When your heart has been broken, it can be scary to love again. When your heart and mind have been abused, it can be so difficult to love again. You can want to love again but something always holds you back. It’s like you always pick the wrong guy almost on purpose. It’s like there’s a sabotage button that you’re magnetically attached to. But usually when you look back you were right to push the button! He wasn’t right. He wasn’t the one to truly open your heart to again anyway.
You think you’re ready because you’ve put yourself out there to date so you must be ready! Right? Maybe, maybe not. Just because your best friend cried for three months after a break-up and seemed to just glide into the next relationship does not mean there is something wrong with you because this hasn’t happened for you. It’s OK to take months or even years to open your heart again. Healing from a bad relationship is a bit like grieving, there is no set time for you to have to be OK!
As women, we are often deep in discussion with friends about following our women’s intuition, trusting our gut feeling. There’s always that one friend who will insist that you MUST KNOW what your gut is telling you but don’t panic, it’s OK to be completely confused.
Fear can most definitely play nasty tricks on your mind. It’s like a little devil on your shoulder whispering doubts into your ear and making you ask questions.
Fear is also the lord and master of the dreaded overthinking!!!!! We all do it. It’s perfectly normal. You might run through previous conversations over and over, trying to find some hidden meaning you may have missed the previous eighteen times you replayed it in your mind. Maybe it’s reading a text conversation several times. Maybe it’s asking yourself a million questions, never actually answering even one of them before you’re onto the next…
Fear can make you act out of character! Have you ever had a dream in which somebody may have wronged you? You wake the next morning and actually feel negative emotion toward the person you dreamed about!! You know its ridiculous but you still feel it. Just like the fear you get when you wait what seems like a lifetime to receive a text or a call from that guy.
Then he calls and you laugh to yourself afterward at how ridiculous you had been. You were caught up in your own mind like a prisoner.
Then one day you meet somebody. You like him. He likes you. He tells you so. You go on dates. You text each other total nonsense and a five-minute call can last thirty five minutes. You look forward to seeing each other again with childish excitement.
He makes you smile.
He gives you the greatest gift of all.
Faith.
Even with this guy, the little fear devil may come along for a quick visit. Let’s face it, it had been there through every first date you weren’t really wanting or ready to go on. Every time you potentially liked somebody but felt your guard go up when he did something that fed your fear. Every time you hit the sabotage button, it was the fear that made you do it.
But let me tell you a little something I have learned. Fear can be your worst enemy. It can bring out the most soul-destroying insecurities and feelings of anxiety.
Fear can also be your friend.
Remember the confusion in your gut I talked about earlier?
It’s simply a battle between fear and faith.
This is how fear can be your friend. You see, while fear and faith battle and we are caught in a world of confusion and sabotage, we actually allow faith to win the war.
If we had continued on and dragged out that potential relationship, hoping he would change or do differently whatever wasn’t feeling right, we would have allowed fear to win! In a lot of cases, probably that fear of being alone.
Instead, you are free to open the door to the guy who gives you that gift of faith. He makes you smile.
He makes you laugh.
You don’t need to pretend with him. Being yourself with a guy feels good again. Even when you’re being a total nerd. Or rambling like a lunatic about something that excites you.
Even when fear tries to creep in, you manage to allow faith to rule.
With him, it’s OK to be open. Fear isn’t something to be ashamed of and he gets it when you really open up and share with him.
You realize you are beginning to have faith and maybe even love again…
Nothing in this life is guaranteed but if you keep some faith in your heart and soul, it will always win…
And to quote one of my favorite movies… ‘The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”
by Beverly Martin