What I’d tell my younger self about love, loneliness, and finally feeling enough

I remember the exact moment it hit me. I was sitting on the balcony of a small apartment in Chiang Mai, holding a cup of cold coffee that had long since lost its warmth. The sun was setting over the mountains, casting a soft orange light across the city, and I felt an emptiness I couldn’t name. I had just turned thirty, and despite the success I had built in my online business, I felt like a failure in one key area: love.

At that point in my life, I’d been through enough disappointments to quietly wonder if something was wrong with me. I had loved, but not deeply. I had been loved, but it often felt conditional or short-lived. More than anything, I was tired — tired of dating apps, tired of the games, tired of pretending to be someone I wasn’t just to feel desired. I remember asking myself: Will I ever find love?

It’s a question that haunts more people than we often admit. And when we’re stuck in it, it can begin to shape our identity. We don’t just feel unloved — we start to feel unlovable.

The stories we tell ourselves about love

For years, I believed love was something that would complete me. Like so many of us, I had internalized the cultural idea that love was something to get — an achievement unlocked when we became attractive enough, successful enough, or simply lucky enough to be chosen.

Psychologically, this kind of belief creates a dependency model of love. In attachment theory, it aligns with what’s called an anxious-preoccupied style — where our self-worth becomes intertwined with external validation. We chase love as proof we matter.

But here’s what I’ve come to understand, both from personal experience and from my studies in psychology and Buddhist thought: the search for love often becomes distorted when we’re really trying to fill an internal void.

And the cruel irony is that the more we grasp for love in this way, the more elusive it becomes.

What I didn’t know then about loving-kindness

Around the time I was sitting on that balcony, I had begun practicing mindfulness more seriously. But it wasn’t until I discovered the Buddhist practice of metta, or loving-kindness meditation, that things really began to shift.

Loving-kindness isn’t about being nice. It’s not even primarily about others at first. It’s about cultivating a deep, unconditional friendliness toward your own heart — especially the parts that feel broken, lonely, or ashamed.

In the traditional metta practice, you repeat phrases like:

• May I be happy.
• May I be healthy.
• May I be safe.
• May I live with ease.

You begin with yourself. Then you expand it outward — to a loved one, a neutral person, a difficult person, and eventually all beings. At first, I found it awkward. It felt forced. But I kept practicing. And something subtle began to happen.

I started to feel less desperate. Less hungry for validation. And more whole.

Before: Searching for someone to make me feel worthy

In my twenties, I would enter relationships hoping they would finally make me feel secure. I wanted someone to tell me I was enough — attractive enough, interesting enough, lovable enough. But even when someone did tell me those things, it never seemed to stick. I’d still feel the same underlying doubt.

This is what Carl Jung meant when he said, “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” I hadn’t yet done that. I was outsourcing my worthiness to whoever I was dating.

The result? I either chased unavailable people or sabotaged the good ones. Because deep down, I didn’t actually believe I deserved a stable, loving relationship.

After: Rooting love in presence, not performance

The shift came slowly. I didn’t wake up one day and magically feel healed. But over time, with mindfulness, therapy, and consistent metta practice, I started to feel more at home in myself.

I began relating to my loneliness differently — not as a sign of failure, but as a call for inward attention. I started treating myself with the kind of warmth I had long been seeking from others.

This is the paradox: the more I stopped chasing love, the more available I became to actually receive it.

Eventually, I did meet someone. But by then, something fundamental had changed. I wasn’t trying to impress or audition. I was just being. And because of that, the relationship unfolded naturally — not from a place of neediness, but mutual care.

Love as a state of being, not a destination

Loving-kindness helped me see that love isn’t something we find “out there.” It’s something we cultivate. It’s a quality of attention. A way of relating. And it begins with how we show up for ourselves.

From a Buddhist perspective, this makes perfect sense. The Buddha taught that clinging is the root of suffering — and what is anxious longing if not a form of clinging?

When we root our search for love in lack, we suffer. But when we ground it in metta — in the steady practice of goodwill — we open ourselves to love in its truest form: not as a reward, but as a reflection of who we already are.

What I’d tell my younger self now

If I could go back and sit beside my younger self on that balcony in Chiang Mai, I wouldn’t give him dating tips. I wouldn’t promise him that love is just around the corner.

I’d say this instead:

You are already whole. Love isn’t something you earn by being better. It’s something you remember by coming home to yourself.

Treat your longing with kindness. Let it soften you, not harden you. Let it guide you inward, not just outward.

And keep your heart open — not just to others, but to your own breath, your own body, your own beautiful, aching humanity.

Because in the end, the question isn’t really “Will I ever find love?”

The deeper question is: Can I learn to love this moment, this self, this life — exactly as it is?

That’s where real love begins. And from there, anything is possible.