When Love Hurts: A Journey into the True Meaning of Love

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

Celebrating Freedom and the Creating of My New Life

Three years ago, I was released from my job as a Clinical Supervisor at NYU Langone School Behavioral Health Program. I received the notice as a shock. Despite COVID-19 hitting us and the closing of schools I had been a key element to rapidly convert our services to provide psychotherapy sessions online. I knew I had gone beyond and above to keep my team intact, the program running and our children and families receiving the much-needed services.

I listened to the different parts of me activated by this event. There was a very angry one wanting to roll her sleeves and give it a fight. There was another one feeling victimized and impotent. Another one frozen in fear. And among them all, there was this one who was happily yelling: Yes to Freedom! For years I had desired to leave this job and dedicate myself fully to my business. But “Love into Wholeness” was not yet breaking even. Each year I said to myself: Soon, but I have not the economic stability to do this yet.

And then I saw her, that part of me who prayed just 7 days before receiving this notice asking Great Spirit to remove anything from me that was in the way of my serving Life in the way She wanted me. This was the answer to that prayer and I knew it in my heart. I embraced each part of me that was in distress and I asked for guidance about my next steps. The only thing I knew with certainty was that I was not to look for the “safety” of another job. This was an opportunity for me to fly solo going in the direction that my heart truly desired.

I listened to the guidance of the Sacred Spirit Guides who gently continued closing doors and opening new ones. I trusted this guidance and moved to the most unexpected place, Houston Texas, to learn from a great teacher on the Medicine Wheels as my desire was to create a program to guide children through a series of initiations, gaining mastery of how to use their power of choice to manage the difficulties in their lives, their critical inner voices, and emotions. Within a year my teacher and I had created a program and a non-for-profit organization called “Clear Path” and we were sending out applications for the first cohort of children to come to our day camp.

Suddenly, unexpected events in my teacher’s life led her to move in a different direction leaving me with the sole responsibility to run both, the day camp and the organization. I entered a period of bewilderment; Had I made a mistake interpreting the guidance of Great Spirit and my Spirit Guides? I went into a much-needed Vision Quest and I realized that my work with children had ended at the time I was released from my job. My deepest desire was to work with women and the program I had created for children was a preparation to create my unique programs for women who have the deepest desire to live their life to the fullest and experience joyful delight in their relationships.

At my return from my vision quest, in conversation with my brother, he asked me what I was doing still in Texas if I was disintegrating “Clear Path.” I told him “I don’t know yet what is the next step about that but I want a place that I can call home.” He knew my desire was to live in nature and he had just bought a house in a beautiful place in North Carolina. He asked if I wanted to come and live there for a while to see if that could be home. I knew immediately that was the next step for me and I moved to North Carolina to find out that this is my promised land.

As I sit now at the porch of my home, sitting in acres of beautiful woods, preparing for a Sacred Ceremony I will hold during the weekend, on the third anniversary of the ending of a long chapter in my life, the end of holding a formal job, I feel so grateful to the Great Spirit that prepared this sacred journey for me and released me from the chains that held me in a place I did not want to be anymore, I am grateful to the Sacred Spirits that guided me, and I am grateful to each part of me who said yes to that sacred longing for a free and joyful life, who trusted the sacred guidance and kept taking the very next step.

As I close my eyes, I feel you sitting next to me and I want to ask you, what is your heart longing for? Would you pray to let go of what holds you back? Will you take the next step?

I would love to hear from you and assist you in your Vision Quest, schedule a free consultation call following this link: https://www.loveintowholeness.com/bookings-checkout/free-30-minute-consultation/book

The Revelation of my Medicine Name as my Sacred Essence

It was a very important day in my life. I was with my beloved teacher Irma Star Spirit Turtle Woman, and my dear friend Leigh, preparing for a shamanic journey to meet the Sacred Spirits and learn my medicine name and my symbol. This is one of the most important steps for initiation as a shaman because your medicine name reveals your true nature, your unique medicine, that which heals. It is your gift to the world. Sometimes it is called your Dharma or Sacred Mission, depending on the tradition.

My teacher guided us in this shamanic journey during which Leigh met with my sacred guide spirits to receive from them my medicine name and symbol. I, in return, met with Leigh’s sacred guide spirits to receive her medicine name and symbol. We do this for each other rather than for ourselves to prevent our own egos from interfering with this sacred process.

Leigh and I returned from our journey and we each wrote on a piece of paper the medicine name and symbol that each other’s Sacred Guide Spirit had revealed to us. We handed the papers to our teacher so that our medicine name could be revealed for the first time during our initiation ceremony.

The day of our initiation arrived. Irma and many other shamans/curanderos welcomed us, the initiates, and our families. One by one, in turn, each initiate walked, our teacher in front of us, a family member or friend to our right and another to our left, and all the other shamans and initiates behind. As we walked around the circle we received the blessings of each cardinal direction, and our medicine name was pronounced for the first time by our teacher and repeated three times by the rest of the group.

When my turn came, my teacher voiced my medicine name: “K’an Coszcatl Zipactonal, Precious Jewel of Harmonic Light”. Then my name was repeated three times and my heart exploded with joy. In my name I found a confirmation of my essence, which I had known all along, but I had doubted it. Hearing my name also confirmed my journey and path because for me, the most important thing to do in life is create and sustain harmonic relationships, which form the base of a joyful, harmonic life.

In my life I have seen how relationships – with myself, with others or with the world – are part of a practice of attunement to create harmony. In an orchestra each musician brings the beauty of a different instrument, a different sound that adds beauty in a harmonious piece of music. In the same way, each of us has a special medicine, that has a specific tone or sound, and this is our gift to the world.

In our relationships, we listen to others’ voices, recognizing and valuing their medicine as much as ours, and we create a particular symphony with them that becomes our relationship. When there is disharmony in relationships, attuning our own instrument will help others to attune theirs, keeping our focus on the beautiful piece we want to create.

This is the work I have been doing and perfecting throughout my life. Healing and repairing my relationship with myself first, and then creating joyful, harmonious relationships with others and the world. My medicine name works for me as a mantra, chosen carefully to develop the qualities I want to embody.

I would like to invite you to try this. Choose a mantra that speaks of a quality you want to live in yourself. If you are calling for a specific quality, know that it is both your essence and your aspiration, or your being and becoming at the same time. Repeat this mantra in meditation until you feel it being your truest nature. There is no perfection, it is a choice to embody this quality every moment, a remembering until your nature just flows in any situation. This for me is blissful living and I envision this and more for you.

With love,

Elizabeth (K’an Coszcatl Zipactonal/Precious Jewel of Harmonic Light)