Any strategy to get love cuts you off from love. The search for light requires darkness. The search for love requires the absence of love. To look for what’s missing, you must first decide it’s not here — and that decision is the cutting off.
This may describe the entire journey of unconditional love: we think love isn’t there, we think we have to earn it through eating a certain way, acting a certain way, having a certain amount of money. Then at some point there’s simply a recognition that love is available — it doesn’t require anything besides not cutting it off. But if you’re looking for it, you’ve already cut it off.
The key distinction: “seeing the love that’s there” is not the same as “looking for love.” Seeing is recognizing what’s present. Looking implies absence and the need to find. “I have to find myself” or “I have to love myself more” — even these are forms of seeking that create the lack. The grief of realizing this has been the case all along is part of the return.
“The search for light requires darkness. The search for love requires lack of love.”
“At some point there’s this just recognition that nope, love’s just available. It doesn’t require anything besides not cutting it off.”