We Love the Way We Were Loved Until We Heal

Breaking Free From Past Patterns

Back in college, I remember chatting with a male acquaintance at party. He had an undeniable masculine energy– well over six feet tall, a beaming smile, and the confidence of a football player.

We were having a heart-to-heart (after making out 🙈), and all of a sudden he started bawling.

In between sobs, he told me how he was so afraid of never being loved.

I was shocked at the full-out tears from the always-smiling-football-guy.

We were 18… In my mind, he had his whole life ahead of him to find love, and of course, he would— he was great!

However, at 18, I did not have the emotional capacity to understand how deep this went.

Not being very emotional myself at the time, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the sobbing.

Needless to say, I didn’t call him. 😂

Nor did he call me though. 😆

We Love How We Were Loved

Over twenty years later, this collegiate memory comes to my mind.

How we love and how we let ourselves be loved comes down to how we were loved and the love we witnessed and received as a child.

This is true whether you are single or in a relationship.

Being in a relationship doesn’t mean you are healed.

You could be in a decade-long relationship and be harboring wounds from childhood….but the wounds will undoubtedly come out.

Childhood Wounds

We carry our childhood wounds with us, as we are all just children in grown bodies. Even if you had a seemingly perfect childhood, almost everyone has a mother and father wound.

Maybe your emotional needs weren’t met.

Maybe you felt unsupported or unloved or not enough.

Or maybe, another sibling shined in a way that made you feel dim.

Perhaps, you were parentified at a young age – the fixer, the glue – holding it all together.

Or perhaps, the love you witnessed shaped your wound.

Maybe your parents didn’t actually love each other.

Our childhoods shaped our “love template,” which then becomes the default lens through which we view future relationships with… until we heal, that is.

Now, of course, you can also have wounds from previous relationships.

However, if you dig deep, you will most likely find that these are rooted in that “love template” we unknowingly took from our childhood.

The Stories We Have Weaved

Back when I was a teacher, I would give my students a template for writing.

Just as my students used these templates to write their essays, we, as grownups, use a template in our lives too.

Our “love template,” written in childhood, tells our story about love. This template or “way of seeing” protected us then.

However, we continued to carry that old story.

We think we are unbiased. Yet really, we have weaved stories around ourselves that are shaping our current reality when the story is no longer relevant.

These are our stories to work through, to dissipate, to dissolve, to clear up.

Normally, I’m big on using the word trauma, but maybe I’ll start using the word story, as stories are known for being fiction or loosely based on real-life.

Although our trauma was very real when it happened, when we carry it and apply that template to everything else, it becomes a story.

How To Write a New Love Template

First, we have to be aware of the old story and how it is playing out in our reality.

This might take some digging into mother wounds, father wounds, emotional wounds, rejection wounds, or abandonment wounds.

I like to have a really good understanding of things, so I use journal prompts and meditation to see what patterns I can trace. In my mind, the more I understand, the more I can heal.

Once you have found your story, you can then work on clearing it out.

Journal Prompts for Healing Love Patterns

Journaling prompts are an amazing way to help you dig deep. I have a series of prompts on my website that will help you reflect on past love patterns, explore the roots of love patterns, understand triggers and reactions, rewrite love patterns, and love yourself first.

Here is an example of a prompt from reflecting on past love patterns:
What role do I usually play in a relationship? How does that role affect me?

Healing Work

Healing work could be journaling, therapy, yoga, meditation, energy work, stillness, somatic therapy, poetry, and so much more. Once you are aware of the pattern and how it has played out, I’m sure you’ll receive clarity on how to soften it.

Being residents here at earth school, we constantly need to be doing our healing work. There are always layers. Maybe one day we are working on our patterns around love and other days we are working on fear.

Yet, inner work is part of our journey here.

Onward and Upward

We may have been taught to love a certain way, but we hold the key to unlearn, heal, and create new healthier patterns.

When we do so, we will find that the fairy tale love we always desired actually is possible, when you clear out all the stuff that wasn’t you and didn’t belong.

Back to the Football Guy

Looking back on always-smiling-football-guy, his fear most likely came from his childhood– the way he was loved, and I’m sure he kept it hidden until it spiraled out in a college moment.

Years ago I heard he was married to an absolutely gorgeous wife and has little ones. Of course, this made me smile…

…but my wiser self knows that doesn’t mean he feels loved.

I do, however, hope he did the work on himself to experience love and that he didn’t fall into the story he was carrying back in our college days.

And if not, maybe he’ll find my journal prompts:)

Happy Healing, friends! And it is happy, because underneath all the hurt and sadness is a beautiful layer of joy waiting to shine.

P. S. If you and I went to college together and you are going to ask me who always-smiling-football-guy was, my lips are sealed. 🤐