Our Fear Of Being Vulnerable Is Why We’re Missing Out On Love

Zara Barrie
Zara Barrie in Dating
Jul 14, 2015 • 1:32pm
Elitedaily.com

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Is this universal FEAR of vulnerability the very reason our relationships tend to be fleeting and meaningless?

We fear being hurt more than we want love.

I don’t know a single person, male or female, who doesn’t want love.

He might hide behind the mask of cynicism. She might not be ready. He might be a narcissist — regardless of the endless stream of issues we are laden with — at the end of the day, we all WANT to love.

Someday. Sometime.

But what’s greater? What is more profound? Is the fear of hitting the ground so overwhelmingly powerful that it overrides the desire to fall?

Are we all so collectively damaged that we choose fear over love? We can’t experience love without making ourselves vulnerable.

The walls must come down for us to really be seen. We need to let people truly see us if we want the love to be real.

Otherwise, it’s nothing more than a falsified, fantasy love. It’s people falling for the perfectly curated version of you, not the real you.

We are afraid to surrender our power.

We are a generation of control freaks. We vehemently control our image on social media.

We take pills to control our short, rapid-fire, fleeting attention spans. F*ck, we take pills to control our feelings.

When we’re vulnerable to another human being, we lose the tight fist of control. We are suddenly stripped of our power.

When we are raw and exposed, we give our partners the opportunity to get to know us. All of us. It’s only when people know us that they can hurt us.

Otherwise it’s just ego bruise, and we can recover much faster from a cracked ego than a broken heart.

We are scarred from the past.

We all have that one scar that cuts so deep; we never want feel that pain again.

We all have experienced the trauma of opening up to someone who royally f*cked us over. We have all put our trust in someone who took it and recklessly ran with it.

Is the damage from the past what makes us so afraid to ever dare allow ourselves to open up again?

We are afraid we won’t like what we see.

We are so terrified that if we were to strip ourselves of our sky-high walls and let you in, you would see us. The real us.

What if you saw us without heaps of expensive makeup, sans Instagram filters, with zero protective layers of designer outerwear- — and you didn’t like what you saw?

Are we afraid that if we were to allow someone into our protective, precious orb — and this person didn’t like how it felt in that sacred space — we wouldn’t be able to recover?

Herein lies the tricky part of this protective method: When we are hit with the unexpected fist of true love, our walls will naturally be inclined to ever-so-slightly lower.

Even the most guarded girl in the world isn’t immune to the powerful force of love.

If you’re lucky enough to feel it, don’t resist it. Don’t stave yourself from the most profound experience of your life because you’re afraid to feel the scary feelings.

By cutting yourself off from feeling vulnerable, you’re also cutting yourself off from the most wonderful feelings in the universe.

You have to open yourself up and let the good in, even if it means risking feeling some bad.

And if you do find yourself hurt — because it CAN happen — always remember this: There is no pain in the world you can’t recover from. I promise. It’s all worth it.