Why so scrawny, cat?
starving for fat fish
or mice . . .
Or backyard love?

All of us have the innate need to love and be loved. When we are born, we enter the world with a pure expectation of unconditional love.

If we look to our relationships to complete us and fulfill our unmet needs for happiness and love, then those relationships often result in disappointment. And, if we believe that those we are in a relationships with are responsible for making us happy and whole, then we create unhealthy expectations that are impossible to meet.
This sense of lack can cause us to feel fear whenever other is not satisfying our expectations for attention, affection, and love, which leads to suffering and co-dependency. Such insecurity also causes us to act with jealousy and neediness, or to constantly seek approval. When this behavior becomes compulsive, obsessive, and destructive, it manifests as an addiction.

The problem is that we look outside for love and approval, but our relationships reflect back to us what we think and feel about ourselves on the inside. When we are attracted to a person, what we are actually drawn to are the traits we feel we lack and the characteristics we want more of.
In order to fulfill our unmet needs for worthiness and love, we must learn to love ourselves fully. What we really seek is to reconnect with that unconditional love lying deep within the heart of our beings. To find true love, we must look inward and reclaim our own self-love.