Attachment Is the Reason Love Turns to Pain - Gita Says Love That Hurts Isn’t Love
Riya Kumari | Jul 08, 2025, 22:08 IST
( Image credit : Times Life Bureau )
Highlight of the story: Let’s start with a truth bomb so spicy it could ruin your group chat vibes: Half the pain you feel in love? It’s not because of love.It’s because you got attached. To the way he texts “good morning” with that stupid little sun emoji. To the idea of Sunday grocery runs and inside jokes and shared playlists. To a version of love that lives rent-free in your brain, wearing his hoodie and binge-watching your expectations.
Let’s be honest, love doesn’t hurt. Expectations do. Fantasies do. Stories we write in our heads do. What we call “love” is often just deep attachment to an idea, a future, or a version of someone that exists more in our mind than in real life. And when that idea doesn’t unfold the way we imagined, we feel shattered. Not because someone hurt us intentionally, but because we were holding too tightly to something that was never promised. This is what the Bhagavad Gita tries to tell us, in a way that's far more relevant to modern life than we give it credit for.
Love isn’t what hurts. It's the resistance to letting go
You met someone. You felt that click. The possibilities unfolded like a movie montage, shared dinners, late-night calls, trips, growing old together. But maybe they changed. Maybe they left. Or maybe they never lived up to the version you created of them in your mind. And that’s where the ache begins.
The Gita says this: Where there is attachment, there is suffering. Not because love is a trap, but because our need to control outcomes is. We don’t just love people, we attach to outcomes. We want our story to go a certain way, and when it doesn’t, we fall apart. Not always because it was love lost, but because it was control lost.
What we call heartbreak is often ego break
And that distinction is uncomfortable, but powerful. The truth is, it’s not always about them. Sometimes it's about us. About how much we needed that relationship to prove we were worthy, wanted, enough. About how we tied our sense of value to someone else’s willingness to stay. And so when they leave or fail us, it doesn’t just hurt, it collapses us.
Not because of what happened, but because we made them our mirror. And their absence starts to feel like a rejection of our identity. But the Gita reminds us: You are not your emotions. You are not your roles. You are not your attachments. You are the one witnessing it all. And the moment you remember that, you stop bleeding from cuts that were never yours to carry.
Love, without attachment, is still love. In fact, it’s real love
This isn't about becoming cold or indifferent. It’s about becoming clear. Loving someone fully doesn’t mean gripping them tightly. It means showing up without needing to own or possess. It means caring deeply while also accepting change, space, endings.
The Gita doesn’t ask you to stop feeling. It asks you to stop clinging. Because when you love someone without the weight of your expectations, you allow them to be who they are, not who you need them to be. That’s where peace begins.
So how do you love and let go at the same time?
You do it by practicing presence. You love who they are today, not the fantasy of who they might become. You hold space, not outcomes. You open your heart, but you don't build your identity inside theirs. You begin to ask: Not “How do I make them stay?” But “How do I stay rooted in myself, even if they leave?”
Because the truth is, the kind of love that doesn’t hurt isn’t passive or distant. It’s grounded. Aware. Brave enough to release control. Love doesn’t have to feel like walking on a wire. But only when you stop gripping the idea of forever and start living the truth of now. Love like you’re whole already. And let what stays, stay. Let what leaves, leave. And if it hurts let it hurt. But don’t confuse that hurt for love.
Love isn’t what hurts. It's the resistance to letting go
The Gita says this: Where there is attachment, there is suffering. Not because love is a trap, but because our need to control outcomes is. We don’t just love people, we attach to outcomes. We want our story to go a certain way, and when it doesn’t, we fall apart. Not always because it was love lost, but because it was control lost.
What we call heartbreak is often ego break
Not because of what happened, but because we made them our mirror. And their absence starts to feel like a rejection of our identity. But the Gita reminds us: You are not your emotions. You are not your roles. You are not your attachments. You are the one witnessing it all. And the moment you remember that, you stop bleeding from cuts that were never yours to carry.
Love, without attachment, is still love. In fact, it’s real love
The Gita doesn’t ask you to stop feeling. It asks you to stop clinging. Because when you love someone without the weight of your expectations, you allow them to be who they are, not who you need them to be. That’s where peace begins.
So how do you love and let go at the same time?
Because the truth is, the kind of love that doesn’t hurt isn’t passive or distant. It’s grounded. Aware. Brave enough to release control. Love doesn’t have to feel like walking on a wire. But only when you stop gripping the idea of forever and start living the truth of now. Love like you’re whole already. And let what stays, stay. Let what leaves, leave. And if it hurts let it hurt. But don’t confuse that hurt for love.