🗺️ How to Love Map without getting lost
Everyone wants to find love. Almost no one knows how to navigate it.
“Everyone wants to find love.
Almost no one knows how to navigate it.”
Most people think love is a feeling.
Some think it’s a skill.
A few think it’s a frequency.
But almost no one realises it’s a navigation system… not just relationally… but for life in the cosmos…
And like any navigation system, it’s only as accurate as the map you’re using… and the terrain you’re walking through.
For most people?
The map is outdated.
The terrain is armoured, fogged, soggy, unknown and treacherous…
And the compass is stuck inside an old wound calling itself intuition…
This Substack is about recalibrating all three…
The Map vs. the Terrain
What a lot of people deny… is this…
… they try to update their Love Map…
while living in the same terrain…
Same posture.
Same breath.
Same bracing in the jaw and belly.
Same “yes” they don’t mean.
Same “no” swallowed to keep the peace.
Same “nervous system” trying to drive toward the future with the coordinates of the past.
Your Love Map doesn’t live in your mind…
It lives in your structure — the places you hold, hide, push, pull, and disappear…
You don’t update the map until you update the terrain.
This is where most approaches fall short:
Therapy updates the story
Attachment Theory updates the labels
Polarity updates the performance
Somatics-lite or low fat; updates the vocabulary. eg. zomg deh fAsCiA…read the bOdY kEePs deh ScOrE…
But your terrain… the body you live inside… is the one generating the map.
“The body doesn’t lie.
It only repeats.”
— J.K. Wallis
When clients ask me,
“Why do I keep looping?”
This is why…
They’re trying to rewrite the map without stepping into new ground, breaking new soil… stepping beyond their outdated horizons….
Why People Get Lost in Love
Not because they’re broken.
Not because they haven’t healed enough.
Not because they’re “picking the wrong people.”
People get lost because their internal navigation system is being run by:
Familiarity and what they know instead of truth
Fantasy instead of Presence
Pattern-chemistry instead of real compatibility
A childhood map trying to make adult choices
You can read all the recommended books.
You can meditate.
You can get “clear.”
You can learn the scripts.
You can regulate.
You can do the courses.
But none of that changes the terrain you’re walking on…
Because the terrain isn’t mental.
It’s structural.
Your spine tells the truth.
Your belly tells the truth.
Your breath tells the truth.
Your thighs tell the truth.
Your eyes tell the truth.
Everything else is architecture built on top of it…
“Most people are trying to direct their life from the neck up.
But love doesn’t follow orders from a management team… it responds to ground conditions.”
— J.K. Wallis
The Four Ways People Get Lost
These are the 4 key ways I see people get lost in love again and again…
… and these are so simple and pain free to update.
1. Overmapping
Endless analysis → no embodiment.
(Rigid + Leaving)
2. Undermapping
Rushing in → skipping orientation.
(Merging)
3. Ghost Mapping
Dissociating the moment intimacy requires presence.
(Leaving)
4. Force Mapping
Trying to control the route, the timing, the other person. (Look ma… I’m “leading”)
(Aggressive)
All four have the same root issue…
Trying to navigate using mental strategies inside a body shaped by and for survival at any cost…
Pattern Navigation vs Presence Navigation
Here’s the distinction between those two that changes the entire game of love.
Pattern navigation:
“What will keep me safe?”
(another book, attachment style, knowing red/green flags, narcissist detector…)
Presence navigation:
“What allows me to be who I actually am?”
When your survival pattern is driving, love becomes:
A business negotiation
A performance
A strategy
A rescue project
A fantasy
A war
A loop disguised as a lesson
When your Living Signal is driving, love becomes:
Clear
Embodied
Honest
Directional and Expansive
Familiar in the right way
Safe without shrinking
Energising without overwhelming
Love stops being a maze you solve and becomes a terrain you learn to inhabit…
The Five Navigation Styles (Personality Patterns)
You’ve read my work enough to know the core of this.
But here’s the upgraded version for the end of 2025:
Leaving Pattern → The Sky Navigator
Sees everything.
Feels little.
Disappears when the terrain gets dense.
Merging Pattern → The River Navigator
Flows beautifully…
until they merge with the riverbanks and lose themselves entirely.
Enduring Pattern → The Mountain Navigator
Stable.
Loyal.
But heavy under the weight of old promises that were never theirs.
Aggressive Pattern → The Fire Navigator
Burns a path forward…
but often avoids the places where tenderness is required.
Rigid Pattern → The Road Navigator
Precise.
Organised.
But terrified of leaving the safety of the path they can predict.
We all have all five.
Two dominate.
These two form your Outdated Love Map…
The Three Rules of Love Mapping
Rule 1: Your familiar is not your future.
Attraction is rarely truth.
Most attraction is pattern-recognition whether conscious or unconscious.
Rule 2: Your pattern forms your preference… not your truth.
Your nervous system / attraction wiring “wanting someone” says nothing about compatibility.
Rule 3: Safety is not the same as alignment.
Safety is a survival requirement.
Alignment is a being requirement.
If you confuse the two, you’ll keep choosing people who regulate your wounds
instead of people who expand your life…
How to Love Map Without Getting Lost
This is what most people actually want:
A way to be in love without reenacting the wound(s) that shaped their relational identity.
Here’s how to navigate without disappearing:
1. Slow the pattern down
Recognise the familiar impulse (which of the 2 from the 5 matches you the most) before it becomes a decision.
2. Update the terrain
Drop your breath.
Unbrace your belly.
Relax your jaw.
Let your spine soften.
Love doesn’t land in a defended body… (and all 5 show up as terrain on the body)
3. Practice orientation, not judgment
“What’s happening in me right now?”
Not…
“What does this mean about them, us, the future?”
4. Don’t overcorrect
Every pattern tries to reinvent itself with a seamless costume change.
Don’t fall for the outfit. (or skip a breath)
5. Let desire speak… without letting history drive
Desire is important. (Present desire)
History is loud.
Learn the difference.
6. Choose direction over destination
Don’t try to get “the One.”
Try to get the next right step, from Presence.
7. Don’t outsource your compass
Not to a therapist.
Not to a book.
Not to attachment language.
Not to a dating coach.
Not to a fantasy.
Not to a fear.
Not to me.
Your compass is under your sternum, for some of us it becomes our whole body… and part of your mission to self-actualisation is to discover it.
Why This Matters Now
We’re in a cultural moment where everyone is “trauma-aware”
but still lost…
People speak the language of wounds, but still live from the wound.
People know the red flags, but still date them.
People can regulate, but still can’t orient.
This is why Love Mapping matters…
It gives people a way out of the labyrinth, instead of strategies for making the labyrinth feel nicer… cosier … certified by the collective ego.
Closing
I see that we are not supposed to navigate love with a map drawn by a frightened child…
I see we can navigate it with a map updated by an adult who knows how to inhabit their body, feel the ground beneath them, be attuned to the life around them and follow a signal that isn’t tethered to fear…
Most people think love is found.
It’s not.
Love is navigated.
And when you stop getting lost inside the old terrain, the map updates automatically.
“Presence is the only compass that won’t betray you.”
— J.K. Wallis
A Call Forward
If you’re reading this and you can feel your map is outdated… if you sense you’re still navigating with someone else’s coordinates — I’m teaching a Love Map Immersion Workshop in March.
It’s where I’ll take you deeper into the five navigation styles, how they distort attraction, how they shape your relational identity, and how to update your terrain so your map finally matches the truth of who you are.
If you want the details, message me or reply here.
If you don’t… let the ideas in this piece work on you…
They’ll start reorganising your terrain long before you realise it.
You don’t have to rush.
You don’t have to get it all right.
You just have to be willing to stay here
— in the terrain —
long enough for the map to update…
— John Kai Wallis
Next week: Part II of Narcissism