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Couples, Relationships, Self-Relationship 763 Comments on True Love or Not

True Love or Not

By Nicole Serafin · On January 9, 2017 ·Photography by Joseph Barker

Have you ever had the opportunity to experience love, only to run a million miles or go into self-destruct or sabotage mode, often without even realising it until it is too late?

I had just this; an incredible relationship, an amazing man who adored me, and most of all could see me for the incredible woman I was, even though I was not choosing to live that woman at the time of our relationship.

I knew how much he loved me, that he would always be there for me, and to be honest, it has only been recently I have been able to admit and see just how far I went to push him away and end our relationship.

I constantly went into self-doubt, always questioning him about where he had been, and my mind would have a field day with me, coming up with all sorts of scenarios while he was out with his friends.

Yes, I was young, but deep down I knew he was not up to anything, that he was totally trustworthy, but because of my own insecurities and lack of self-worth I would go into self-destruct mode and on would come the arguments, which just confirmed for me that there was something more than what he said was going on, even though I would be the one to instigate the arguments to begin with.

I would think that if he became argumentative in return then there had to be more to it, or if he walked away or didn’t want to talk about it, then again there had to be more to it.

Absurd, crazy and totally unnecessary, but for me, holding myself back, not allowing myself to truly be loved or to live the love and the woman I was, was a self-defence mechanism I had created to keep others away, no matter how much I loved or cared for them. I had so much fear around being hurt I wanted to get in first.

The crazy thing was it was me who was doing all the hurting; firstly, and most of all, to myself, and then to others, as an end result of my own issues I was not choosing to deal with or allowing myself to feel.

Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full, without holding back any of ourselves. It is this holding back, the constant guard and protection that we hold so dearly, that contrasts with the absolute love that we should be holding dear – the absoluteness that allows us to stop and connect to ourselves and others, to have deep connections with no expectations, ideals, images or wanting of another to be anything but themselves.

I was lucky enough to have such a relationship presented to me at a young age. Sure it was not perfect but there was a love there that could have supported it to deepen and develop into something that was true if the choice had been made.

It was not until recently that I realised I had held regret for the choices I had made, as well as the hurt I still held in my body for not choosing love over my own insecurities and hurts.

What I am learning is just that  – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.

To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.

It is for me an ongoing commitment, one that I am developing and deepening daily, constantly observing my choices. If they are a step towards the love I am, or away, do I choose to open up and let others in or am I choosing to hide behind the protection that I create in order to not be seen for, or live, the amazingness I am?

True relationships develop, as do we, and it has been with the ongoing love, support and reflections of Serge Benhayon, his family and Universal Medicine that I have had my own journey of re-connection and development of what it is to live as the woman I am today, and to discover and allow myself to begin to live in, and part of, true relationships.

By Nicole Serafin, Age 44, Tintenbar NSW, Woman, wife, mother, hairdresser

Further Reading:
Discovering my True Strength being the Delicate Woman I Am 
True Responsibility – My Understanding
From Searching for Love to Self-Love

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Nicole Serafin

Living in Tintenbar with my amazing husband and three beautiful children. Life is simple, uncomplicated and full of magical moments everywhere I look. Birds chirping, kookaburras singing and kids playing outside chasing each other around and around, making me dizzy at times but still glorious to watch. Not a moment goes by where I do not stop to appreciate all that I am, who we are as individuals and how we are together as a family, truly glorious in every way.

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763 Comments

  • Mary says: July 26, 2020 at 3:20 pm

    Nicole we can also be self destructive with ourselves through our lack of self love, when we lack self love the thoughts come in and smash us. When we start to love ourselves, the thoughts have less room almost to enter our minds.

    Reply
  • Mary Adler says: March 2, 2020 at 4:32 pm

    Reconnecting to true love is to reconnect to the truth of who you are.

    Reply
  • Vicky Cooke says: November 23, 2019 at 7:34 am

    ‘Have you ever had the opportunity to experience love, only to run a million miles or go into self-destruct or sabotage mode, often without even realising it until it is too late?’ What I am learning more and more is how much I have sabotaged the love within me let alone with another! So it is really gorgeous that the table is now turning and no longer am I sabotaging love with myself and others even in subtle ways but instead am loving far more than I have ever done and this is just the beginning.

    Reply
  • Mary says: November 8, 2019 at 5:23 pm

    I am being shown so much about absolute love and what that really looks like, not the soppy emotional love we are saturated with. I have observed delicate moments between two people as they have just touched hands as they passed each other; it was like a bomb going off. There was total communication of the universe in such a delicate touch that I could feel the expansion of space that resulted in just such a delicate movement.

    Reply
    • Vicky Cooke says: November 23, 2019 at 7:36 am

      WOW! Yep too am allowing myself to let love in far more than ever before. Absolutely crazy that I have spent so much time blocking or sabotaging it.

      Reply
    • Alexis Stewart says: February 21, 2020 at 2:50 pm

      Love can be felt in the smallest of touches and yet the most decadent displays of affection can be utterly devoid of love.

      Reply
      • Mary says: February 25, 2020 at 1:42 pm

        I totally agree with you, I was watching an interaction between a man and a woman recently the way the woman was behaving towards this man it was obvious that they were not a couple that this was a paid service utterly devoid of love it was a showmanship. It felt as though the man concerned was bragging to his fellow males a one-up–man-ship, look at me, and look at what I have and you haven’t. It’s completely false because it was a paid for service so the only reason he was getting such sexual attention was because he had paid for it. So it was complete lie and who is fooling who and why is it that we cannot admit that we are all desperately seeking love but at the same time run a million miles from it through fear of rejection.

        Reply
  • Vicky Cooke says: July 9, 2019 at 12:29 pm

    What an amazing learning you allowed yourself to have here ✨

    Reply
  • Greg Barnes says: July 6, 2019 at 3:58 am

    Thank you Nicole, adding to what you have shared, so by Loving and appreciation of the true-self, this is the appreciative-love of our essences, so that in this knowing we are choosing to deepen our relationship with our essences, and thus the humble-deepening-appreciative-ness of who we truly are is know and lived, and so it can be said we are more than human as known by our essences.

    Reply
  • Annoymous says: April 14, 2019 at 6:40 am

    “I constantly went into self-doubt, always questioning him about where he had been, and my mind would have a field day with me, coming up with all sorts of scenarios while he was out with his friends.” Self doubt is that killer, self doubt can literally destroy anything that is truly good if we let it.

    Reply
    • Greg Barnes says: July 6, 2019 at 10:10 am

      As judge-ments go self-doubt is definitely a kill-joy and getting back on track, so our movements starting with our gentle breath ,and then how we walk brings us back to our essences.

      Reply
  • Caroline Francis says: March 1, 2019 at 6:08 pm

    Regret delays evolution; letting go of regret opens the door to new opportunities to come our way.

    Reply
  • Rebecca says: February 8, 2019 at 4:13 pm

    ‘What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.’ I am also learning this. I can feel how I have a protection and that I have an expectation that others be loving to me first and that then I will be open and loving with them – I have felt lately how this stops me being consistently loving and open and harms me and the people that I am in relationship with.

    Reply
  • Lorraine Wellman says: January 28, 2019 at 6:05 pm

    This needs to be known from day one for all children, and the education system could re-enforce children’s understanding of this fact,’To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.’

    Reply
  • Caroline Francis says: January 15, 2019 at 6:43 pm

    It sets the foundation in every relationship when we hold another in all the beauty and amazingness they are even though they may not be living it and likewise it is very, very beautiful when we are truly met, constellated in a relationship where the man or woman can see us for who we truly are – amazing, tender and powerful human beings even though we may choose not to live that man or woman.

    Reply
  • BR says: December 30, 2018 at 3:25 am

    Committing to ourselves first is absolutely fundamental before any other relationship, and we get countless opportunities throughout the day to practice this: our every thought, movement or action can either erode our sense of who we are and know ourselves to be, or confirm and affirm it.

    Reply
  • Julie says: November 21, 2018 at 5:14 pm

    This does remind me of when I was younger how when a really decent guy came along I would sabotage the relationship because of my lack of self-worth. There was something inside of me that could not handle having someone who accepted me as I was, perceived flaws and all.

    Reply
  • Hm says: November 8, 2018 at 7:10 am

    The opportunity to love ourselves is always on offer. The more I do so – the more love I feel for people around me.

    Reply
    • Caroline Francis says: January 15, 2019 at 6:53 pm

      Very true Hm, every loving movement big or small we make towards ourselves the more ripples of love we offer to those around us. We cannot ever underestimate any movement that is made in love.

      Reply
    • Lorraine says: January 28, 2019 at 6:10 pm

      Yes, the more love we build and embody for self, the more there is for other people.

      Reply
  • Bryony says: October 28, 2018 at 5:24 am

    It’s interesting that deep down we absolutely know the truth of who someone is and how they are, but we allow ourselves to get taken out by thoughts of them being this or that – a corrupted version of who we deeply know them to be, when we’re not present, and not with ourselves. The more we build a loving relationship with ourselves, listening to and honouring what it is that we need, we learn to know ourselves, inside out, and the truth of how and what we feel is given permission to come to the surface for us to feel and know it in a more tangible, clear way.

    Reply
  • Fiona L says: October 23, 2018 at 7:11 am

    Even though we want love more than anything, we are very good at pushing it away. For some it’s not feeling worthy of it, or others the fear that it will leave. As the author has shared, you need to develop true love with yourself first, so it feels familiar and natural when presented by someone else. I am also realising just how important it is to put old hurts to rest by feeling and nominating them, as they are like a cancer that eats away at the potential for love.

    Reply
  • Stefanie Henn-Hecke says: October 17, 2018 at 4:07 am

    It is crucial to become honest if you tend to project your hurts onto another person. Only when you deal with your hurt you will be open to see another with pure and untainted eyes. For as no one ever will have a chance to come close to you.

    Reply
  • Stefanie Henn-Hecke says: October 17, 2018 at 4:03 am

    The moment we resist more intimacy and love we will find a million reasons and distractions, which are connected with the other person, only to avoid expanding in ourselves and becoming more.

    Reply
  • Danna Elmalah says: September 21, 2018 at 7:47 pm

    How can we other than connect to who we are (with ourselves), build relationships with other people? We would have no basis to grow from. That is why a relationship must be built first from within, to make it truly the success it can truly be.

    Reply
  • Sam says: September 20, 2018 at 5:46 am

    Self doubt is super insidious, it festers and grows and causes much harm, the problem is that it is so ‘normal’ you are considered abnormal if you don’t have it.
    Starting to call out this imposter is super important if we want to claim back our lives.

    Reply
  • Sam says: September 5, 2018 at 6:17 am

    Life is about relationships, Lets face it when our relationships are going great then life too is great – have problems in our relationships and life loses that sparkle – well worth the investment in.

    Reply
  • Hm says: August 30, 2018 at 6:06 am

    If we don’t have a loving and honest relationship with ourselves then it becomes imposssible to have that with others, What you share here shows how we need to deeply appreciate ourselves first so we can see the love offered in a relationship – otherwise we can bring in things to disrupt it. It is crazy to think about all the games we play when we do not want to let love in.

    Reply
  • Meg says: August 28, 2018 at 2:00 pm

    It’s great to acknowledge that our insecurities and when we don’t deal with our stuff actually damages all our relationships. It’s worth knowing what you are worth, otherwise we can destroy the opportunity to have most amazing relationships.

    Reply
  • Sam says: August 28, 2018 at 5:41 am

    Self doubt is absolute killer in relationships, the crazy thing is it that we blame self doubt when we it is us that actually choose to go into it.

    Reply
  • Samantha Davidson says: August 15, 2018 at 6:36 am

    I have run away from true love for life times and this life I am only just opening one eye to it, but more will unfold. I have been in a relationship for a while and it has been staring me in the face that this is true, the real deal, but for years I have held out and sabotaged….now I am beginning to surrender to it and doing so, I realise that it is love that is within us all and holding us all, that I surrender to and that is not just about one person that is a way of being with the All, with our bodies and with our divinity.

    Reply
  • Mary Adler says: August 14, 2018 at 2:26 pm

    When we hold ourselves back in any relationship we don’t get to feel the potential we are offered to know ourselves and others for all that we are.

    Reply
  • Shami says: July 25, 2018 at 7:23 am

    It is quite a huge deal, to not hold back and to allow oneself to be vulnerable in a relationship, especially the intimate ones. Because there is always some form of hurt, there is never life without hurt and personally I find this much easier to deal with when it comes from a stranger, but subsequently this means that I feel safer with strangers and so keeping very dearly close loved ones out and protected away from has become the normal way… a way that perhaps needs to end.

    Reply
  • Jill Steiner says: July 1, 2018 at 6:40 am

    I remember a time in the past when love was offered to me, it was so hard for me to stay in that presence of such love, because it reflected how much I did not love myself, but gradually over time as my love for my self grew I was able to accept more of the love offered and be able to express love back.

    Reply
  • jennym says: June 24, 2018 at 7:27 am

    Provoking others first to sabotage a relationship, means that we remain in a pattern of protection and defence that really never delivers us the connection and intimacy that we are really seeking.

    Reply
  • Bryony says: June 14, 2018 at 6:57 am

    Crazy how we push away what we crave the most – love, connection and intimacy – because we’re so afraid of being hurt. When we learn to love ourselves, then everything else becomes an extension of what we’re already feeling, already connected to – and nothing can take away that feeling we have within, because it comes from us, and is backed up by us, without depending on anything beyond or outside of it.

    Reply
  • Joshua Campbell says: June 9, 2018 at 11:29 pm

    A lot of us think that once you find the perfect partner and experience a true sense of love that that is it. There is no need for more and the love matching is done and dusted. Yet soon come the fights, conflicts and quarrels which only come about because we have not committed to love any more and if we have not committed to love then what have we said yes to?

    Reply
  • Fiona L says: May 20, 2018 at 7:04 am

    “The crazy thing was it was me who was doing all the hurting; firstly, and most of all, to myself, and then to others”. I love the self-awareness and honesty here. Most of the time when we have hurts our first response is to blame anyone and anyone, rather than look at what the cause is within ourselves. But that just leaves us in protection and trying to control situations, in the constant tension of worrying when our hurts will get triggered next.

    Reply
  • Michael Goodhart says: May 17, 2018 at 8:17 am

    “It was not until recently that I realised I had held regret for the choices I had made, as well as the hurt I still held in my body for not choosing love over my own insecurities and hurts.” – This statement really hit home for me while reading it, and I feel that the mental self-flagellation for making many choices to hold myself back from love for myself and from others tends to do far more damage than the actual acts themselves of sabotage, whether it be via eating something that dulls, stimulates, or creating issues that don’t really exist as distractions from going deeper in our relationships. For me, dealing with the lack of acceptance I may have for all my imperfections is now key to letting love both out and in.

    Reply
    • Elaine Arthey says: May 27, 2018 at 3:59 pm

      I totally agree Michael. Regret is like a poison in the body and can continue to haunt us for years if we do not address it and seek to dig out it’s roots.

      Reply
  • Mary Adler says: May 6, 2018 at 12:37 pm

    “all relationships begin with you” This is all part of our confusion that we think a relationship is about the other person and what they offer us without stopping to look at what what we bring to any relationship. Our relationship with God begins with the love that we bring to the relationship.

    Reply
  • Danna Elmalah says: May 5, 2018 at 4:59 am

    Beautiful Nicole, thank you for writing this. It touches the deeper part of me, my heart.

    Reply
  • Carola Woods says: April 28, 2018 at 4:41 am

    It is fascinating and disturbing to observe what behaviours we pull in to sabotage the call we feel or have said ‘yes’ to, to go to a deeper quality of love within ourselves and with another. We create issues to avoid going deeper with honesty, knowing the responsibility that is there to step up into. As soon as we resist love we are instead moved by all that is not love, with all the emotions, self-doubt, lack of self-worth and whatever other issues our minds can come up with to make us think that there is a problem as such keeping us very distracted. Being honest about what we are allowing to play out is what brings awareness as to why we have resisted love, the quality we always seek to return to whenever we have chosen to separate from its beholding light.

    Reply
  • Aimee Edmonds says: April 13, 2018 at 10:25 am

    It shows that we definitely know love inside and out because we can sniff it a mile away and make choices to either accept it or avoid it.

    Reply
  • Stefanie Henn says: April 5, 2018 at 2:59 pm

    It is an illusion that we can protect ourselves from hurt. As the hurt can only occur by being in alert and tightness in the body before already. The key for me was to learn to surrender, step by step. The more my body could let go, the more I dared to let myself be seen and as a result letting others in. Plus the fact, the surrender in my body helped me become an excellent observer of energies and challenging situations. As we are all vessels of energy, I could understand the game behind certain reactions and incidents, that wanted me to withdrawn from love and people again. So it only makes sense that I must be very powerful when I am in openness, connection and expressing all that I am- why would otherwise an energy be interested and do everything to get me to shut down again?!

    Reply
  • MW says: March 30, 2018 at 7:19 am

    It is so very easy to not want to look at the hurts we are carrying and then project them onto others and in this, because of the position we have chosen, it feels very real and our eyes see what we have positioned ourselves to see.

    Reply
  • MW says: March 27, 2018 at 7:03 am

    How very beautiful to understand in relationship that we are not perfect and are going to go through things but to have a commitment to going deeper, holding steady and allowing things to come up but making it about love.

    Reply
  • Stefanie Henn says: March 24, 2018 at 4:45 am

    A very wise man ( Serge Benhayon) once said to me after a lot of trying to solve the problems of the relationship : “You have to choose expansion for yourself first”. Since I ´ve done that my whole relationship changed, I grew instantly into more and my power, which then offered a whole lot of different reflection for my partner. Because in fact I said YES to myself. I said Yes, with no “but”.

    Reply
    • Aimee Edmonds says: April 13, 2018 at 11:15 am

      Wow very wise indeed! “You have to choose expansion for yourself first”… I have held this silly belief and held it against my family, that I can only expand if they also do. But this isn’t it, such a beautiful reminder, thank you.

      Reply
    • Caroline Reineke says: May 6, 2018 at 2:35 pm

      Great point. It is a choice, an allowing of this expansion for yourself first. Love it. Then it will reflect to all and within all the relationships I have, so these can also expand. Thanks for sharing this gem!

      Reply
  • Nattalija says: March 18, 2018 at 12:16 pm

    It is often when we are offered these qualities that we run from them as we have been so conditioned to want less and live less.

    Reply
  • Caroline Reineke says: March 17, 2018 at 4:35 pm

    I have a partner who loves me just who I am. From the start I very quickly became aware that any disruptions, quarrels etc. were created by me trying to project on him my own uneasiness, not letting him in and/or become more intimate with him. He was and is a person who does not even hurt a fly – Dutch expression. I knew the pointed finger towards him had to be directed at me. That frustrated me in the beginning, but I knew this was a speed course of taking responsibility and learning to deepen my relationship with myself ánd him. Still learning….

    Reply
    • Stefanie Henn says: March 24, 2018 at 4:49 am

      Saying YES to a constellation in not pointing the finger out to the other but bringing it always back to yourself is in deed an absolute evolving booster. Imagine we would use every relationship we have as a gem to learn and to move on, no matter, if we have to learn or bring more understanding to the other? !

      Reply
  • Joseph Barker says: March 14, 2018 at 8:40 pm

    When you look at the way we live in the world, the way we fight and resist Love – it’s crazy! The only thing I have found that comes close to explaining what’s going on is the fact of spirit and soul as presented by Serge Benhayon. When you know there is a part of us that fights unity and clings to individuality it starts to make sense of the absurdity we see in the world. Thank you Nicole.

    Reply
    • Stefanie Henn says: March 24, 2018 at 4:55 am

      There must be a part in us, that sincerely fights and wants to be apart from our soul. As our souls only know togetherness, love and expansion. Our soul carries no hurt, it is the other part that does everything to not get rocked in their supremacy. And it will hold onto hurts as long as possible, until the moment, when we realise that the greatest hurt was, living separated by our soul and not expressing from it.

      Reply
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