Love has a mysterious way of inviting us deeper into ourselves. It is both the sweetest grace and the most revealing teacher.
Our ideas about love—spoken and unspoken—shape the way we give, receive, and even withhold it. And sometimes, it is through the ache of love that we discover what it truly asks of us.
One of my greatest lessons in love did not come through harmony, but through heartache—through the questions that arise when love itself seems to hurt.
An Unexpected Awakening
When I moved from New York to North Carolina, I lived for a time with my brother and his teenage children. They opened their home and hearts to me with warmth and generosity. Still, something inside me was unsettled.
There was no conflict directed at me, yet I felt uneasy—hesitant to speak, afraid to disturb the peace, shrinking quietly into myself. A familiar heaviness began to take hold: the sense of being unseen, unheard, unsure of my place.
At the same time, I could feel the tension in their home, the deep love between father and children, intertwined with the misunderstandings that often arise between generations. I watched moments of closeness dissolve into hurt, and my heart ached for them. They loved each other so much, and yet their love seemed to wound them.
At first, I thought my sadness belonged to them. But something deeper was stirring. I was moved to tears without understanding why.
A Prayer from the Heart
One afternoon, unable to hold the weight of confusion any longer, I sat in the center of my medicine wheel and prayed: “Great Spirit, how can this be? After all the healing, after all the work—why does this pain still rise within me? There is love here, real love. So why does it still hurt so much? What is love—real love?”
What came to me was not an answer in words, but a vision—an opening of the heart that would become one of the greatest teachings of my life.
What the Medicine Wheels Revealed
In that sacred stillness, two great mirrors appeared before me.
The first mirror was the Medicine Wheel of Loving—eight radiant qualities that express the essence of true love: love that honors the soul, liberates the spirit, and nourishes connection without losing self.
Then came the mirror’s reflection, the Medicine Wheel of the Shadow of Loving—eight distortions born of fear, shame, abandonment, and guilt. These show how love can become twisted when shaped by old wounds or unmet needs.
I began to work with these Wheels, letting them guide my awareness.I asked myself:
Which of these qualities—light or shadow—are present in the relationships I’m witnessing?
How do they live within me?
Am I showing up with presence, compassion, and self-responsibility?
Or am I silencing my truth, abandoning myself, or smothering my own needs in the name of love?
These questions became a doorway, a map that led me inward, to the real source of my discomfort.
The Hidden Mirror Within
Through the wisdom of the Wheels, I began to see what was hidden
The pain I was feeling did not belong to the present moment—it was an echo from the past.
The tension between my brother and his children had touched something ancient in me. Without realizing it, I had stepped back into the emotional landscape of my own childhood, a place where love and fear coexisted, where I learned to quiet my voice and make myself small in order to belong.
I was not only witnessing their struggle; I was reliving my own.
This is how we become entangled: when our unhealed wounds recognize themselves in another’s story. The past overlays the present, and we mistake the two as one.
The Turning Point
Once I recognized this, something profound began to shift. I understood that it was my own wounds that were calling for my care. The healing was not about changing anyone else, it was about tending to the younger parts of myself that still longed for safety, understanding, and love.
As I softened inwardly, my outer world softened too. I found the strength to speak with kindness and clarity, to listen without judgment, and to honor the place my brother and his children were each in—their love, their struggle, and their right to grow in their own way.
The energy in our home changed. Conversations opened. Tenderness replaced tension. And as my relationship with myself healed, so did the relationships around me.
Today, my brother and I share a deeper, more peaceful connection, one that extends to the next generation—his beautiful children—who now grow within a gentler, more conscious field of love.
The Living Map of Love
As I spent more time with them, the Medicine Wheels of Loving and Shadow of Loving became for me a living map, a way to understand how love can express itself in balance or become distorted when fear takes the lead.
Each direction on the wheel represents what we will call an archetype, a pattern of relationship that shows us where love flows freely and where it becomes tangled. Some of the archetypes reveal our gifts; others illuminate the wounds still asking for healing.
This living map—the two medicine wheels—has evolved into the Unlock the Mystery of Your Love Patterns Quiz. The quiz is a doorway to help you explore your own archetypes and see how the qualities of love move through your relationships.
Why This Quiz Matters
This is not a test to find what is wrong with you.It is an invitation to understand your patterns, the ways you learned to give and receive love, and how those patterns may still shape your life.
When you take the quiz, you will begin to see:
Which qualities of the Loving side or the Shadow side of yourself are most active within you.
Where your relationships feel balanced, and where they may have drifted off-center.
Which of your wounds may still be seeking your awareness and care.
How you can begin to offer yourself the healing you most need.
What You Will Gain
By taking the Unlock the Mystery of Your Love Patterns quiz, you will receive:
Insight into the deeper patterns influencing your relationships.
Confidence to create connections with yourself and others that are freer, more authentic, and kind.
Direction for the steps that bring you healing and balance.
Self-awareness that helps you see both your strengths and your tender edges with compassion.
Reassurance that there is nothing wrong with you, that all you will be doing is understanding the patterns within yourself and then transforming them.
Take the Quiz and Uncover Your Love Archetypes
Awareness is the first step toward transformation. The moment you begin to see a pattern, you have already begun to change it.
Let this be your invitation to a new way of loving, one that begins within and radiates outward, touching every relationship in your life.
Take the Quiz and Uncover Your Love Archetypes https://www.loveintowholeness.com/quiz
