Why You Keep Looking for Love Outside Yourself

How self-worth shapes your relationships and sense of wholeness

I spent years searching for someone to “make me happy.” I thought if I could just find the right person—someone who loved me the way I wanted to be loved—something in me would finally feel complete. But no matter how hard I tried, no matter who came into my life, that feeling never stayed.

I was alone and lonely more often than I wanted to admit. Even when I wasn’t physically alone, there was still a part of me that felt separate, like I was always outside the connection I was trying to find.

I didn’t understand why it felt this way. I only knew that I kept looking outside of myself for something I couldn’t seem to find. It took me a long time to understand what I was actually searching for. And what so many of us are feeling—why do we still feel incomplete even when we’re loved?

The Search for Something More

Self-love is the most important love we can have, because it’s where that sense of wholeness begins. This includes having compassion for our weaknesses and mistakes before we can express compassion for others. But that isn’t what most of us were taught.

Too many of us, especially women, seek to find that “one true love”, our soul mates, or our twin flames. We reach outward for a sense of wholeness we don’t believe we already have. Society has created an inherent belief that we need someone else to complete ourselves. If we aren’t in a relationship with someone, we’re incomplete and not whole, and certainly can’t be happy. We search for wholeness and fill the holes within us outside of ourselves, looking for completion. When we find someone, we expect them to fulfill us and make them responsible for our happiness, then wonder why those relationships fall apart and don’t work.

I believe it’s time to end this myth. We can’t find wholeness outside of ourselves—I learned that the hard way.

Looking for Love Outside Myself

I spent years searching for someone to “make me happy.” When I searched for completeness outside of myself, I set myself up for disappointment and heartache. Every one of my romantic relationships failed. My friendships remained on the surface and didn’t last. I was alone and lonely. Even after I had my daughter, I felt isolated, incomplete, and frequently fell into deep depression. I questioned my capability to love or my worthiness to be loved because I was looking outside of myself for validation that I was worthy of love. I didn’t understand it then, but there was a reason that search felt so consuming.

Love is the strongest vibration we can emit. To love and be loved is a fundamental need of our souls, as much as our bodies require water or air. Love and relationships give our lives meaning and fulfillment. Our connection with others brings joy and laughter to our lives and adds depth to our journey through life.

As I began connecting with the Goddess and looking within, I started to recognize something I hadn’t been willing to see before. All my “failed” relationships contained one common element: me.

Choosing to Turn Inward

Once I realized that, I made the decision to stop looking outside of myself for happiness and wholeness. Over many years, I learned to love myself, to be happy in my solitude and my own company, and to know myself under the labels and conditioning. It took years to discover this. Many times, I felt I’d reached the state of self-love and acceptance and to be happy with myself, only to hit an obstacle. It seemed like I took five steps forward and ten steps back. But I didn’t give up. I kept doing inner work and healing with the help and support of Isis until I’ve finally reached the place where I truly love myself and who I am.

In my journey, I began to experience that I could be whole and complete on my own, something I hadn’t believed possible.

Before that, when I lacked inner integrity or wholeness, I felt like pieces of myself were lost and missing. These included the qualities I admired in others, the strengths I wished I had, and the love I craved. No matter how much I searched for them in someone else, I couldn’t find them. I kept thinking a relationship would make me feel whole, but it never actually did.

After I stopped looking without, I discovered a new truth.

The Parts I Couldn’t Find

The “missing” parts were just aspects of my soul that I had hidden, due to conditioning, misunderstanding, and even fear. I found them within me, waiting for me to see and acknowledge them. When I became ready to accept them, they began to reveal themselves. I found within myself much of what I’d searched for all those years. I embraced the part of me that is always approving, accepting, and compassionate—the part that loves me dearly. Finding this, I no longer need to look outside of myself for love, for acceptance, or for validation. Because no matter how much I searched for love outside of myself, I couldn’t find it.

After I found my inner self and accepted myself, something extraordinary happened in my life. When you find the missing “pieces” or qualities within yourself and fully integrate and embody them, you begin to experience others meeting you differently. Others begin to mirror the love and acceptance they see in you. I noticed more people around me were kinder and gentler toward me, or had more fun with me. By being whole and complete, by being your truth, you allow others to be a part of your life. You allow them to love you, and you are in a place to receive that love.

A Deeper Understanding

Once I saw this, I understood it wasn’t just in how others responded to me—it affected my life in deeper ways. It wasn’t immediate, but it was unmistakable.

In my work with Isis and her sacred love, I’ve learned that when we love and accept ourselves, we can more fully and completely love and accept others unconditionally. When we feel a lack in ourselves, we place conditions on our love and acceptance. I can see now how deeply this shaped my life.

Living in Disconnection

For most of my life, I have been alone. I felt like an outsider, always looking in, but never fully participating in life or accepted by others. I rejected myself, who I was, and what I looked like. My body image was extremely negative, and my self-confidence was non-existent. The more I tried to make friends and to be part of groups, the more they pushed me away and rejected me.

I didn’t understand why until a holodynamic healing session several years ago. During it, I finally recognized how the more isolated, lonely, and rejected I felt, the more that was reflected in my life. In my desperate desire to be accepted, to be wanted and loved, but not feeling these things about myself, my energy was repulsive. Others sensed my desperation, and rather than doing what I wanted—to attract them to me—I pushed them away from me. I didn’t realize then how much my need for validation was shaping my relationships.

In that moment, I understood something I hadn’t fully grasped before—that my “reality” is a reflection of my inner state of being. And if that’s true, it also means I have the ability to change it. Once I recognized that I was acting from a place of self-rejection and not being enough, I had the choice of staying there or changing it.

Returning to Myself

I chose to shift and transform my beliefs and attitudes. It took several years, and working with Isis, to come to a place of self-love and acceptance. In this state, I found amazing people naturally coming into my life. I now have close friends who love and accept me. I still spend quite a bit of time alone. However, it feels completely different from before. I like being quiet and by myself. I can be alone because I like myself. It no longer feels like loneliness. I can see now why nothing outside of me ever felt like enough.

When I feel self-love now, I am centered, serene, and tranquil. Love fills my entire being and radiates from me. Loving myself gives me room to accept, love, and honor other people. I can allow them to be who they are and love them as they are. Loving myself opens the doors to allow others to love me as well. In this state of being, love flows freely between me and the other person.

Working with Isis’s sacred love and doing our inner work, I have healed many of the wounds causing me to feel incomplete and unworthy. But more than that, I began to see something I hadn’t seen before.

Everything I had been searching for in someone else was never outside of me. It was within me, waiting for me to recognize it, to accept it, and to allow it to be there.

I am worthy of love.

And for the first time, that doesn’t feel like something I need to prove or be given. It feels like something I already am.

I love who I am now.

There are moments in our lives where something becomes visible in a way it hadn’t before. Not because it wasn’t there, but because we’re finally able to see it.

If something in this felt familiar—if you recognized yourself in the searching, the longing, or the sense that something was missing—there may be more here for you than just understanding. There may be something in you asking to be noticed, not through effort or change, but through your own awareness.

1. Where in your life have you been looking to someone else to give you a feeling you haven’t been able to find within yourself?

2. What qualities, feelings, or experiences have you admired or longed for in others that you haven’t yet allowed yourself to see within you?

3. What does being “whole” actually feel like to you—not as an idea, but as something you’ve experienced, even briefly?

Continue Exploring with Isis

If something in this essay resonated with you, Isis’s Sacred Love offers a way to continue the exploration through relationship and devotional practice.

Through time with Isis, the Guide invites you to consider love beyond the familiar ideas of self-love. You’ll explore acceptance, belonging, reclaiming the parts of yourself you may have hidden or set aside, and what it means to recognize your wholeness.

There isn’t one right answer or a particular place you need to arrive. The Guide offers different ways to spend time with Isis, reflect on your own experience, and discover what becomes visible for you.

I invite you to join the conversation on my Substack, Lunar Ink & Alchemy, to share your experience and insights from reading this essay.