The Love I Spent My Life Looking For

What is love—and where do we first learn whether we are worthy of receiving it?

In this deeply personal and immersive solo episode of Soul Sync, I take you back through my own search for love: from the circumstances surrounding my birth and the absence of my biological father, to growing up gay at a time when hiding who I was often felt safer than being seen.

With music, sound and recreated memories, we travel into my first experience of London’s gay scene at sixteen, when the Astoria offered a glimpse of freedom, belonging and the extraordinary feeling of discovering that I was not alone.

But being desired is not always the same as being loved.

I reflect on the years I spent looking outside myself for acceptance—through relationships, sex, achievement and the approval of others—and how low self-worth eventually contributed to relationships in which I accepted far less than I deserved.

I also explore how mediumship and my relationship with the spirit world have transformed my understanding of love. I now believe that love is the only thing that truly exists, that kindness is among the greatest things we can offer another human being, and that our search for lasting love must ultimately begin within ourselves.

This is an episode about rejection, sexuality, belonging, loneliness, survival, self-acceptance and the love we spend our lives trying to find.

Perhaps love was never something we had to earn.

Perhaps it was something we came here to remember.

Content note: This episode includes references to childhood rejection, homophobic bullying, domestic abuse and adult sexual experiences.

Connect with Jason Paul:

Website: www.jasonpaulmedium.com
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@jasonpaulsoulsync
Email: hello@jasonpaulmedium.com

Subscribe to the Soul Sync newsletter at www.jasonpaulmedium.com for reflections, episode updates and conversations exploring spirituality, healing, consciousness and what it means to be human.

Transcript

What Is Love?

Charlie Kelly Medium 0:01

Hello my darlings. Welcome back to the Soul Synch. I have a big question for you today. What is love? Is it the warmth of a parent's arms? Is it being told I'm proud of you? Is it encouragement when we no longer believe in ourselves? Is it acceptance being seen for who you truly are and not being asked to change? Is love being chosen, being desired, hearing someone say, I want to spend my life with you? Is it a hand reaching for ours in the darkness? A message asking if we've arrived home safely? Someone staying when life becomes difficult? Is love passion, friendship, forgiveness? Is it feeling completely safe in another person's presence? Or have we mistaken attention for love? Desire for love, being needed for being valued. And what happens when the person who was supposed to love us could not? And so we go searching for love. We search high, we search low, we search within ourselves and quite often in entirely the wrong people. We search on we go in crowded rooms across dance floors through dating apps and in the eyes of strangers who have barely learned our name. We analyse messages, we wait for replies, we convince ourselves that ha ha means chemistry, and a heart emoji means emotional availability. We say we are not looking for anything serious while quietly wondering whether this might be the person we marry. We ask the universe for a sign and then we ignore the 17 red flags because they are attractive. We search for love in attention, in sex, in success, in being admired, in being needed, and in being chosen. Sometimes we even search for it in people who have made it perfectly clear that they have absolutely no intention of giving it to us. And still and still we keep searching because beneath all the trauma, the bad decisions, and the unanswered messages, most of us are simply hoping to find someone we can finally feel safe enough to be ourselves with. We search for it in horoscopes, tarot cart, and personality tests. We ask our friends what a message means, even though deep down we know exactly what it means. We download the apps, delete the apps, and then in a moment of weakness download them all over again. We tell ourselves we are focusing on ourselves now, usually about 20 minutes before checking who has viewed our profile, because the search for love can make even the most sensible among us slightly unhinged. But perhaps the places we go looking for love and the people we choose to look for in it tell us something more important. Perhaps they reveal where our search really began. So on we go, my dear, back to where it all began. To my earliest memories of love. 1987, when I was born. Yes, I'm a Virgo, yes, September,

Where My Search for Love Began

Charlie Kelly Medium 3:25

yes, 9-11, and yes, after that, I never felt the same about my birth date again, almost uh wanting to sort of uh give my date of birth quite quietly. But yes, my very first memory of being born, I guess. Well, as we all do, our mums tell us this, but the story as I believe it goes. So my mum was working, she was 18 years old, she was lodging from a landlord whilst working. The landlord happened to then be my dad. I was born in northwest London, and upon coming home from the hospital, my mum straight away noticed all of her belongings and what she had for me on the doorstep looks changed because he well stated that we couldn't pay r rent, so there we go, we were out. And over the years I did meet him a few times, but I always found that the he just wanted to talk about himself, quite frankly, and I always felt like I was doing the dirty to my stepdad, who basically took me in at one year old and always sort of treated my me and my brother exactly the same. But he would struggle a lot with his own relationship of love, and a lot of the time throughout my childhood, you know, I was kind of looking outside of myself and always kind of answering questions like why is it, you know, I don't feel affection a lot of the time, and it was very difficult as well being gay because even when I was sort of discovering that about 12 years old, and it was very difficult because I was trying to hide it because it was almost a source of bullying, calling people gay then. And my experiences were okay, but I absolutely hated PE. I was just very concerned that I was having feelings towards boys because it wasn't as it was now, there wasn't even the internet really. I remember we had AOL dial-up, but you know, if ever I was on that for too long, I'd be told off because it would cut the phone lines out, so and it cost a lot, and also if we all used the computer, so the last thing I wanted to do was to be Googling, but I have found that of course those formative experiences in my own life have very much shaped my own relationship with love, and I think I searched outside of myself for it for so off for so long, even on my dad's side of the family. My nan, they were all from a very different generation, and she I will never forget one time she said, you know, we accept you, and it was the way you know it was kind of said, and I, you know, even the thing it was made a figure of was, you know, very difficult for me because it was kind of like I didn't feel accepted, but you know, on my mum's side of the family, you know, I was kind of embraced it with open arms. So, but these formative experiences, of course, shape everything. School got very difficult for me because when I was about 14 years old, we moved to an area called Rochester, which is next door to a town called Chatham. Where actually, interestingly, the word chav derives from from any of our English listeners. It's a very interesting word, chav, but that's actually why I happened to go to school, and it was an all-boys school, and I really did struggle there because it was a very rough school as well. Another interesting fact, it was actually in the bottom three secondary schools ever. I later found out, thanks to a BBC News article, they bulldozed it down. And I tell you what, no one was chaining themselves to the gay to that school when they were. But that experience uh made me almost need to sort of suppress and hide the fact that I was even that way inclined. So, even on top of that, I was sensitive. I've always been sensitive, but I've always attributed that sensitivity to being gay, not necessarily being, you know, someone who's got mediumship and natural psychic kind of faculties because I've always picked up on things, but if anything, I was always trying to suppress that. But I want to take you back now to a time at when I was 16, I had a friend Sam at school who I didn't really sort of talk to too much actually until I left school because then he told me he was gay, but I would never have kind of really fought that in school because we were always hiding that part of ourselves. Oh hey, Sam! It's so lovely to see you. How long has it been? Six months now, since we left school? What are you doing? Well, I'm going to college. My mum, you know, thinks that would be a good thing for me to do. I don't really know, but I have got this job part-time at a restaurant. You know, it's only washing dishes for now, but you know, it pays okay. I think it's about £5.20 at the moment. How are you? Oh, really? Yeah, we must swap numbers. We must. And yeah, it would be lovely to lovely to do something. Yeah, let's do it. Message from Sam.

Growing Up Gay and Learning to Hide

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Okay, Mum, I'm gonna go stay at Sam's. I'll see you in the morning. I'm sleeping over. Okay, bye.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Look me the eyes, and show me this.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Oh my god, this is so crazy.

Charlie Kelly Medium 10:30

I can't believe we're driving all the way into London. I know if my mum finds out she's absolutely going to kill me.

unknown 10:39

Look me the eyes, and show me this.

Charlie Kelly Medium 10:42

My date and my month of birth? 11th of September. And the year? Yes, I'm dating. And my address? Yeah, that's right, you got it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Yeah, it's nice to meet you too. Hi, I'm Jason.

Charlie Kelly Medium 11:03

It's nice to meet you. Hi. Hi, yeah, I I uh I'll take a vodka and coke. Yeah, sure. I'll dance. No way! Kylie Minogue Sam, I didn't even know this medigaming could exist in one place. Yeah, I'll take another vodka coke. Thank you so much. And what do you mean she doesn't come on till 1am? 1am? What time does she leave? What do you mean she doesn't come on till 1 30am? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Kylie Lincoln.

Sixteen Years Old: An Invitation to the Astoria

SPEAKER_02 12:00

I know it's weak late.

Charlie Kelly Medium 12:08

I was Sam, I can't keep making up these excuses, but it was so much fun. I've just never felt like I've been able to be myself like that before.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

So it really is new whenever because I know when we're gonna get time to do it again. Are you in a bit, mum?

Charlie Kelly Medium 12:24

So my mum's gonna kill me, but go on then.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

It's so lovely to meet you.

Charlie Kelly Medium 12:44

Bye, follow by the Well, it's safe to say that my view of love and what I believe love is has definitely changed from those times in the London gay scene, going out, discovering who I was, and accepting myself for who I was. And I must say that that was something that was a big thing for me because in school I tried everything I could to hide my sexuality, hide my feelings for other people because it was a source of absolute harassment and bullying. So, in those early days of even discovering Sam was gay, I didn't even know he was gay in school, and I kind of um thought to myself after my days at school, how could I have not known? But it was because we were both suppressing that part of ourselves because the school that we went to ultimately was so rough. And I think a lot of my childhood, always kind of having subconsciously somewhere within my body and within my mind, a sense of abandonment from that of my biological father, definitely has played a massive part in my relationship with self-love and also looking outside of myself for love. And I have to say, my biological dad, he was absolutely amazing, taking

Entering London’s Gay Scene

Charlie Kelly Medium 14:20

both my mum and I in and treating my brother and treating my brother and I exactly the same as one another. But I must admit, my dad was not without his flaws like often of us are, and I always feel that I want to speak, you know, nothing but kind words towards my dad because he's come through actually so many times from the spirit world since passing, but he had definitely some trauma in his childhood, funnily enough, relating to his father, because he was brought up by a stepdad, and I'd never actually know the full story of what really occurred with my stepdad's biological dad because of the fact that he would never really talk much about his childhood and earlier days, and actually, I don't know much about my dad's childhood or anything like that at all, and I would actually say that I've learned more about it since he's gone to the spirit world because I've been very curious in asking those questions to my nan on that side, and actually, my nan, who is my dad's mum, has only recently started coming through from the spirit world because about two years ago she came through in a reading through another medium, and because we had a very strange relationship towards the end of her time alive, and so much so that I never even found out when her funeral was, but that side of the family, I must admit, they would often hold grudges, and you could have done something when you were 12 years old, and that would have still been held against you in some way, and it was a difficult side of the family for me because I always felt that you know I was different. Um, it was very off of obvious that I was different because they all had brown hair, brown eyes, and I was the ginger curly hair child, but that to one side, I always kind of felt that I was having to kind of work to earn love, admiration, and kind of acceptance from that side of the family because it was very much a setup where you know they would want me to go to university, become a doctor, and the way that they would attribute success in life was all about the kind of social standing that you would get to. And I always used to look at the photos of the family on the mantelpiece, and the famil the photos that got to the highest shelf were the ones of the grandchildren that had managed the children and the grandchildren that had managed to make it to university and whatnot. And I just kind of found that as I got older, more into adolescence, and as I went through my teenages, I always kind of felt like me even being gay was a big thing. And I remember for so long not wanting to even let that side of the family know I was gay, and I think eventually my mum told my nan, and she said, Well, of course we accept him for who he is, but all of that had a massive bearing on me because for a lot of time into my late teens and early 20s, you know, I was looking outside of myself for a partner, which was very difficult because back then, even being gay, it wasn't massively socially accepting. And you know, before you can even find a partner, one of the biggest, most challenging things is to find someone who you know is actually gay. And how do you establish if someone is gay or not? Well, that's where the old gay dark comes in, my darling listener. You know, I do think that I've got a knack for being able to uh sort of spot if someone is gay or not, but you know, it ultimately lent me to seeking outside of myself and feeling very lonely for a lot of my twenties because I was seeking a partner, which actually got me to a place eventually where I ended up being with a partner who put me through absolute hell of domestic violence, and I very much feel

Freedom, Belonging and the Search to Be Seen

Charlie Kelly Medium 18:10

that my low self-esteem and my lack of self-love at that point in my life because I I wouldn't be bubbling with self-love because I would often have issues with body confidence, I would often have issues with you know the way I looked, and I think that the gay world doesn't really help that because although you might think yes, okay, it's uh probably very accepting because of how many gay people have been marginalised. I've always found the gay scene to be somewhat very judgmental, very clicky, and you know, one of the most difficult things was yes, okay, I often didn't feel like I belonged in a normal school, in a normal setup because of the fact that I was gay and very sensitive, but then at times I didn't feel like I belonged in the gay community either. So all of those things rolled in definitely added into the mix of me feeling that I wasn't worthy of love, love was something that I would have to, you know, forever be improving myself in order to perhaps feel. So I spent a lot of my twenties kind of looking for the right partner and whatnot, and it often led me to be with people that you know just wouldn't treat me in the right way, and you know, my understanding of love now, having been on this journey of mediumship over the last five years, has really allowed me to understand that love is truly the only thing that really exists, and we find that out when we go back to the spirit world, because I believe that love is the only thing that exists, and when we go back to the spirit world, we believe uh we we learn that, and we learn that love is the most important thing in the world, and acts of kindness are what really matter when we go back to that of the other world. And I know many of you are going to be sitting here listening saying, Well, you know, how can love be the only thing that exists when there's so much evil in this world? Well, I would put it to you that

How Childhood Abandonment Shaped My Relationships

Charlie Kelly Medium 20:00

a lack of you know, uh fear and all these horrible things that happen in life often are just a lack of love, it's just a lack of love. It doesn't mean that those things, you know, really exist, it just means that there's a lack of love in that people's life at the moment. But you know, we're never gonna truly know until we go back to the other world. But I truly believe that love is the only thing that exists, and even when we have our life review as one of the first things that happens when we go back to the other world, we feel every single emotion that we have ever made another person feel, which is why you know I try to lead so much of my life these days through acts of kindness and just exuding mass amounts of gratitude. And I know that love is just so powerful these days because one, I would say I'm on an ever-growing journey to love myself, to and that's that that is an ongoing process, you know. I'm sitting here now in a very different position as a single man, really wanting to, in some ways, have a relationship, but not because I need that these days, it's very much I want to have a relationship because I want someone that I want companionship ultimately, but I I have a lot of self-love, and equally, probably part of the reason why I'm single is because I'm not willing to just settle for someone that isn't the right person for the sake of wanting a relationship, whereas back in my 20s I might have very much have done that these days it's about me, you know, wanting to be with someone for companionship and someone that's gonna you know enhance and enrich my life in some way, but you know, I do think I've got relationship blocks in certain fibres of my being that do relate to you know my lived experience in the 20s, and that's ultimately what we are, isn't it? We are products of our past, products of our beliefs, products of our past experiences in the memory book, in the memory bank of memories that we've got as an individual. So, you know, in this period. I'm really trying to work on some of those, you know, limiting beliefs that I've got. And it's always hard. I do feel that in some ways, you know, it's taken me a good while to even become fully accepting of my sexuality. Because

Trying to Earn Love and Acceptance

Charlie Kelly Medium 22:15

even at the point of starting my cabin crew job at Virgin Atlantic, where I must say, gay people couldn't be more embraced at that company, I did that for three years, but then left to go to the police. Where actually I was once again bullied for being gay to a pretty extreme level. So these days, you know, I'm very comfortable, of course, in my sexuality, and you know, I try to really look and live my life through a lens of love because that is the most important thing. But you know, I remember so many times in my twenties, um, you know, having copious amounts of sex with different individuals, um, and just feeling empty on the inside, feeling dirty and feeling horrible, and then wondering why am I feeling like this, even in the occasions when I am with people, but ultimately, you know, I was seeking outside of myself for that love, and you know, it got me into a lot of difficult um situations. Um, but that was part of my journey, and you know, the reason I wanted to make this episode today is to tell you that love is the only thing that exists, it's so absolutely bloody powerful, but that journey of love starts with the self within. Because if you don't have self-love, I don't believe that you're ever gonna find a fulfilling relationship because what's gonna happen in that relationship is you're always going to be looking for reassurance, looking for um you know, copious amounts of that demonstration of love. But if you're not loving um yourself within, um, you know, ultimately I do think that you you end up pushing that person away in some way through either jealousy, paranoia, anxiety, um, whatever it might be. So I'm gonna leave you today on this um rather um theatrical episode with a beautiful piece of music. But love is a subject that I'm gonna talk a lot more about because it's so goddamn important.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

In my head, in my heart, in my dreams, they're all I've got to watch and need for now.

Loneliness, Body Image and the Gay Community

SPEAKER_03 24:47

Whether it's you, whether it's me, whether we part just like to see, we'll be together somehow. I know that love can be the lonely sound, but I swear if you can trust me, I will show you how.

SPEAKER_04 25:20

While the whole world changes, I will love you always. We grow in real rage, but I will love you always I know which time you'll change. But I will love you always while the whole world changes, I will love you always.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

We grow in me and range, but I love you.

SPEAKER_04 26:28

While the whole world changes, I will love you always.