Our version of love, the story we've been told since we were little girls wearing ballerina slippers and watching Disney movies, this version of love is so... so... limiting. Our version of love sits in a gilded cage, created by us, and fed by fairytales. The story of the princess being rescued by the prince is one version of love. Maybe it's your fairytale, and maybe it even came true. Or maybe you are not a prince or a princess, and your version looks a little different than the woman sitting in the tower who waits for a man on a white horse to save her. Regardless, our attachment to love as a person, a relationship, or a rescuer, is only one version. Yet we cling to the scenario like it is the only possibility, our only chance for "true" love.

As divine beings, or as energy, there is no need for stories. Love simply is, always and always. But in our human world and minds, in order to name something, we must attach a scenario that creates love's existence, as a way to say, Yes, this is love. Or no, this is not love.

Somehow romantic love is supposed to trump all other types of love - meaning, romantic love is the love we all seek. I still believe if I had someone to love at all times, nothing else would matter. I still cling to the fairytale of romantic love for another person to save me, to heal me, and to make me happy. I have a fear of being alone, and never finding true love. But being in love with another person does not mean we are happy all the time. We can be madly in love and still have a bad day, or a bad year.

More importantly, when we are alone, and not in a romantic relationship, we still have the opportunity to fall in love every day.

We are surrounded by loved ones, like children, parents, siblings, and friends. But we cling to this ideal person who is supposed to show up and take all our pain away.

Which brings me to the version of love no one ever talks about, or teaches us - love for yourself. (Yes, roll your eyes; I get it.) You CAN actually fall in love with your own body and your own heart, and it is the best feeling ever. But what does this even look like?

Well, love for yourself looks like not being ashamed of who you are, which looks like not being ashamed of your emotions. It looks like remaining open, even when you've been burned so badly you think you might die. It looks like putting your heart out there - to be seen and to be broken. Yet you come back again and again, with the deep and compassionate trust that no matter what someone else does to you, no matter what happens in your outside world, your own heart will not let you down.

Your same heart has been with you through many tough times - through every personal battle, every heartache, every tragedy and loss. Your own heart has never and will never betray you. Even when we have ignored it for so long, even as we've sat and hoped for the shiny prince.

You are like the prodigal son and your heart is the ever-patient father - no matter how long you've been away, you can always return, and your heart will only say, "Thank you. I have been waiting for you."

I felt opened up on the last day of my yoga training. It happens sometimes, at the end of a yoga class, during a meditation, or even while driving in the car, past a certain tree or when a particular song comes on the radio. I feel my heart, and when I do, I understand love - which is not a movie or a fairytale, but a real and palpable feeling of oneness, of connection, and of something everlasting that will never go away. I glimpse that love is always available to me, no matter what is happening in my outside world. And I am allowed to return to this feeling of love simply by shifting my gaze to my own Self, and to my own heart. Simply, by asking myself what I need.

What do you need today? What does your heart ache to tell you? What does it want you to know?

All you have to do is ask.

I admit, loving ourselves feels wildly embarrassing. Try it, try saying "I love you" to yourself in the mirror and watch the smirk crawl across your face. I say "I love you" to friends and family all the time. I say it to my children and my dog. But I have trouble admitting the words to myself.

Sometimes, like anything we've abandoned, it helps to start by saying "I'm sorry." "I'm sorry I have ignored you and pushed your feelings aside. I'm sorry I have asked you for love and searched for it in another while I disregarded you."

I say these words to myself. And when I feel my heart expand in my chest and become tender, when I feel the grief of turning away from myself, when I feel the betrayal of expecting someone or something else to save me, my heart thumps loudly as if to say, "It's ok. We got this."

And I fall in love all over again.