The wildness at the edge of love consists of various psychological contortions to secure being lovable. These strategies include excessive caretaking, compulsive pleasing, a desperate need to achieve, workaholism, and striving to impress. The most common obstacle to loving ourselves is caring for ourselves the way we experienced being cared for by our parents. The problem is that those guiding our childhoods often struggle to love themselves.

Let’s focus on what can be done now to engender self-love. Asking a significant other to love us instead of ourselves is a setup. They can’t do it for us. One action that can be taken is to stop thinking of love as mostly a feeling state. Hollywood and romance novels enhance their dramatic appeal by representing love as a passionate and exuberant emotion.

The love between two or more people is felt, understood, and........

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