Hello there,
This week I was thinking about two things that at first felt completely disconnected: love (Valentine’s Day) and our relationship to substances.
And then it struck me: love is (often) a drug.
I’ll start with substances: it’s been almost exactly two years since I last had an alcoholic drink. One unexpected impact is that by not participating in the rituals of drinking, I’ve become more observant of how we culturally relate to substances in general.
In particular, I notice how often we use substances to access the internal states we want to feel. Whether it’s sugar, caffeine, alcohol, weed, media, or even other people, we look outside ourselves to shift how we feel inside.
If we have a busy morning, we may drink extra coffee for energy. As the day ends, we might want to relax and feel the tension leave our system, so we order a martini or some french fries to help with that inner shift.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that this habitual use of substances is inherently bad. Most of our substance use is quite supportive. There’s an intelligence at work when we use certain foods or a glass of wine to help us unwind.
What I’m more curious about is how frequently we’re unaware of the pattern itself. When habits go unnoticed, they’re often supported by firm beliefs that take the form: I need X in order to feel Y.
“If I don’t have a drink, I won’t be able to relax.” “If I don’t have coffee, I won’t function.”
Dependency begins when we believe a particular relationship is the only way to access the inner state it provides.
So perhaps this is already an invitation to simply notice how you use substances—whatever they are—to support you through your days. What do they help you feel? How would you feel without their support? Not as an exercise in judgment or self-control, but as a way of bringing unconscious patterns into awareness. Even that changes the relationship you have to them.
And now, let me come back to love.
I would suggest that our default relationship to love often treats it like a substance—as something “out there” that we must find or secure in order to feel its effects. If we attain it, it can feel blissful and perfect. If we lose it, or struggle to keep it, it can feel precarious and out of reach.
When love is treated as something external, our experience of being loved becomes conditional. We are at the mercy of whether someone else offers love to us.
“Without them, I cannot feel loved.”
In that sense, love—or more precisely our access to it through another person—becomes a kind of drug.
However, I don’t believe we have to relate to love in this way.
I believe love is an internal state we can practice and embody.
It’s a way of being that becomes available when we feel a deep sense of belonging and sufficiency in this present moment. Often we access that state when someone tells us how wonderful we are, or when a pet rests its warm head on our chest. In those moments we feel loved.
But what if the feeling itself is not dependent on the source? What if we can practice embodying love directly rather than waiting for it?
One way I explore this is through imaginative practice. I ask myself: “What would it feel like to be loved exactly as I am right now?”
I might imagine someone who has loved me well. Or I might simply offer that love to myself. Regardless of the imagined source, I let myself feel what it’s like to be loved and allow that feeling to settle into my body.
And in that moment, I am experiencing being loved.
A common resistance to this might be a voice inside that says, "I will be fully loveable when..."
So much of our dependency on love comes from the belief that something about us must change in order to fully deserve it. That we must improve, perform, or become more worthy before love is available.
When love is conditional, we withhold it from ourselves.
But we are already worthy of love, even while we are still growing. We can offer ourselves love now. Think of how we love babies. We don’t love them conditionally based on their future development. We love them exactly as they are, while knowing they will continue to grow.
I want my body to be stronger and look better in a swimsuit than it does, and I love my body as it is. I can hold present acceptance and desire for future growth at the same time. They are not contradictory. They simply reflect what it means to be a living being.
I can offer myself the gift of knowing I am already beloved, whole and complete, and still growing and becoming.
From this place of welcoming internal love, our outer relationships shift. You can love yourself and still deeply desire loving partnership. The difference is that you no longer needsomeone else’s love to feel loved. Sharing love becomes a form of expression, not a dependency.
Love shifts from something you acquire to something you already are.
This doesn’t happen overnight. But I hope this reflection opens some curiosity about how you relate to love and how you might cultivate it for yourself.
My wish for all of us this Valentine’s Day: a grounded, unconditional self-love at the center of our experience. Ever-present. Quietly available. Steady and shining.
With lots and lots of love, ❤️ Stephen
