The Hollow leaking Cup – Can it be fixed?
Did you know?
Only we can give ourselves love. Only we can fill our own cup. Expecting someone else to do that for us is like handing over the key to our peace and hoping they won’t lose it. It may work for a while, but it never lasts. Because sooner or later, that person will have their own needs to meet. Everyone does. We all want to feel seen, safe, understood, and loved. And when people have to choose between their needs and ours, most will choose themselves first. That’s human. That’s not betrayal. It’s just how we all are built.
I like to think of it as a cup and water. The cup is us. The water is the love we hold for ourselves. When the cup is whole, it can hold the water easily. But when it has a crack, the water keeps leaking out. No matter how much someone pours into it, it won’t stay. In the same way, when we don’t love ourselves enough, when we judge, criticise, or reject ourselves, love from others cannot stay. Even when they pour kindness and affection into us, it slips through the cracks of our own self-doubt.
A cracked cup doesn’t mean we are broken beyond repair. It just means we’ve been through life, and life leaves marks. But if we keep telling ourselves we’re not good enough, that we’ve failed, that something is wrong with us, then we’re making the crack wider. The water keeps escaping and we keep feeling empty. We start chasing people, approval, validation, hoping they will pour enough to make us feel full. But they can’t, because the hole is inside us, not around us.
The only way to heal the cup is to start from within. To sit with the parts that hurt instead of running from them. To say to ourselves, I am learning to love you, even when I don’t know how. To stop talking to ourselves like an enemy and start treating ourselves like someone we’re responsible for. Because we are. We are responsible for our own hearts, our own peace, our own cup.
Healing doesn’t mean you’ll always feel whole. Some days you’ll feel empty again. Some days you’ll want someone else to fill you up. That’s okay. The goal isn’t to be perfect, it’s to keep showing up for yourself every day a little more. To keep patching the cracks gently, with awareness, with kindness, with care; like kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold..
What then?
Remember, this isn’t the end of the world if you can’t do it today. There is always a tomorrow and a day after. You are allowed to take your time. You are allowed to ask for help. If you feel you can’t fill your own cup right now, reach out to people who can help you do it – a friend, a guide, a therapist, anyone who can remind you how to pour love back into yourself. They can’t fill it for you, but they can help you learn how.
The cup is you. The water inside it is the love you give yourself. Keep tending to it. Keep filling it. Keep holding it with both hands and care. Because when you learn to fill your own cup, love doesn’t leak anymore. It stays. It settles. And it overflows.
