How Do I Know If This Love Is Right For Me?

The Love That Brings You Home

On intensity, safety and the kind of love you can build a life on

I recently wrote a poem about love not to explain anything but to let something move through me. Some truths don’t arrive through logic they arrive through sensation breath and lived experience.

But after writing it I realised there was more I wanted to say. Not to explain the poem but to deepen into what it’s really pointing toward. Because many of us have known love that feels intense dramatic and cosmic. And many of us quietly struggle when love begins to feel steadier slower and more grounded.

This is a reflection on that contrast. And on the kind of love that doesn’t take us away from life but becomes a place we can grow from.

When grounded love feels like a breath of fresh air

How do I know if this love is right for me?

How do I know if this love is right for me is not something the mind answers first. It’s something the body recognises over time.

The first time I experienced grounded love it felt like a breath of fresh air.

In my body there was ease. A sense of rounding. Expansion rather than contraction. I didn’t feel small or braced I felt held present alive. It felt amazing.

There was space to breathe.

And I noticed it.

But over time something shifted.

That ease became familiar.

The breath became steady.

And slowly gently it stopped demanding my attention.

Like breathing does.

When something is safe and consistent you don’t marvel at it forever you live inside it. It becomes your baseline. And that’s when it can begin to feel ordinary not because it’s lacking but because your nervous system is no longer being activated.

That was the moment I realised how unfamiliar safety had once been to my body.

When intensity is mistaken for depth

In contrast anxious all consuming love had felt alive.

It felt like someone had found a younger version of me the part that had felt alone and unseen tucked away in a cupboard and pulled her out into the light. That love wrapped tightly around her. Held her. Needed her.

And of course that felt powerful.

That love was real. Sacred even.

But what I came to see was that it wasn’t two adults meeting it was two inner children holding each other two parts seeking regulation through intensity.

It wasn’t wrong.

It wasn’t false.

It just wasn’t something a human life could be built on.

When grounded love feels unfamiliar and why that matters

After the rush of intensity grounded love can feel like a plateau.

Quiet.

Steady.

Unassuming.

And that can be deeply unsettling if your system has learned to associate love with emotional activation.

I still notice moments where a part of me wonders

Is it enough

If it’s not intense am I still growing

This isn’t something I’ve resolved and moved past. It’s something I’m still in relationship with. Still learning to trust. Still gently working with when old patterns surface.

What’s different now is that I can recognise what’s happening.

My nervous system is settling.

And settling doesn’t always feel exciting but it is what allows growth.

Love as a foundation not the whole structure

One of the most important shifts for me has been understanding grounded love not as everything but as the foundation.

A secure steady relationship becomes the ground you build from not the thing you build your entire identity around.

From that foundation everything else begins to organise differently

• how you relate to your body

• how you work and create

• how you build a home

• how you move through friendships and community

• how you meet challenge and uncertainty

When that foundation is unstable the things built on top of it keep collapsing no matter how much effort or passion you pour in.

When the foundation is secure life has something solid to rise from.

The love itself doesn’t need to be dramatic.

It needs to be reliable.

Growth doesn’t have to overwhelm you to be meaningful

This kind of love teaches patience.

It reminds you that it’s okay to plant seeds.

To water them.

To wait.

To let the sun do its work.

It shows you that depth isn’t measured by intensity.

That passion doesn’t have to be all consuming to be meaningful.

That growth can be slow.

And soft.

And steady.

This isn’t love that asks you to disappear into it. It’s love that gives you something to stand on while you grow.

The love that brings you home and helps you expand

I don’t believe the love that supports us most deeply in this lifetime is the love that overwhelms us or pulls us out of ourselves.

I believe it’s the love that brings us home to our bodies our breath our sense of self and from that place allows us to expand.

Home not as a place you stop

but as a place you return to

so you can keep growing.

This is love as a secure base.

A steady ground beneath your feet.

A love that doesn’t trap you in one place

but supports you as you build explore and become.

A love that lets you stay connected to yourself while you grow into more of who you are.

And in that way it doesn’t just bring you home, it gives you somewhere solid to rise from.

Sending you all love and healing

Leyla x

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