From a young age, many fairy tales and movies have taught us that love was about finding a partner, having sex, and needing that attractive mate to make our dreams come true.

These age-old love concepts really twisted our minds into believing lies about love. Many of us cling to relationships, chase men, and give up our own personal dreams, in order to rush some version of “happily ever after.”

Love and happiness don’t come from that. Real relationships—that can last forever—come from developing the relationship we have with ourselves.

Self-love is a superpower. It can create happiness in everyone.

Love is cultivated in how we show up in life—how we treat ourselves and others. We can’t know love, until we’ve taken measures to grow into our own heart, and abandon those old tales, or what our parents once taught us. Unless we feel loved in who we are, we may never know what love feels like, or how to attract a real relationship with the potential to last forever.

I remember my first soulmate—a love so deep it changed me forever. I was in my 20s. Our connection was deep, hypnotic, and when we met it was like time stopped. I felt deep within me that I knew this person from “before.”

We got along easily and the passion and intense chemistry was wild between us. I thought I was in love. I believed he was the guy I’d marry and be with forever. In my mind I made him my Prince Charming. I was young and naive and convinced he was perfect. He touched my heart in ways no one ever had. Lust overtook me. I tried to make it work, and overlooked many flaws, and believed we were destined to be together.

Within every person’s heart is the desire to be loved, have love, and even get a glimpse of what it truly means. Love can put blinders on us, and cause us to act less than ourselves, because love ignites a magical feeling within us.

Growing up I never knew what love was—or what it felt like to be loved. This guy opened my heart in ways I never experienced before.

When we hide in our insecurities, change for our partner, hold on to who we think Prince Charming is, we fall into a role that is unloving (of ourselves) and smacks of codependency. It’s quite easy for a girl to hook a guy, conform to please him, and do anything to keep him. Our mind can cause us to do silly things to get love and convince us we’ve found it. However, there’s nothing magical about playing small in who we are, giving up our own dreams, or chasing a guy for a ring.

Happiness is not built in holding hands—it’s developed in finding our individual selves.

That guy walked away from me. He never denied what was between us. Love doesn’t lie—it knows. And, sometimes the best love breaks us and teaches us. He quickly dated and married my sorority sister, who he once promised he never liked. That girl has never apologized or even dared talk to me about it. I forgive her anyway. It’s silly how we get afraid to respect other women and live nobly with our sisters.

I believe women have the power to use their love and transcend old fairy tale thinking, and support others in creating an empowered, loving society.

Individually, we can become charming princesses, and live as positive and mature role models. Real women live with an open, caring, kind, loving, and honest heart. We give love, not just to our partners, but to everyone.

Women can create a new love reputation if we are willing to embody that kind of “goddess princess power.”

Love requires we all transform our limiting ideas about what it is.

To be a princess, we must first be willing to be a queen.

Love is about us, who we are, and connecting to our hearts. No partner can save us or grant love forever until we learn to embody it and feel it within ourselves. We must be prepared to leave fear, and whatever our past taught us, to embody the royalty within ourselves.

When the guy walked away, it broke my heart, and left me wondering what that hot, romantic energy was and why we came together. He met me, and held my hand, and showed me a new kind of love I’d never experienced before.

A soul mate will do that. They will turn our world upside down, and sometimes make our hearts bleed, and help show us how to become better inside, and teach us what love is on new levels. He served me a gift because I became stronger and learned to be worthy in myself. I now know who I am.

When we meet someone we feel we’ve known forever, we can fall apart when they leave us. Often, the breaks allow us to begin a whole new journey into love, so we can realize what our heart really desires.

I still do believe in fairy tales.

But, I know now that to feel loved, we must create it inside and radiate it outward. Wishing and hoping for someone to save us won’t bring us everlasting happiness.

If you get a soulmate connection that touches you in such a profound way that it forces you to open and reinvent yourself—consider yourself lucky. Many people don’t get that. Connections made from the soul help awaken the heart.

Never be afraid to be yourself. Love radically and fearlessly and know there is plenty to go around.

We are all on the same journey to “happily ever after,” and learning to listen your own heart will help you discover what love really means.

~

Author: Kali Bliss
Image: Instagram
Editor: Lieselle Davidson
Copy Editor: Leah Sugerman
Social Editor: Khara Jade Warren