In this episode, I answer a listener’s question: Why am I scared of love? I dive into the reasons so many of us experience a fear of love, including the fear of vulnerability, childhood trauma, low self-worth, and even the anxiety that love or a relationship might be “too good to be true.” This episode is for anyone who’s afraid of love but is ready to embrace it rather than pull away. If you’ve struggled with opening your heart, this episode offers insights to help you move through those fears. You deserve the love you desire, and it’s time to lean in.

Timestamps

• Introduction: 0:05
• Listener Question: 1:58
• Outro: 25:50

For episode show notes, please visit: https://www.newviewadvice.com/120

For more free resources and to learn more about New View Advice, visit: https://www.newviewadvice.com/

Want to have a question answered? You can submit your question here: https://www.newviewadvice.com/ask-a-question

Welcome to NewView Advice with Amanda Durocher.

Hey, beautiful soul. Welcome to New View Advice. My name is Amanda

Durocher. And if you're new here, this is a healing centered advice podcast where I

offer guidance for the healing journey. I I don't believe I have all the answers

you seek. I believe you have all the answers. You just may need a new

view and a little help along the way. Thank you so much for joining me

for today's episode. Today, I'm answering a question from a listener who asks,

why am I so scared of love? So many of us fear love and

simultaneously are looking for love and desire love and search

for love while we are terrified of it. And I think this

is such a great question for us to answer today because I think that so

many people can relate to this feeling of looking for love and also being

terrified of love. Because as I pondered this question, I really thought to myself,

what is more terrifying than love? I think love

triggers our greatest fears and our greatest insecurities

and also our greatest potential and our greatest hope and our

greatest joy. And what's more terrifying than that?

Love is the journey of life. And I think this

is such a relatable question while also being question

that we'll all have a different answer to at the end of the day of

why we are truly terrified of love. And my hope with this episode is

to help you to connect deeper to your why. Why are you so afraid of

love? And what can we do to help you to alleviate that fear and to

move forward and closer to love rather than continuing to lean away

from that love out of fear? So I'm excited to dive into this question. And

before we do, I always like to mention that if you haven't already, I invite

you to check out my website. I've got poems. I've got a new series called

Reflections where I share stories from my healing journey, journal prompts, meditations, and

more. And the episode show notes for this episode will be at

newviewadvice.com/120, and you can check that out after the

episode. So with that, let's jump on into talking about why are we so scared

of love.

Hi, Amanda. Why am I so scared of love? Why do I

hold myself back from truly giving myself over to it, from just

leaning in and being vulnerable? I met someone recently, and I really

like them. I can see myself loving them if I let myself, but

there's this deep fear that holds me back. I catch myself coming up with

reasons why it won't work out. But if I'm honest with myself, I think it's

just the fear of love itself. Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed with how

terrified I feel of love. I was wondering if you might have any insights into

why this fear exists or how I can start to let go of it. Thank

you for everything you do. Your podcast has been so helpful for me, and I

really appreciate everything you do and all that you share. Keep up the amazing

work. Thank you so much for asking this question and for your kind

words about the podcast. I am so grateful that you found it helpful along your

own journey. It truly warms my heart every time somebody shares with me how

the podcast has impacted them. So thank you so much. And now I wanna talk

about why are you so afraid of love? Why are we all so afraid of

love? So I'm going to be using we throughout this question because I

also fear love. I think love is the most beautiful

thing in the world, and I also think love is absolutely terrifying. I

don't think you're wrong with calling out yourself on fearing

love. I think that it's actually super honest, and I think a lot of people

would deny the fact that they fear love. But we can always love

ourselves, each other, and life more. We can always

feel deeper love and deeper intimacy and deeper vulnerability,

and that's terrifying. Because every time we hit our edge of

vulnerability or the edge of how far we've allowed ourself to fall

in love, we can always fall deeper. I talk to Evan about it all the

time that we've been together almost 14 years, and I'm

shocked that every year, I love him more. Every year, I

fall deeper in love with him. And that's for

many reasons, mostly because I fall deeper in love with myself,

and that allows me to fall deeper in love with somebody else. But it's

terrifying. And I see each year the different

blocks I hit and where I'm still blocking myself from receiving and from

giving love. And I think that's because, as I mentioned in the intro,

love so often triggers our deepest insecurities. Am I

good enough for this person? Am I worthy enough? Am I

truly worthy of this much love? Am I truly worthy of this

much happiness? Do I deserve this? Am I

lovable? What if I love this person more than they love

me? What would that mean? Those are some of our

deepest fears. They're actually fears that we spend our whole

life running from. And when we fall in love with someone and

we meet somebody who we want to go to those

deep places with, it's absolutely terrifying

because so often we've built up walls and defense mechanisms

to keep us from hitting against those fears. And so I think it's

very common to fear love and to fear deep, true love and

allowing ourselves to fully let go. Because what's more vulnerable than allowing

yourself to truly fall in love? Because when we truly allow ourselves to fall in

love, we show somebody who we truly are. And so many

of us run around the world with a persona. Right? We let somebody

see a version of us. And many of us have different personas. Right? You go

to work, you might be one version. You're at home, you might be one version.

You go home to your immediate family, like your family from childhood,

and you might be a different version of yourself. When you're with your childhood friends,

you might be one version. When you're with your new friends, you might be another.

Some people are themselves everywhere they go, but many times, we at least change

a little bit here or there. We don't show up fully as ourselves

everywhere we go, and I actually think that's a good practice. I know for me,

I don't show up as this version of myself. I give advice for a

living, and I don't believe in unsolicited advice. So I don't walk

around giving unsolicited advice. I answer questions. I answer questions

that people ask me. And I only share that because in most

situations, we show up as a version of ourselves, and that's not right or

wrong. But when we look for and search for a romantic partner,

we're looking for someone who we can be everything with.

The beautiful, the sexy, the funny, and also the

ugly, the messy, and the scared. When we fall in

love, we want to know somebody's gonna be there for us when we

aren't our best self, and that's terrifying. It's terrifying to

show somebody your vulnerability because it's so

vulnerable to romantically be into somebody.

It's different than other loves. It's different than familial love.

It's different than friend love. Romantic love is different. It has

a different heartbeat is how I feel. It's intimate in a different

way. I'm having trouble even right now articulating it. I'm

thinking about it in my head, and it's just that

romantic love, like, opens us like a rose, and

it's an incredibly beautiful thing. It's why so many people

search for it. I wanna say everybody searches for it, but I know there are

people not looking for relationships, not into it. I know people are asexual.

I understand that. But most of us do desire that

romantic connection. And Evan and I actually talk about it, like, all the

time, this fascination I have with the fact that most people

do desire somebody to spend their life with. They desire

that person to have romance with. And true romantic

partnerships aren't just romance. It's being with somebody through thick and thin

and committing to somebody through the good, bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the

messy with life. And to me, that's true love is being with

somebody through it all. It's seeing somebody and allowing somebody to be their true

selves and allowing you to be your true self, And that is incredibly

terrifying, especially new love. When you just meet somebody,

it's like being on rocky territory. You don't know where this person

stands until you put yourself out there. And to your question of why are

you so afraid to fall in love, there could be a million reasons. As I

mentioned at the beginning, it triggers our greatest fears. Maybe one of those

fears is triggered right now. Maybe you don't feel good enough for this person. Maybe

you don't feel like you deserve this. Maybe you don't feel worthy of this. But

love also triggers our greatest potential, our

greatest hope, our greatest dreams. Love is what

we desire most. It's what we're made to do with one another. We're made to

love each other. Humans have gotten so far away from our true

purpose, which is, I believe, to love one another. I know that sounds

super hippie, but, truly, what's the purpose of living if we don't love

one another? You don't have to like everybody, but the truth is that's what we're

here to do. We're here to find communities that we can love, we can nourish,

we can nurture, we can grow in. And love is

so beautiful because when you find someone or a group,

a community, a family, a person, you don't have to

go at it alone anymore. And that to me opens up

potential, and it softens us. I think so many of

us, because so many of us have been through such horrible things, have

hardened to the world. I know that's me. I'm always telling myself,

Amanda, you can soften here. And I say that because your fear of

love to me sounds like a hard wall you're hitting. And you have

to decide if you're gonna break down that wall and jump off the

ledge and see where you fall. Do you fall flat on your

face, or do you fall into the arms of another person? Do you

fly, or do you fall a little bit and stumble?

And the truth is with love is you don't really know until

you do it. There have been relationships in my life where I

have tried to run from them. I have tried not to lean in. And

what I love about matters of the heart is that there's something a little

illogical about them. We can dissect it and understand that

sometimes we pair up with people based off childhood patterns, childhood wounds,

but sometimes it's just fully illogical why we love

somebody. And I love that.

I love that our heart is like that person. And our mind can

be like, why? Like, tell me why. And the heart's just

like, that person. And the mind's like, this isn't gonna work

and comes out with a 1000000 reasons. And the heart still pulls and tugs and

says, that person. Because that's the

invitation to growth, that's the invitation to love, and that's the invitation

into the unknown. I'm thinking of that Frozen song right now.

Into the unknown. And

that's love. And that's why we're so afraid of it because on the other side

of this fear you have is the unknown.

You're like, oh, I could love this person. That's

terrifying because it's unknown territory for you. You're

like, ah, what does that mean? Who am I gonna be

if I allow myself to fall? Because that's the other thing about love. Love

changes us. Love breaks us down and then

rebuilds us into this better version of ourselves. I'm even viewing it as a

sexy version of ourselves, and not even, like, in the sex way, but just as

in this more confident version of ourselves. Because when we're in

love with someone, we're really in love with ourselves. Because

when we allow ourselves to love somebody else, we have allowed

ourselves to love ourselves, is what I truly believe. Because I believe you

cannot love somebody more than you love yourself. And so the invitation

to love someone else is the invitation to love yourself deeper.

And that is, in my opinion, what life is all about, you

learning to love you. You are with you every second of your

life. It is important that you learn to love yourself now.

That has been a hard lesson for me to learn, but it has been the

best lesson. It's really been the only lesson that's been important.

Money comes and goes. Friends come and go. Family can even come and

go. Jobs come and go. Status comes and goes.

Power comes and goes. You are with you forever, from

the second you're born to the second you die. It's a much more enjoyable

journey if you learn to love yourself. And so

I think sometimes we hold ourselves back from falling in love out

of fear of not being enough and those fears I mentioned, but

also out of the fear of, is it too good to be

true? People who have been traumatized, especially, we

live with fears of things being too good. We always

stay on alert. We're always like, when's the next shoe gonna

drop? When is this thing gonna blow up in my face? Because that's what the

past has shown me. And it's important to see

that in yourself if that's you. As I mentioned at the beginning of the episode,

the answer to why you fear love is gonna be different for everybody, and it's

changed for me throughout my life. There were a million reasons why I fear love,

and I still can fear love. I have some new people in my life

who I adore, like some new friendships, and I find myself being

terrified of messing them up. It's triggering my deepest

insecurities that I'm not good enough for these people, and it's also

triggering my deepest desires of these

relationships feel like family, and that's what I desire,

family. And that terrifies me because what if I

then lose that family? And my pastor showed me what it's like to lose

family members. I've lost family members in death situations. I've

also just become estranged with family members and no longer speak to

them. And all those experiences have been so incredibly painful.

So have friend breakups. When people leave my life, it's the most painful

thing. I was thinking about it today when I was pondering this question that I

broke my wrist in the spring, and it was probably one of the most painful

physical injuries I've been through because I just haven't been injured physically very

much. But, god, matters of the heart hurt so much more. I

hate to compare, but I'm, like, breaking my wrist. I knew that would get

better. I put it in a brace. I took care of it. That, I had

steps for. When it comes to the heart, it's like the

wild, wild west. I have to go on this long journey that only I know

the road to, but I don't know it until I know it, if you know

what I'm saying. Like, you gotta go through it to learn the steps.

Oh, my gosh. So terrifying. So painful. But

with that, I truly believe that that which terrifies

us the most teaches us the most. We grow the

most through our deepest fears. And so your fear of love and leaning

into this relationship that you mentioned, leaning into this person you mentioned,

oh, I see such good potential for you. I see growth for you.

I see you loving yourself more at the end of this, and I really,

really hope it works out. I hope this person likes you as much as you

like them, and I hope it's a storybook ending because we could use some

more of those. I really believe that. But the truth is we don't know where

relationships will go. We don't know if somebody's in our life for a reason, a

season, or a lifetime. And that is something my therapist tells me all the time,

so I'm not taking credit for that saying. But I find it really helpful because

the truth is people can be in our life for a season, a reason, or

a lifetime, and all of those people are still important.

We don't have to judge it based off of, is this person gonna be here

forever? Is this gonna work out forever? When we go to that

mindset, that is the the mind creating a fear because the mind

is already fearing the person leaving and fearing the relationship ending.

So it's trying to predict the end before the beginning to keep you from

pain. But as you've noticed while writing this question is, thank you,

mind, for doing that, but it actually creates pain doing that because you're in

this thought cycle that is not enjoyable. You're not enjoying yourself as you're

in that. So I invite you to say, thank you, mind, for showing

me all the ways this could go wrong. I think it could go right,

though. Because as I said, the heart points us towards what we want.

It's so often illogical. That's why I talk about following your heart

because I find it to be the most fascinating journey because it's illogical.

Every desire I've ever had doesn't make sense on

paper, but it's always led me to my greatest potential, my

greatest healing, my greatest growth, and the greatest love. It's

amazing. It's incredible. It's illogical. And that's

why I wanna tell you that your fear here, it sounds like you're

trying to logically figure it out. And the truth is, you may

finish this episode and not really still understand why you fear

love. But if you still feel that way, I invite you to at least tell

yourself that the fear is normal. There's nothing wrong with you. It's

actually quite normal to fear love. And also that maybe you'll

only know the answers to these questions by taking the next step

forward. Because I find with so many of these fears we have, they're

keeping us stuck in a thought pattern of fear,

and for you to stop fearing love, you're gonna have to let love

in. Gary, I know. I know.

And it sounds like you're ready. From your question, it sounds like you are ready

and like you've met somebody. Sometimes when those fears come up, we can

become immobilized in terror and the freeze response and fear,

because you have mentioned terror. And sometimes when that happens, we have to spend a

little time with ourselves first. I wanna mention that for anybody here who's listening to

this, is that sometimes when we get terrified, we do need

to just spend some time with ourself first creating inner safety.

Because for so many of us, especially people listening to this podcast, you may

fear love because of childhood wounding and childhood

trauma. Many of us grew up in households that did not have

unconditional love. And when you don't grow up with unconditional love,

you don't know what unconditional love feels like. So you have to learn how

to feel it for yourself. And then to let somebody else in after

being so wounded is incredibly terrifying. And I

found throughout my journey, by not growing up with unconditional love, my

brain didn't understand what unconditional love was. As a child,

I just assumed what I experienced was unconditional love, but it was not because

love is not conditioned. There are no conditions to love.

Love is love. Love is undefinable. But

love would teach us that we're always enough. Love teaches us that we're always

worthy. Love teaches us that we make mistakes, but that's part of being

human. There's nothing wrong with you if you make mistakes. Love teaches us

that failure moves us forward, not that failure means anything wrong

about us. But many of us grew up with messages from childhood

that taught us otherwise, that we had to earn love, that

we had to do things to gain that love, that there was reasons and

ways that love could be taken away, that love could be unpredictable.

True love is actually the safest place you can be, and that's why we have

to learn to love ourselves first so we can create that inner safety. But

I mention all that because my biggest piece of advice to you

is to go for it. Fall in love. Just allow yourself to fall.

But if you struggle with that, I invite you to really be maybe

with some of those childhood wounds. And if anybody has any questions about that part,

write in a question, and we can keep this conversation going. And to

anybody out there who had childhood trauma, who did not

feel they had unconditional love growing up, who felt a lack of love within their

life, I want you to know that, one, I am so

sorry. I think child abuse and cruelty to children

and neglect of children is an epidemic on this planet.

I don't think we talk about it enough. I think a lot of problems would

be solved if we were kinder to children, if we took better care

of children, and if adults learned how to love themselves

so that they could love children. But we're not quite there yet, and that's

okay. That's why I do this podcast. I really believe that we're healing

our inner children every time we show up to this podcast. What I mean by

that is though you may have not had that love then, you deserve that love

now, and you can be the parent you always deserved. And

so when I get overwhelmed by fear, terror, and

all the heart emotions, I show up as the parent I needed and the

parent I still need. And I sit myself down, and I sit with the

painful feeling, and I sit with the fear, and I talk myself through it. I

reassure myself that it's just fear. And that's

what it is because when you fear love, it's just fear.

Because you do deserve love. You can have that love anytime you want

by giving it to yourself. The more you give it to yourself, the more you

will step out and look for that love and be less afraid

because you'll know that if somebody doesn't match your level of love,

doesn't love you the same way you love them, yes, it will still be

painful, because it always is, when we feel rejected or

abandoned or not loved to the same level. It is always

painful. Matters of the heart are painful. It's why we avoid so many of them.

But it will be easier because you will love you, and you will know

that even though that person doesn't love you the same, it doesn't

mean anything about you. It doesn't mean you're not lovable. It

doesn't mean you don't deserve love. It doesn't mean you won't find your

person. It just means your heart led you into a situation

that has a lesson for you. That's what I truly believe. The older I get,

every situation can teach me something, if I allow it to. The fun

ones, the joyful ones, and the painful ones. It's always just

leading us into growing deeper into who we are. And there's

nothing wrong with that. So why does this fear exist for you?

I hope you might have some insight after all my ponderings on

love that I have shared. But it's going to be individual for every

person. Why do you fear love so much? And as I record this

episode, I find myself wondering what is my deepest fear when it comes to

love? And as I think about it, I would say mine would

do with betrayal and that the people who truly can

betray us are the people we trust. And the more I

allow myself to love people in my life, the more I fear they

will betray me because betrayal has been one of the most painful

experiences of my personal life. And it's really

only those we allow in that we allow to be

able to stab us in the heart. As I mentioned earlier, we build

up walls to the world and defenses so that we can't get hurt. So we

don't walk around in every room being the most loving being in the whole world

and showing everybody our true selves. We don't do that and there's nothing wrong with

that. You know? Different people get different layers of us. And when we

allow somebody truly in to see who we truly are and we lay ourselves

bare, and I feel like naked, honestly, in a romantic partnership, you will end

up naked, it's more terrifying. There's more cards on the table,

and that's where our hearts can truly get hurt. Because

when we allow ourselves to truly fall in love, we take all those guards down,

we lay there vulnerable and naked, and we say, this is

me. Do you love me as I am? And,

yeah, that is terrifying. I do find that

terrifying. I'm thinking about it in my own life right now, and I'm like, dang.

That's scary. But what I've also found throughout

my life is that that deep connection, that deep intimacy, and that deep love is

what we're all craving. And it's only by allowing ourselves to open

up to others that we feel that love and that connection, and we really feel

what it's truly like to be alive. Because I find that I truly feel

alive when I connect with others. It's always gonna be scary to

fall in love. It's always gonna be scary to put yourself out there,

vulnerably. But that's where trust is built. That's where love is built.

That's where true intimacy is built is all through allowing yourself

to let go and to let go of fear and to allow love

in. So how do we move forward from here? How do we do that?

One step at a time. I wish I had a better answer for you, but

truly be kind to yourself. Reassure yourself that what you

are doing is courageous and brave because it is. To allow ourselves to

love one another and to allow love in is a courageous act. I think the

world would be a better place if more people lived in a place of love

rather than a place of fear. But I think a lot of people have been

abused, have been traumatized, have been hurt, and they build up walls, and they don't

wanna let love in again because as you have stated, it is terrifying

sometimes to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. And the human mind, the human

psyche, the human body does not wanna be in pain. So it builds up all

these defense mechanisms to not be in pain. And I think that when

we recognize that, we're able to, 1, start to take down

those defenses. We're able to see why. We're able to bring conscious

awareness to why we are the way we are, which is then how we can

begin to unravel those defenses and reassure ourselves that we are safe.

We're not being abused in this moment. We're not being traumatized in this moment. We

are able to make new choices by being aware, but also

through being kind to ourselves and taking one step at a time, allowing

yourself to show who you are to this person one step at a time and

allowing yourself to lean in. And that's what I truly invite all of you to

do today, and I'm gonna do that today. I'm gonna lean in a little bit

more. I'm gonna allow a little bit more love into my life. I think we

can always continue to allow more love into our life. So that's the last thing

I'll leave you with is that we can always love ourselves deeper. We can always

love others deeper. We can always just love deeper. So be kind to

yourself. Be patient with yourself. You don't have to jump in and propose to this

person. Right? It's just one layer at a time, just showing this person a little

bit more of a vulnerable you. That's how trust is built. We don't have to

give somebody all of us at one time. Trust is built through small

actions over time. So if you find yourself being terrified, take it

slow. There is no rush, but do move forward.

Do have those vulnerable conversations. Do allow yourself to

lean into love. And when you feel that fear coming up and that terror coming

up, be kind to yourself, comfort yourself, and maybe ask this person

to be there for you through some of those times. Maybe open up to them

that you're terrified. That's how intimacy is built. Saying, hey. I'm not

perfect. I'm actually terrified. I'm terrified of you. Isn't

that crazy? I think that the person may be surprised to hear

that. I think so many of us put on a tough exterior, and

it's really helpful when people are honest and transparent with one

another about how nobody's perfect. So don't think you have to be

perfect. Don't think you have to have the answers to all your questions. Just

lean into love. I hope something in this answer was helpful. It ended up just

being more of a conversation about love. So I hope something in this answer was

helpful for you. I know it was a helpful episode for me, so thank you

so much for asking this question. I am sending you so much love.

Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of newbie advice. As always,

I'm so grateful to have these conversations each week. If you have a question you'd

like to hear answered on the podcast, I'd love to invite you to submit a

question at newbie advice.com/question, or you can send me an email

at contact at newbie advice.com. Thank you again for joining me for another episode

of newview advice. As always, I hope I was able to offer you a new

view on whatever you may be going through. Sending you all my love. See you

next time.