The lies we believe about love

Pain. Resignation. Adaptation.

These are just a few negative words many of us associate with love. We grow up hearing that love is sacrifice, requires endurance, and is meant to test us. We learn to endure more than we should, to chase what runs, and to settle for what breaks us because we’ve been taught that love is a test, not a sanctuary. If these are the beliefs we hold, then in relationships, we will attract exactly that: cycles of longing, suffering, and survival. We will call pain passion, mistake inconsistency for mystery, and interpret emotional distance as something we must earn our way through. We will normalize staying too long, explaining too much, and waiting too often. We will think love is found in proving ourselves, instead of being accepted as we are. But where do these beliefs come from?

The Inheritance of Love

Our first lessons about love come from home.

Did our parents communicate or did they yell
Did they listen or did they dismiss?
Did they stay past the expiration date of their love, teaching us that leaving is failure?
Or did they abandon too soon, making love feel like something that can never be trusted to last?
Did they show tenderness, or was affection scarce and earned?
Did they model a love that was safe, consistent, and warm?
Or did they teach us that love is unpredictable, fragile, and something we must constantly fight for?

From a psychological perspective, few theories explain our patterns in love and connection as clearly as attachment theory. First developed by John Bowlby and expanded by Mary Ainsworth, it suggests that the emotional tone of our earliest relationships quietly shapes how we engage with intimacy throughout our lives. In our first years, we don’t just learn language or motor skills — we know what love feels like, whether comfort is offered or withheld. Whether emotions are welcomed or ignored. Whether closeness is safe or dangerous. And the body remembers. These early experiences leave deep impressions on the nervous system, forming internal expectations about how love works. They influence what we perceive as safe or threatening in connection, often without us realizing it. While we may grow up, change partners, or even continents, these patterns tend to follow us until we bring them into awareness.

Our nervous system remembers every emotional wound, dismissal, and disappointment, shaping our adult relationships by unconsciously drawing us toward the familiar, even if it's unhealthy.

Cognitive reframing: The love we choose now

The good news is that beliefs can be rewritten. If we were taught that love is pain, we can teach ourselves that love is healing. If we grew up thinking love is something we have to suffer for, we can begin to understand that real love does not ask for our exhaustion. We can recognize that love should not be a test of endurance, but a place where we can rest. Neuroscience shows that our brains have remarkable plasticity—we can rewire how we perceive and experience love. We can break free from old narratives and cultivate a new understanding of intimacy through mindfulness, therapy, and conscious self-reflection. We can learn to tolerate the stability of healthy love instead of mistaking it for boredom. We can begin to choose partners who feel safe rather than excitingly unpredictable.

Here are four in-depth practices to support this cognitive and emotional reframing process.

1. Most of us carry invisible scripts about love—beliefs shaped in childhood, modeled by early caregivers, or learned through painful experience. These scripts silently guide our choices, set our thresholds for pain, and define what we tolerate. Choose a quiet space where you feel safe and uninterrupted. With pen and paper, complete the following prompts—slowly, deliberately:

• “The kind of love I was shown looked like…”
• “The messages I internalized about love were…”
• “As a child, I learned that love means…”
• “Today, I still carry the belief that love should…”

Could you let each sentence unfold fully? Don’t censor or analyze. Just observe. Then, step back and read your responses aloud. Notice which words feel heavy, which ideas feel outdated, and where you sense resistance.

2. Old beliefs don’t vanish because we identify them. They resurface, especially in moments of vulnerability. That’s where cognitive reframing becomes an embodied practice.
   1. Choose one belief you uncovered in the previous exercise that still lingers. For example:
      “I have to earn love by proving I’m good enough.”
   2. Write a whole page exploring how this belief has shaped your relationships. Be specific. Where has it led you to overextend, remain silent, or abandon yourself?
   3. Then, craft a clear, intentional reframe:
      “I am inherently worthy of love. I do not need to overgive to be valued.”
      Say it aloud—slowly. Pause. Feel where it lands in your body. Then ask yourself:

• What would acting from this new belief in my next relationship moment mean?
• How would I speak, choose, or set a boundary differently?

This becomes your real-time cue. When the old narrative appears, name it: “This is the outdated script.” Then, practice the reframe—not just in words, but in choice.

3. If chaos was your baseline, stability can feel unnatural. Peace can even feel threatening. Our nervous system doesn’t always crave what’s good—it craves what’s familiar. Each day, spend 10 minutes conditioning your body to recognize emotional safety as a source of nourishment.

• Sit or lie down in a quiet space.
• Place one hand on your chest, one on your belly.
• Breathe deeply, slowly, without forcing.
• Now recall a memory—a moment, however small—when you felt seen, safe, and accepted. Let yourself feel the texture of that moment. What were the sensations in your body? The sounds? The emotional tone?

Stay with the feeling. Allow it to expand, like warmth spreading through your chest. Do this daily. You are creating new reference points for safety. Over time, the body begins to remember that calm is not dangerous—that it can feel like home.

4. You cannot heal in theory alone. You need a compass to guide your choices. Otherwise, you may return to familiar pain under a new name. Could you divide a page into three sections?

Section one: Describe the emotional patterns of your past relationships. Not just what the partner did, but how you felt, behaved, compromised, and reacted.
Examples:

• “I felt anxious when they pulled away.”
• “I kept trying to prove I was enough.”
• “I was afraid to express needs.”

Section two: Identify what you thought these dynamics meant about love.
Examples:

• “Love means longing.”
• “Love is a reward I must earn.”
• “Love comes with uncertainty.”

Section three: Define the new principles you want your relationships to reflect.
These should be emotional truths rooted in your healing, not in fantasy.

Examples:

• “Love feels steady, not erratic.”
• “Love honors boundaries and communicates clearly.”
• “Love meets me where I am, not where I’m performing.”

We need to stop normalizing and romanticizing damaged relationships and stop believing that struggle is what makes love real. Love, at its core, is simple. We make it feel hard. You are allowed to want a love that doesn’t exhaust you. Embracing a love that feels easy and natural is not only possible but also what we truly deserve.