Do You Have to Love Yourself Before Loving Someone Else? A Vancouver Counsellor’s Perspective
By Sadaf Naji
Do You Really Have to Love Yourself First to Be in a Healthy Relationship?
It’s one of those phrases that gets repeated so often it almost feels like a rule: “You have to love yourself before you can love someone else.”
But what does that actually mean? Do you have to be fully healed before you should be in a romantic relationship? Do you need to feel confident and whole 100% of the time before you can be loved?
How Early Trauma Shapes Adult Relationships
The struggles we bring into therapy around relationships are rarely about our partners. More often, they are about disconnection from our bodies, our emotions, our boundaries, and our deeper truth. From parts of us that learned early on that love required adaptation, self-silencing, or becoming who we needed to be to stay connected.
From a trauma-informed perspective, these relational patterns are not flaws or dysfunction. They are intelligent adaptations. They formed in environments where being fully ourselves did not feel safe, and where attachment took priority over authenticity.
Why Self-Connection Matters More Than “Perfect” Self-Love
Our capacity for loving relationships is deeply rooted in our relationship with ourselves. However, the idea of “loving yourself first” is nuanced. It doesn’t mean you need perfect self-love before you can love another person. Rather, it points to the reality that when we are disconnected internally, relationships often begin to carry more weight than they were ever meant to hold.
When we feel more connected to ourselves, our relationship begins to change— not because the other person has changed, but because the nervous system is no longer operating from a place of survival. Boundaries become clearer. Needs can be expressed with less fear. Conflict feels less threatening. Love becomes less about securing attachment and more about presence, choice, and mutuality.
Ketamine-Assisted Therapy for Relationships and Emotional Healing
Ketamine-Assisted Therapy, when offered within a safe and intentional therapeutic container, can help soften the defences that keep us disconnected from ourselves. Many people describe a renewed sense of inner connection, the ability to feel emotions without being overwhelmed, and a compassionate understanding of the protective strategies that shaped their relationships.
Ketamine-assisted therapy does not fix relationships. Insight alone is not enough. The real work happens through integration, learning to stay with uncomfortable emotions, recognizing when old attachment patterns are activated, and practicing honesty without self-abandonment.
Ketamine is not for everyone, and it is not a shortcut. But for some people, at the right time and with appropriate support, it can help restore something essential: the ability to be in a relationship without losing oneself.
So… Do You Have to Love Yourself First?
The better question is this: Can you stay connected to yourself while loving someone else?
Because from that place, a loving relationship becomes less about survival and more about genuine connection.
If this resonates and you’d like to learn more about Ketamine-Assisted Therapy and self-connection, we offer complimentary discovery calls as a space to ask questions and explore next steps.
Meet Sadaf
Sadaf is a licensed Counsellor, Certified Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner, and Certified Breathwork Facilitator. Her work centres on helping clients reconnect with themselves through a holistic, psychosomatic approach to healing.
Sadaf supports individuals navigating trauma, anxiety, depression, relationship challenges, multicultural identity, body image, boundaries, sexuality, and female wellness. She believes therapy is a process of cultivating self-connection, compassion, and a sense of safety and wholeness.
