Falling in Love Part 3
March 10, 2026
Falling in Love Part 3
When we fall in love, it feels as though life has finally revealed its hidden meaning.
The world brightens, the heart awakens, and another person seems to hold the key to our wholeness. Yet, as Jungian analyst and spiritual teacher Robert A. Johnson reminds us, this intoxicating experience is not an ending, but an initiation.
In his now-classic book WE, Robert Johnson explores the psychology of romantic love through a mythic lens. I have had the pleasure of sitting with Robert many times to hear his teachings and to listen to his stories. One of his most captivating stories is the ancient Celtic story of Tristan and Iseult. This myth is in the collective Western psyche and illuminates the deep, often unconscious forces at work when two people fall in love.
The myth, written in the 12th century as part of the medieval courtly romances (notably by Thomas of Britain and Béroul), tells a tragic tale. Tristan, a Cornish knight, is sent to escort the Irish princess Iseult to marry his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. Along the way, Tristan and Iseult accidentally drink a love potion, sealing a forbidden bond between them. Their love defies social order and moral law, unfolding through secrecy, exile, suffering, and the constant threat of death. As the story progresses, both lovers are profoundly transformed by what they endure.
Johnson uses this myth to show that romantic love offers a genuine experience of meaning, purpose, and aliveness. In falling in love, we touch something real and sacred. Yet we cannot live indefinitely in this enchanted realm. Romantic love is saturated with projection. We unconsciously place onto the beloved, the qualities we cherish most: beauty, depth, vitality, creativity, compassion, strength. The beloved appears to carry our soul.
But no human being can embody the full richness of another’s psyche and soul. When we insist, often unconsciously, that our partner continue to carry these soul qualities for us, the relationship can devolve under the weight of impossible expectations. Disillusionment follows. Resentment, power struggles, and the loss of eros set in, and many relationships end not because love was false, but because it was asked to do what it never could.
The inner task of romantic love, Johnson teaches, is the withdrawal of projection. The qualities we adored were real, but they were never owned entirely by the beloved. They belong to the soul. Spiritual maturity requires that we reclaim these qualities and live them inwardly ourselves. This is part of our individuation process and spiritual evolution. The beloved may indeed express some of our idealized qualities, but they cannot incarnate our fantasies.
When this happens, something quietly miraculous occurs. The partner is released from godlike expectations and is allowed to become fully human. In this release, grace enters the relationship. Love becomes less of a fantasy.
True partnership emerges when two individuals relate consciously rather than through projection. Romance shifts from possession and desires to companionship, ethical commitment, and mutual growth. They are then a “we.”
Though we are rarely aware of it at the time, falling in love is not a promise of permanent bliss, but paradoxically, a call to individuation and wholeness. Relationships are meant to awaken consciousness, not to complete us. In the end, the most enduring union is not between two people, but between ego and soul within each person. Romantic love is a gateway to the soul, not a cure for loneliness. Its purpose is not eternal enchantment, but inner transformation. When we stop asking another person to carry our soul, love becomes real.
Spiritual practice/self-inquiry: Read Robert A. Johnson’s book WE. What qualities might you still be projecting, and do you want to contact and embody these qualities within yourself?
Prayer:
Dear God, As I look into my soul, and try to understand myself and others, I pray for your guidance and mercy. Amen
