This post is a follow-up to my last entry on fear. It was stated that our top two emotions are fear and love and that we often end up fearing love.
Fear of love. Let’s explore this.
Do we really fear love itself or do we fear that we will not be loved back? I was watching a talk given by Nathaniel Branden, a Psychotherapist who is an expert in self-esteem and romantic love. He spoke a lot about the most common barriers to love, such as: fear that it won’t last and fear that you will not be loved back. I will add to that by saying that there is often the fear of exposing yourself for who you are and that your flaws and imperfections will be revealed and possibly rejected, and also the fear of someone not being able to love you forever. Notice how all of those barriers to love incorporate fear? In my last entry I made a statement at the end of the post “what you really want is on the other side of fear”. Often, love itself is on the other side of fear.
Another barrier to love is that you may feel undeserving of it or even unlovable. These two feelings can be very anxiety provoking and what do we do when we feel anxious? Well, we like to get rid of the very thing or feeling that is causing us anxiety and in this case, it would be the potential of love or love itself– all because we are afraid. We want it, but we fear it, so we avoid it. It can be a vicious cycle, unless we find a way to break it, while being vulnerable by embracing the associated fear(s).
Eventually fear turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy and we may adopt a disposition to behave in self-destructive ways. You may find yourself turning to self-destructive behaviours such as excessive drinking, gambling, drug use, overspending, self-harming, etc. What are some ways that you sabotage yourself when trying to avoid fear and/or potentially love? Thus potentially leaving you feeling unhappy or unfulfilled in some way.
Why do we regard unhappiness as normal? Why do we find so much familiarity in staying with something or someone that brings is so much unhappiness? Why do we spend days, months, years in unhappy relationships? One answer: fear.
Love requires consciousness. When we are young, the emotional part of our brain overrides everything else. What we want most is love and connection. When something threatens our bond it can be terrifying to us and we end up feeling that our survival is threatened. This is where some of the very first thoughts arise: I’m not good enough, I’m unlovable, I’m guilty, I’m flawed, What is wrong with me?
These thoughts, over time, start to feel like they are facts. We tend to believe them and thus they keep us away from love and connection and potentially keep us in the wrong type of relationship. As a result, we often look to make up for love through other means, such as: achieving a special status, making more money, accumulation of things, mass consumption, power, etc.
One of the most common things that tends to happen at the onset of a relationship is the masks that we wear. We wear masks as a result of fear. The mask will attract the love object, but it will not keep it. Imagine two people wearing masks and body armour laying in bed with one another trying to be in love. Its not possible.
When we start off by wearing a mask, we attract someone to only a version of who we are – perhaps what we deem as being the only appealing side of ourselves. We expose only what we think is the loveable components of ourselves and nothing more. Wearing a mask all the time can be exhausting, so over time it may start to come off and suddenly you realize that the real you may not even be attracted to the person you were with while wearing the mask and vice versa.
You ever have those moments in the beginning stages of a relationship where the other person does or says something which leaves your feeling upset or let down in some way and yet you say absolutely nothing and brush it off. Or, how about all of those times where you want to say more but you don’t. You want to share more, but you are afraid. You want to tell that person how much you love hearing from them, but you don’t want to seem needy. Emotional connection is a vital component of love. When we are willing to be vulnerable, we allow ourselves to connect.
Often, practicing love is the act of letting go. It is having the courage to be who you really are while giving others the freedom to be who they really are as well. It is connecting through imperfections and embracing vulnerability.
Right now in this moment, what is holding you back from love or perhaps achieving a deeper love and connection with someone? If you could reach inside of yourself and remove your fears around this how different do you think your life would be in this moment? Interesting how quickly this can change for someone who knows that they only have two months to live. Suddenly the items on the bucket list are being checked off and they are doing all the things in which they once feared. Why? Because they know their time is limited, so why not. Why should it be any different for you? In essence, we don’t know when our time here is about to expire – but yet we spend some much of our lives wasting it.
What will you choose? Fear, or love?
