How to stop being afraid of love: 5 tips
There are those who, when it comes to love, prefer not to leave their comfort zone and remain in a healthy bachelorhood. But, on occasion, this vital option is seen not so much as the fruit of a decision made freely, but as an imposition; the world forces us not to bet on falling in love, but deep down we would like not to renounce that experience and deepen it. The fear of love is something that limits our freedom.
So, how can you stop fearing love? It is not an easy task, since this kind of psychological problems and conflicts are based on emotions deeply rooted in preconceived beliefs about both the environment and ourselves. However, it is possible to "train" in other ways of thinking and feeling that they serve our interests and improve our quality of life.
- Related article: "Psychology of love: that's how our brain changes when we find a partner"
Stop being afraid of love: what to do?
Falling in love is one of the phenomena that marks a before and after in our lives. The torrent of emotions that produces love fills practically all facets of everyday life , to the point where recurrent mental ideas and images may appear.
But, in the same way as it happens in many other experiences, in love it also entails certain costs. Some of them have to do with the investment in time, effort and resources necessary to maintain a functional love relationship, and therefore it is already known in advance that this kind of sacrifice will have to be addressed. But others are probabilistic: they may or may not occur. The lack of love is an example of the latter.
As a consequence, many people develop a fear of love or falling in love, so that they deny themselves the possibility of being with someone on a regular basis retaining that kind of affective bond.
But sometimes, the same person may have contradictory interests. That is why the concept of fear of love makes sense: where it appears, what happens is not that after reasoning it, it is concluded that initiating a relationship does not compensate taking into account the objective situation in which one lives, but that, regardless of the time and context, the possibility of falling in love or living the love with another person is feared whatever it is.
Then we will review a series of tips on how to stop being afraid of love, in steps that must be adapted to each case.
1. Concrete what you fear
A fear can be broken down into a series of experiences or more concrete consequences that are those that we really want to avoid. To begin to stop being afraid of love, it is necessary to try to be very aware of the true causes of this phenomenon .
For this, we must go through an initial stage of self-discovery. In this case, you have to analyze what are the forecasts and the mental images that we associate with what would happen if we did not renounce love, and write them down in a document that we will only use ourselves and that we do not have to share with anyone.
Once this is done, try to group these fears according to whether they meet these criteria.
- Does it have to do with your self-esteem or self-concept?
- Does it have to do with the fear of losing that person?
- Does it have to do with what they will say?
- Does it have to do with sex?
Once this is done, you will have a directory or "map" of the problem. Possibly one of the previous categories will be adjusted much more than the others to our case, or at most two. With that, we will know where to direct our efforts : if you think the problem is sexual, it would be best to attend therapy with sexologists; If the problem is in what they will say, the problem will be based on your relationship with the people around you or on how you interpret those relationships.
Then we will focus on cases in which the fear of love arises from problems of self-esteem, self-concept or fear of loss, which are the most common.
2. Review your idea of love
It is very possible that, although it sounds paradoxical, you have idealized the experience of love. The image given by other couples is usually positive , because by social pressure they try not to show their imperfections, and in the same way the world of cinema has tried for years to normalize a type of romantic relationships that fit the romantic ideal according to which even after going through serious problems originated by External circumstances, two lovers come to fit perfectly.
Thus, the problems of self-esteem are able to facilitate the appearance of the thought that we are not prepared to embark on a lifestyle so sublime and perfect, that only fully self-realized people can afford that luxury.
But this is a mistake, given that the most usual thing is that there is a certain degree of conflict in all couples , for the simple fact of being two individuals with different interests and points of view. Even identical twins do not spend their lives without arguing with each other, so in intimate relationships, where intimate relationships are more common in adult life, these tensions are more likely to be there.
In this sense, in order to solve this, we have to modify our beliefs about love relationships as well as what we are and what we are capable of. Relationships, in the end, only require very basic ingredients governed by the intuitive: empathy, love, and willingness to strive to live well with the other person and learn all the daily routines for it.
3. Take perspective on past experiences
It is very frequent that the fact of having gone through bad experiences in love generates a rejection of falling in love. When this happens, to begin to feel those emotions for someone is seen as a problem that comes to obsess, because there is no clear way to prevent feelings from taking their course, unless you try to avoid that person , completely altering our quality of life and giving reasons for the appearance of anxiety and a certain paranoia in case we are going to find it.
But we must be clear that the problems that occurred in previous failures are not "the essence" of love itself, but problems occurred in a relational dynamic . Each couple relationship is to some extent something unique, and if an ex-boyfriend gave problems, that does not mean that the next will also happen the same. Sometimes we forget that life is not so long that we have a realistic picture of what loving relationships are like with most people.
- Related article: "The 6 main types of toxic relationships"
4. Think that the resignation is also a cost
Losing someone for whom love is felt is a cost, but also avoiding giving an opportunity to falling in love by evading those experiences. Even if you do not have key moments, the discomfort generated by that resignation stretches in time , and it's something for which you pay every day. To stop self-imposing the prohibition of having a love life entails an instant triumph, even if at that moment there is no one to love and start a life as a couple.
5. If you need it, go to psychologists
If the problem is so serious that it supposes you a constant concern, you value going to the psychologist. Through therapy it is possible to make great advances Having a person from a professional and healthy distance can help us "train" a new philosophy of life.
