Lately, I’ve come to a deep realization: for much of my life, I’ve longed for people to understand, appreciate, and love me. I’ve even asked those closest to me, family, friends, and loved ones, to express their affection more openly. But there were times when that love was withheld or didn’t come in the way I needed it. And in those moments of feeling denied, I often reacted like a rebel, not out of anger, but out of a quiet desperation to feel seen and valued. I now see that I was, in many ways, begging for love.

Every time I visit a temple, I notice people begging for money at the entrance. Why do they beg? Because they don’t have money, and they don’t know another way to get it. If they had what they needed, they wouldn’t be there with open hands. No one wants to live that way.

That image helped me understand something important: I was begging for love because I didn’t have enough of it within myself. I hadn’t fully accepted who I was. My vessel was empty. I hadn’t poured into myself the love and compassion I was so desperately seeking from others.But now I know—when you’re full of self-love, you stop searching for scraps of it from others. You stop begging.

From this moment on, I choose to love myself deeply and completely and stop begging for love.

How would your energy shift if you nourished yourself with the love you crave from others?