We have relationships for one evening, a few hours, a day or a month, but nothing that engages us, that makes us feel beyond desire, nothing that means loving someone, showing feelings, tenderness and affection. Do we fear love?
We invent all kinds of excuses to protect ourselves: “I don’t have time”, “I like my freedom”, “I want to be alone”, “I don’t want any commitment”, “I don’t want to separate from my friends, “when the real reason is that we are afraid of ourselves.
Find out what authentic love is
According to psychologist Walter Riso, we must differentiate between what is good love (healthy, coherent and constructive) and bad love (sick, incoherent, destructive) .
True love always contains three elements and if one is missing, suffering will appear sooner or later.
“ There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand different copies ” -François de la Rochefoucauld
The three elements of authentic love are Eros, Philia, and Agape . Eros is s exual desire and manifests itself in possession, falling in love and passion. It is the most selfish facet of love.
Philia is the couple’s friendship, which makes us transcend the Self, which seeks to share. Agape is selfless love, tenderness, and delicacy.
Over time, during the couple relationship, one element may prevail over another, but all three must always be present. Note that several scientists from Stony Brook University in New York have discovered that love can last over time.
They performed brain scans on several couples who had been together for 20 years and others who had just started their relationship.
They compared the results and realized that one in ten mature couples had the same chemical reaction as the couples who were to meet. This shows that it is possible to maintain the same level of love, despite the passage of the years.
The causes of our fear of love
Feeling mistrust of what is new, of what presupposes self-exposure or potential suffering, paralyzes us and prevents us from discovering what authentic love is.
It is obvious that some relationships work and others do not, and that there is always a risk.
“It is enough for me to look at you to know that with you I will“ wet ”my soul” – Julio Cortázar-
We live in a society in which everything happens very quickly , we don’t stop to get to know people and we go from one relationship to another without feeling or enjoying the discovery of someone. This is due to several causes. Here are a few :
I feel vulnerable
Starting a relationship brings insecurity and vulnerability because we expose ourselves to the other person and sometimes it is easier to strip our body rather than our soul. We feel a lack of control over what could happen in the future and that scares us.
We do not know the other person, sometimes we are wary, but knowing someone or having a relationship is always a risk run by the two people who discover each other.
Saying how we feel or expressing our desires is important in creating a foundation of true love.
Remember what we have been done in the past
We all suffered from breakdowns, complicated situations in a relationship, and over time we healed our hearts.
But, when the other person appears, we relive that pain in a certain way and we remember what happened because we are afraid that it will happen again.
This baggage that represents our past sometimes prevents us from being ourselves with the person we are discovering and we only show part of our being, preventing him from knowing us and from knowing how we are and what we feel.
Love implies suffering
Many people identify love with suffering and that is why they do not want to start a new relationship.
As soon as someone shows an interest in them, they flee … It is essential to eliminate from our mind limiting beliefs that prevent us from seeing reality and knowing love.
We are afraid of losing the other person and this prevents us from having a healthy relationship because we are trying to own, instead of loving. This desire for possession can end up deteriorating the relationship, creating suspicion and driving the partner away.
My partner keeps me away from my friends and family
There are many people who are afraid of having a relationship because they think that a partner will distance them from their friends.
Reconciling couple and friends should not, however, become a complication , but on the contrary, become two facets which complement each other without major conflict.
It’s the same with the family. Many people think that starting a relationship involves breaking their family ties and are afraid of them. This is why they shun all engagement.
If we go beyond this belief and accept all the important people in our lives, we will feel happy and fulfilled.
