We all crave love, intimacy, connection and good relationships, it is one of the most important things in life, and it comes in many forms (friends, siblings, lovers or even strangers).
Since it is so important to us, of course it creates big pain to lose it, or even risk to lose it. So we try to protect ourselves from that. But, and I’ve written about this before but keep coming back to is cause it’s so important, when we close ourselves off from pain we also close ourselves off to love and connection, since they enter through the same door.
Usually we are completely unaware of this, and can’t see that we are pushing people away and keeping them out even though we want them to come closer. In our minds, what we do makes perfect sense.
We truly feel that it’s reasonable to expect to first be completely loved by someone, and then open up and be vulnerable about who we are.
We think that we can first decide if someone is interesting to date, and then get to know them if we think that they are.
We think that we can play it safe, and thereby eliminate the risks.
Well, we can, but at a very high price. The best and safest way to not get your heart broken is to not let anyone come close. Ever. You’ll be very miserable in other ways but you won’t get your heart broken.
We need to turn the whole way of thinking around and say yes to the opportunities – and to the risks! We need to compare the risk of getting hurt to the risk of not taking that risk. Because that has consequences too.
It’s not a huge deal that you might reject people or miss out on opportunities right now, today, but if you do it every day for the rest of your life, that will equal a very lonely life. And that is a huge risk!
You also need to trust your ability to survive emotional pain. Because you will, if it happens. It will hurt, you will feel like crap, it will affect you in many ways – and then you will move on and learn from it. In this all inclusive package called life, some shit sandwiches will occasionally be served. It’s part of the deal. It is how we learn.
You will survive it. And it will be so worth it.