found, and the love I have for it.

And the interesting thing? The more I know myself, the more I understand him. In that understanding comes deeper compassion, a letting go of control, a release of the past. The more I love myself, the more open I am to a healthy, non-attached love: not just an emotion, but a way of being.

Sometimes it takes being broken open to get rid of every part of you that was never meant to stay to start rebuilding what’s meant for you.

And that’s what this journey has been about.