5 Ways To Feel More Loved: A Guide for Deeper Connection

Love. It makes the world go round. It’s the only resource in this world that exists in abundance, can be produced at will, it’s free to give, and exponentially improves your life. It comes in many forms – family, friends, romance… 

In short, love makes your life better. And whether you believe it or not, there is someone out there that loves you. But when we’re not feeling great about ourselves, it can be hard to feel loved by ourselves and by others.

There are many ways to stretch your arms open to receive love, and in this post, we’ll take a look at five of our favourites.

But first, why is having a deep, love connection so important?

Benefits of Feeling More Loved

Whether the love is platonic or romantic, feeling the love in any relationship has a heap of positive effects on our mental and physical health.

There has been a lot of discussion about whether money and possessions can buy you happiness in recent times. There’s also been an emphasis on how attachment to our possessions leads to short term happiness that is fleeting. So it might interest you to know that according to a recent study on love, those that report feeling more loved also reported placing less value on their possessions.

Secondly, loneliness can lead to depression, anxiety, and increased stress, so feeling loved is a good way to combat this.

Having strong connections with loved ones is also thought to help lower blood pressure and increase life expectancy. In addition, it helps boost the immune system protecting you from getting sick as easily. So I guess it’s true, love cures all! 

Five ways to feel more loved in your relationships 

1. Be present

One of the crucial ways to be able to receive the love being sent to you is to show the other person attention. After all, how do you know someone is trying to show they care if you aren’t paying them any attention to notice?

Everybody wants to be seen; everybody wants to be heard. It’s part of the fundamentals that make up any relationship. So, when you are with the people you love, make sure you put your phone down, ignore the TV, and make an effort to be with them.

2. Become fluent in their love language

Everyone has their own preferred love language. A love language is the way you show someone you care. For some people, this could be using touch; for some, it could be telling people you love them, and for others, it could be through acts of kindness. Some people use gifts to show their love, and others simply favour quality time.

The truth is, when someone speaks a love language different to our own, it can be challenging to recognise when they are trying to show their love for us. So, just as you need to learn a new language to understand the locals in another country, you need to learn how your loved ones show their affection.

Once you work this out, you’ll realise just how much they care about you and feel the love in your heart grow immensely. 

3. Learn to be vulnerable

You might not be feeling the love because you find it difficult to be vulnerable about your own feelings. But, you see, while love is unconditional, it always flourishes most when reciprocated. And like a flower in bloom, the more you water it, the more it grows.

And if you’ve been hurt by letting people into your life before, you may be holding people at arm’s length without realising it because you are scared to let it happen again.

So, to receive love, make sure you are open about your own feelings, no matter how uncomfortable that feels. Then, when your loved ones feel the love from you, I guarantee they’ll be falling over themselves to make sure you feel the love right back. 

4. Work on self-love

There is a famous saying: 

‘If you can’t love yourself, how can anyone else?”

Now, while this is factually untrue – you can be “broken’ and still be loved by many people – this is an interesting sentiment. You see, when you see yourself as unlovable, you’re more likely to push people away subconsciously and avoid creating deep connections.

You may feel like damaged goods or like you have to be the “perfect package” to be loved by friends, family, and romantic interests.

If this sounds like you, take some time to do some soul searching. Why do you think you are unlovable? Are there emotional wounds you need to heal to realise that you are lovable just the way you are without changing a single thing about yourself?

Once you open yourself up to the realisation that you are worthy of love, you allow the feelings from those around you to come flooding in, allowing you to deepen your connections with your loved ones.

5. Small acts of kindness 

Showing love is just as important as receiving it when it comes to nurturing deeper, emotional connections with your loved ones. 

That’s why you should make an effort to do small, kind things for your favourite people to show them just how much you care, expecting nothing in return. This shows them that they are important enough to be on your mind even when you’re not necessarily in direct communication at that exact moment.

So, whether it’s making them a cup of tea, offering them a sweet, or sending them a link to a video you think they will love, make sure you do kind things to show them you care.

Feeling Loved and Self-Love Quotes

Quotes have the ability to remind us of what we already knew. The below self-love quotes could be written down on a piece of card, and placed somewhere around your home where you are likely to see it daily.

1. “Love is a friendship set to music.” – Joseph Campbell
2. “Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” – James Baldwin
3. “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” – Buddha
4. “At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.” – Plato
5. “You know it’s love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you’re not part of their happiness.” – Julia Roberts
6. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
7. “Love yourself unconditionally, just as you love those closest to you despite their faults.” – Les Brown
8. “Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart, and the senses.” – Lao Tzu
9. “How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” – Rupi Kaur
10. “I love you and that’s the beginning and end of everything.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
11. “You are every reason, every hope and every dream I’ve ever had.” – Nicolas Sparks
12. “To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.” – Oscar Wilde
13. “If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.” – Charles Bukowski
14. “You deserve someone who makes you feel like the otherworldly creature you are. Yourself.” – Amanda Lovelace
15. “I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.” – Roy Croft
16. “We accept the love we think we deserve.” – Stephen Chbosky
17. “To the world you may be one person, but to one person you are the world.” – Bill Wilson
18. “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” – Morrie Schwartz

Final thoughts on Feeling More Loved

It doesn’t take much to improve your relationships and open up the floodgates to receiving all the love your favourite people are trying to shower you with.

Use these five tips to establish what’s blocking you from feeling the love, and work on improving it so you can relish in the happiness that your deeper connection will bring you.

So what are you waiting for? Start right now by texting someone you love and haven’t spoken to in a while!