What Does Love Mean to Me?

To help you begin healing your relationship with love by redefining what it means to you.

Step 1: Identify Your Current Definition of Love

Look at past experiences that made you feel loved and examine how those moments shaped your beliefs about what it means to express love today.

To do this, try asking:

“What are some moments from my childhood that made me feel loved?”

Then go through each one and answer:

Step 2: Redefine What Love Means to You

A great way to do this is to start by looking at what you learned in the first step, and then writing down what the opposite of that would be.

For example, a woman we worked with realized that her mom would often express love by saying “I love you” or giving a hug right after being abusive.

This taught her that love was dangerous, painful, and confusing.

So she redefined it as something safe, comforting, clear, and supportive.

Step 3: Experiment with New Ways of Expressing Love

By “new,” we mean different from how your parent expressed love.

Because even with a new definition, the old forms can still feel triggering.

So instead of saying “I love you,” you could try:

And instead of physical affection, you might:

The conditional “love” narcissistic parents give can corrupt your entire understanding of what love is and how it’s supposed to feel.

It won’t happen overnight, but this exercise is one way you can begin healing your relationship with it after being raised by a narcissistic parent.