Why Spiritually Awake People Still Struggle in Love
She sat across from him in the café, voice steady, eyes kind, insisting she was fine. “I don’t need much,” she said. “Love is about giving, not asking. If I just keep showing up, he’ll feel safe enough to stay.” Her smile carried the weight of exhaustion—yet she offered another sacrifice, another compromise, as if devotion alone might bend the laws of intimacy.
Across town, another woman scrolled through her phone, unread messages piling up from the man who wanted to love her. “I just need space,” she whispered to herself. “Attachment is illusion. Real freedom is non-attachment.” She closed the chat window, convincing herself that what felt like withdrawal was actually wisdom.
And then there was the man who wavered between the two extremes. One night he confessed, “I can’t breathe without her.” The next morning he was gone, phone off, already drowning in panic at the thought of being consumed. He clung and fled in equal measure, chasing the high of closeness, terrified of its weight.
All three of them—so different in expression, so similar in ache—had one thing in common: they were awake. They had studied the sutras, sat in meditation halls, tasted transcendence. They could describe union with God in exquisite detail. But face-to-face with love, they were lost.
The Secret Beliefs Beneath the Surface
The woman who sacrifices everything for love doesn’t actually believe she’s saintly. Beneath her polished generosity lives the terror: “If I ever ask for too much, I’ll be abandoned.” Her unspoken creed is that love must be earned through self-erasure. She convinces herself she’s patient and kind, but secretly, she’s bargaining—hoping that if she swallows her needs, someone will finally stay.
The one who insists on radical freedom doesn’t really believe she’s enlightened. Her hidden belief whispers: “If I let you too close, I’ll disappear.” She fears that intimacy will suffocate her, strip her of her voice, her autonomy, her very self. So she calls her distance “non-attachment,” but in truth, she is warding off a buried panic—the childhood fear of being consumed.
And the one who ricochets between grasping and fleeing is not truly confused about love. Deep down, his belief is: “Love will never be safe. If I lean in, I’ll lose myself; if I pull away, I’ll lose you.” He is trapped in a private double bind, addicted to the highs of closeness and the relief of escape, unable to trust that intimacy could be steady, ordinary, and real.
These secret beliefs are why even the most spiritually awake among us find ourselves in repeating patterns. They’re not conscious choices, but body-deep reflexes etched by childhood wounds. We don’t choose them, but unless we see them, they keep choosing for us.
When Secret Beliefs Masquerade as Spiritual Truths
What makes these patterns so stubborn isn’t only that they come from childhood wounds. It’s that they get dressed up in spiritual language and paraded as wisdom.
The one who clings believes “If I erase my needs, you’ll stay.” In spiritual circles, that easily becomes: “Love is selfless service. A true devotee expects nothing in return.” Her fear of abandonment hides inside vows of unconditional patience. What looks like sainthood is often self-betrayal.
The one who retreats believes “If I let you too close, I’ll disappear.” Wrapped in spiritual rhetoric, that becomes: “Real love is non-attachment. Freedom is the highest form of devotion.” Her fear of engulfment now sounds like enlightenment. Withdrawal is reframed as wisdom.
The one who oscillates believes “Love will never be safe.” He reframes his whiplash as “I’m just following my truth, honoring my flow.” The swings between intensity and distance are justified as authenticity, when in reality, they are trauma responses with spiritual names.
This is why spiritually awake people struggle in love: because their defenses wear halos. They don’t recognize their strategies as fear; they mistake them for virtue. The very concepts meant to liberate us—detachment, selflessness, unconditional love—become prisons when ripped from wisdom and used as armor against intimacy.
The Invitation to See Ourselves
Maybe you don’t think of yourself as “the Grasper” or “the Averter.” Maybe you’d never use words like non-attachment or unconditional love and devotion. But pause for a moment.
Have you ever stayed in a relationship long past its expiration date, convincing yourself that if you just gave a little more, things would get better? Have you ever pulled away from someone who wanted more of you, telling yourself you just needed space—but secretly feeling relief at the distance? Have you ever bounced between chasing closeness and then panicking once you had it, swearing it was about compatibility, but deep down knowing it wasn’t?
These are not just spiritual problems. They are human ones. Most of us have leaned too far toward sacrifice, or too far toward escape, or spun between the two. We may not call it grasping or aversion—we just call it “love.”
The point is not to label yourself, but to recognize that your relationship struggles may have less to do with your partner and more to do with the quiet beliefs you carry about love itself. Beliefs you might not even know you have.
A Quiet Self-Inquiry
Take a breath. Forget for a moment what you think you know about your love life. Instead, try this:
Think of the last time you felt hurt in a relationship. What did you do? Did you double down and give more, hoping love would return to you? Did you pull back, insisting on your independence? Or did you do both—cling one moment, retreat the next?
Now ask yourself: what story did you tell yourself to justify it? Did you call your sacrifice “being the bigger person”? Did you tell yourself “I just need space” when really you were terrified of being consumed? Did you decide “we’re not compatible” in a moment of panic, only to miss the closeness once it was gone?
Finally, pause and notice: what’s the belief beneath the story? Is it, *“If I need too much, no one will stay”? Or, “If I let someone in, I’ll lose myself”? Or, “Love will never be safe”?
If one of these landed like a stone in your gut, don’t turn away. That heaviness is not proof that you’re broken—it’s proof you’re touching something true.
An Invitation Into the Work
If you recognize yourself in these stories, take heart. Struggling in love doesn’t mean you’ve failed spiritually—it means you’re being invited deeper. Awakening is not complete until it descends into the messy, beautiful terrain of relationship, where our wounds meet our devotion.
That’s why I created a free webinar on Spiritual Awakening & Ending Self-Sabotage in Love. In it, I’ll guide you through how to:
Recognize the hidden beliefs that quietly drive your patterns in love.
Understand why spiritual truths like selflessness and non-attachment so often backfire in intimacy.
Begin practicing a new way of loving that honors both your divinity and your humanity.
Because love isn’t meant to be another place where we betray ourselves in the name of growth. It is meant to be the very ground where awakening takes root.
If you’re ready to step off the wheel of repeating the same heartbreak—and discover how your deepest longing can become your doorway into freedom—I’d love for you to join me.
👉 Take the relationship quiz here :
With fierce devotion,
Gigi 🌹