The #1 Thing Stopping You From Attracting The Love You Want
Stop blocking love.
Elise Wilcox | Unsplash After working with over 20 thousand people, the question we often hear most from singles is: "How can I attract a great relationship into my life?" These people have struggled with dead-end relationships or no relationship at all. They're tired of being lonely and frustrated, and they're just about ready to give up hope.
So much searching and yearning, and still their deepest desires remain unfulfilled. Over and over, we've seen that there's usually one overarching barrier that stands between them and the love they so fervently want. It's not that they aren't getting "out there enough," and it's not that they aren't trying hard enough. What we're getting at here is much more profound than any kind of dating skill.
Here's the #1 thing stopping you from attracting the love you want.
1. The secret root of relationship discontent.
If you're like any of the accomplished, intelligent, and kind singles we've met, we can safely say your greatest barrier to forming and keeping genuine love is an unloved part of you. Before you click away from this page, let us explain: If you don't have the love you want in your life, it's usually because you are not loving or facing a part of you. This could be anything from a tendency to obsess or worry, to how you feel about your body.
It could also be a personality trait you're not too fond of. Maybe you find it difficult to love your anger or your quirkiness. You might think you're overly shy or overbearing. Or, it could be something you're ashamed of from the past. You might even think you're fundamentally flawed and not built for love (this was Gay's issue — he thought he was missing the "love gene" and just didn't have what it takes to have a good relationship).
2. Lack of self-love attracts the wrong people.
When we don't love ourselves deeply, we always look for someone else to do it for us, hoping the unloved part of us will just go away. We're demanding from others the love we're not giving to ourselves.
So, you'd think a lack of self-love would repel everyone, but that's not the case. When we don't love ourselves enough, we still attract partners — just not the right ones. We simply attract other people who don't love themselves, either. And, since deep inside, we don't believe we deserve to be loved completely, we end up pushing away the very love we want.
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It's like a dog chasing its tail. We keep running after the love we want and never catch it. So, we don't feel loved and waste time with people who simply can't love us or anyone else.
3. The mega lesson Gay needed to learn to attract Katie.
When you love and accept yourself deeply and unconditionally for all you are and aren't, you attract people who love themselves. That's where the magic begins, and relationships become partnerships on the path to love.
Once Gay realized he wasn't born without a "love gene" and he just needed to accept and love himself, things shifted immediately. A month later, Katie appeared in his life. Then, he realized this lesson in self-love is a life-long lesson — we need to continue to learn it and re-learn it. Self-love is a daily practice because it always releases deeper and deeper opportunities for self-acceptance within us.
We spend years running from the unlovable parts of ourselves, but if we learn to confront and embrace them, enormous shifts can happen — and very quickly.
Once you start practicing self-love and self-acceptance, you'll create the right conditions for love to find you.
Katie and Gay Hendricks are experts who have written over 30 books, trained thousands of coaches, appeared on Oprah, and hosted seminars around the globe.