I think what she's getting at is that when we haven't experienced love for ourselves, we are blocked from engaging that part of ourselves that we then want to offer to others.

Love isn't instinctual, it's learned behavior. As infants develop they take in the love shown from caretakers and use those experiences to form the cognitive and experiential basis of how they feel about themselves; then they project those feelings toward others. They develop the paradigm. Get love, internalize love, give love.

When we don't have the experiences we don't develop the paradigm. So now you have these stirrings, and you've framed them as love because cognitively, they seem to fit that definition. But I think she's saying these feelings are really projected need for love labelled as love.

But it's ok. It's like trying on a new behavior which is what children do. Think of "puppy love." Adults know it isn't reflective of the full gamut of adult feelings, but it does express the growing paradigm of love as the child experiences it. It's not false, but it's not fully developed. It feels very real and full to the child, and it's an important and necessary step in development (and so damaging when belittled by adults.) But it's still developing and reflects part need, part projection, part recognition of the other.

The important thing is to bond which allows you to be open to the developmental experiences out of which will grow the ability to feel self-love.