You simply can’t express true love or respect for others if you don’t learn how to love and respect yourself first. If you rely on others for love and respect, you don’t really love and respect them! Reliance and codependence express your own selfish needs, and shouldn’t be a part of truly sound relationships.
True love and respect result from not wanting anything from other people, from accepting them as they are. When accepted mutually, this mindset creates a symbiotic relationship, in which people are neither affirming the false parts of one another nor forcing any sort of spiritual relationship. A real love relationship functions seemingly outside of time or ego, which is the result of you accessing the place inside yourself that is beyond ego and beyond time.
This obviously takes some effort since most of us have been trained to believe that ego love is the same as love. But once you begin to learn more about your true self and build a sense of self-awareness and mindfulness, the ego’s love fantasies and selfishness will become more apparent. Once this selfishness is revealed, you can recognize it for what it is and try your best to keep it from invading your relationships.
Ego love starts and ends most modern relationships. To move past it is something many people are never lucky enough to do, but the negation of ego love could radically change the world.