The sacred middle
On love, longing and inner presence
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Love is often mistaken for tension, desire or intensity in our time. We live in a culture that celebrates stimulation, accelerates longing and makes intimacy increasingly transparent, but not deeper. In such an environment, the essence of love becomes diluted. What remains is a form of superficial closeness without inner presence: a connection that burns, but does not carry.
The sacred middle explores exactly this tension.
It's a search for the place where love truly lives: not in craving, dysregulation or idealisation, but in the quiet space between two present beings. A space where truth becomes possible, where resonance arises and where love unfolds without being overwhelmed by fear or desire.
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This theme emerged from my own journey. For years, I confused intensity with intimacy. I believed the storm that held me was proof of depth, until I discovered that true love doesn’t shout, it breathes. It's not an impulse, but a grounding. Not projection or pursuit, but an encounter in mature presence.
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In my transformation, I found the middle again — a place I could not see for years, because tension and longing had distorted my perception of love. That personal awakening forms the basis of this theme. But the sacred middle is more than my story.
It connects to my broader work on:
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* Inner life (The ethics of innerness)
* Connection (The memory of connection)
* Truth (What is true endures)
* Empathy (Empathy as moral compass)
* (Covert) narcissism and emptiness (The mirror without a soul)
* The empty middle (the cultural emptiness of our time)
* Metamodernism (as new attitude towards the world)
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This new theme forms a bridge between all these areas. It approaches love not only psychologically, but also existentially, culturally and spiritually. It understands love as a moral stance, as a place of healing and regulation, and as a connective principle that reaches far beyond the relationship itself.
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On this page, I'll gather my essays that explore these layers from various perspectives:
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Love as a mature choice
Traumabonding versus genuine connection
Lust, desire and the emptiness of dysregulation
The role of the body in love
Boundaries and responsibility
Resonance and co-regulation
Love beyond the Other — love as inner strength
The return to the middle as a spiritual movement
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The sacred middle is therefore a thematic deepening of everything I write. It's the beating heart of my work: the place where philosophy, psychology and personal truth converge. And more than that:
it's the place where I find my own home — again and again.
