Are You Open To Love? – (Part 2 of 10) – The Reasons You May Not Be
By: Joshua Danicio
Welcome back to the “Are You Open To Love?” part 2 of the 10 part series. In part 1 we discussed how on one level we do not want to be lonely as human beings yet, on another level we are not open to love. We do not let love into our life because we believe in some level it is not good for us or we are not ready for it. Why?
In part 1 I briefly mentioned 10 reasons possibly contributing to our unwillingness to be open to love. Lets look at them in slightly more detail. As you read through the following you might think, “ok now he is gone off the rockers” about me. Well, sometimes truth does shake us a bit. So put up with me for a few moments while I go through these ok?
Here are some of the reasons because of which we may not be open to love;
1) Painful Past Experiences
We want love but we don’t want to be too close to someone because of our past painful experiences associated with having a loving relationship. We associate love with painful experience because that’s what happened in the past. We think that what happened in the past is going to happen in the future. We think that past equals the future.
2) Lose of Independence
On some level we believe that opening the door for love means loss of our own independence. We think that by letting the other person into our lives we might lose our own way of life. We might be forced to do certain things or our way of life may have to be changed etc
3) Lack Of Time
We believe that our times through the day have to be shared with the other person, we might be required to communicate with the other person on a regular basis even if we don’t feel like it. We think that they might take up our daily time especially if we are already at a crunch for time to do what we need to do in our existing life.
4) Fear Of Commitment
We think that by committing to the love from this one person we might be committed to that person for life and it might appear final for our decision on our lover for life. Although the “Fear Of Commitment” is can be due to several factors, simply put this may also influence whether we are open to love coming into our life as well.
5) Busy Lifestyle
Our lifestyle whether it is existing work related, habit related or our friendship network related may not lend itself to a new person coming into our life. We think that by letting love into our life we have to change our lifestyle dramatically which we might regret later on, so we decide not to be open to love
6) Financial Reasons
We somehow believe that having new love into our life, we might be required to spend more money on ourselves whether to make us look good by dressing better or spend more money on the other person in terms of gifts, dinner or other activities which may cost money. We think the new love may interfere with our work and time, which we think can be spent on making our finances better
7) Our Need To Remain Who We Are
Most of us have moments when we shy from change. We all want to remain true to who we are. We don’t want to change our habits for anyone, especially if our habits and values are making us happy as a person. We think that letting love into our life, the other person may make us change who we are. So we remain closed to new love or not letting our existing love come closer to us. We think that for the moment we feel better because nothing will change the status quo of who we are if we do not let love into our life.
Fear Of Intimacy
We all have our inherent fear for certain things in our life. This may vary from fear of dark places, fear of flying to fear of getting closer to someone emotionally or even physically at intimate moments. When we are afraid of being intimate with another person in a romantic way, the fear itself prevents us from being open to love
9) Lack of Self Esteem
Our sense of personal worth or self-esteem will have a dramatic impact on how sociable we are. How we behave in social situations with other people whether it is with the member of the same sex or the opposite sex. You will find that lower the self-esteem, lower the chances of us being “open to love”. On some level our self worth and our perception of what / whom we deserve prevents us from being open to new and exciting love coming into our life
10) Perfectionist Mentality
How many of us wait for the perfect moment to do certain things? We think that if we do it in a hurry we might mess it up and AVOID doing those things?
Sometimes, we have a very critical need for an item to have in our life such as a car to go to work, a bed to sleep on, or a simple blender to make soup for an elderly mom etc. But we put off buying it because we think we should only buy it after months of research and buy the PERFECT model and not just jump in. So we go without it even though it costs us much more to go without it.
So what’s my point on this? Even when we meet someone absolutely wonderful with the values and beliefs we really want in your desired lover / partner, we are not open to love from that person because on some levels we think that person is not PERFECT. So at that moment, we are not “open to love” from that person. I am not saying we should settle. I am saying at times we are not open to love and closed to romantic possibilities because of our perfectionist mentality.
Solution? We need to explore each of the above factors and think through why we are not open to. I touched upon some of the reasons for our unwillingness to be open to love. This is a 10 part article series to explore this very important issue. The remaining 8 parts of this article will go into each of the above factors into more detail from a solutions point of view as to how we could handle each one of them. Don’t miss any of them!
In summary for now: Only we can make the decisions and direct our lives. We are in control of our destiny. Whether it is our love destiny or our other dreams in life. When we focus on solutions we can achieve anything in life. When we try harder with smart solutions it is possible to be open to love. So I will ‘catch’ you in our next solution series. Till then, be ‘open to love’
Copyright 2006 Joshua Danicio
Joshua Danicio is a contributing writer and part of the Editorial Team at CupidClinic.com “Where Cupid Comes To Learn About Love”. We feature free dating & relationship advice from talented writers to help you find and keep your love. We welcome other talented writers to submit their work at our site to promote their skills and business