Why We Sometimes Feel Safer Chasing Love Than Receiving It

Posted on by helpingsoul
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Week 2 · The SEEN Method Series

You’re waiting for a text. Someone seems distant, and suddenly you’re replaying the conversation, wondering what changed.

You become more available. More accommodating. More attentive.

You may start trying harder to create the security you’re hoping to feel.

Chasing love can be surprisingly quiet. It can look like anticipating someone’s needs, seeking reassurance, becoming indispensable, swallowing disappointment, keeping your own needs small, or continually trying to become more desirable.

A useful question is:

Am I choosing this because it feels right to me, or am I doing it because I’m afraid of what will happen if I don’t?

David’s Story

David adored his father, but his father was often drunk and often gone. David learned to wait for his attention and watch carefully for the moments when connection might appear.

Over time, he became familiar with a particular kind of love—one that required effort, vigilance, attention, and hope.

That pattern followed him into romantic relationships.

David found himself drawn to women who were unavailable or inconsistent. When he dated women who were kind and attentive, their steadiness sometimes felt strangely uncomfortable. The emotional intensity he associated with attraction wasn’t there, so he sometimes created conflict to bring back a familiar feeling.

Understanding this pattern helped David see something important:

Familiarity can feel like safety, even when familiarity has never been safe.

Steady love can feel unfamiliar before it begins to feel secure.

Receiving Love Requires Something Different

Chasing gives you something to do.

You can try harder. Fix something. Anticipate. Reassure. Prove yourself.

Receiving asks you to stay present while someone else loves you.

It asks you to allow your needs, preferences, imperfections, disappointments, and boundaries to be seen.

You can be deeply connected to someone and still know what you want.

You can be loved and still say no.

You can receive someone’s care without turning it into something you have to earn.

A Small Practice

The next time you notice yourself working especially hard to secure someone’s love, pause.

Ask yourself:

What am I feeling right now?

What do I want?

What am I doing to create security in this relationship?

Then ask:

If I trusted that I am already worthy of love, how would I want to show up right now?

Your answer may be small. You might express a preference, allow the other person to initiate, say what you actually want, or simply stay present with uncertainty instead of immediately trying to resolve it.

Love becomes more spacious when you bring yourself into it.

Read the full Week 2 article on The Courageous Self:

The Moment You Realize You’ve Been Abandoning Yourself

Posted on by helpingsoul
Artwork depicting abstract mountains and a sun, with text overlayed that reads 'Week 1 - The Seen Method Series: The Foundation of Change - Why Noticing Your Patterns Matters'.

Week 1 · The SEEN Method series

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There is often a moment when you realize you’ve been showing up for everyone except yourself.

Maybe you’re replaying a conversation and remembering that you said “it’s fine” when it wasn’t. Maybe you agreed to something before checking whether you actually wanted to. Maybe you’ve become so accustomed to considering everyone else’s needs that your own have become difficult to hear.

This is often what self-abandonment looks like: small, automatic adjustments that gradually become a way of living.

You say yes before checking in with yourself.
You swallow what you wanted to say.
You make yourself smaller to keep things comfortable.
You go quiet to keep the peace.
You ask what everyone else needs before asking what you need.

Jordan’s Story

Jordan described it this way: they could immediately sense what was needed in every room of their life—what their partner needed, what their family needed, what work required—long before they could sense what was happening inside themselves.

Eventually, Jordan began noticing the pattern.

One day, sitting in a parking lot after work, they realized they had agreed to several things that day without once asking themselves whether they wanted to.

Nothing dramatic had happened.

That was the point.

Self-abandonment can become so familiar that it feels like personality rather than a strategy you learned along the way.

Staying Connected to Yourself

Relationships require flexibility, generosity, and compromise. The important question is whether you remain present with yourself while you are giving to someone else.

You can care deeply for another person and still know what you need.

You can compromise and still have preferences.

You can stay connected to someone without disappearing inside the connection.

A useful question to begin with is:

How do I stay connected to myself while remaining connected to you?

The return to yourself begins with noticing.

Before you agree, pause.

Before you automatically accommodate, check in.

Before you explain away what you’re feeling, give yourself a moment to hear it.

That small pause can become the beginning of a very different relationship with yourself.

You don’t have to lose yourself in order to be connected to someone else.

Read the full Week 1 article on The Courageous Self:
Jordan is a composite, illustrative character created to bring the themes of this series to life.