Why You Need To Stop Shutting People Out If You Want To Find Love
If you don't open yourself up, you won't find what you're looking for.
getty By Brittany Christopoulos
Opening yourself to someone in order to find love is daunting and the fear of being vulnerable is crippling. The risk of showcasing your open heart and mind may feel pathetic or simply too bold.
The last thing you want is to be abandoned, heartbroken, or told you aren’t enough. You simply don’t want to get hurt.
But, that fear is no excuse to shut everyone out.
Obviously, it’s easier to push everyone away when the potential of a deep connection is on the table. You can pretend it’s just that you’re cold, uninterested, or heartless, but everyone sees right through the act.
By doing this, you are not living the life you want to live. By locking yourself up, you aren’t protecting yourself — you’re caging your heart.
You are single-handedly taking away opportunities to create friendships and build on those relationships. You’re also eliminating the chance of finding your forever person, even though you desperately hope to find them one day.
You might think that giving them shattered pieces of yourself is enough to let them in and find love, but instead, you’re building a shield they can’t get through and you’re cutting them out.
If you want to find love and that forever person, and an authentic relationship, you have to be prepared to give them everything over time.
You don’t have to strip bare naked to reveal yourself and you certainly don’t have to show them what you look like with no makeup on. But, over time they’ll hear your snorting laugh and learn about your kind heart. And they’ll love it.
Get the things you want in life. Find someone who you can text until 3 AM in bed, but still feel cozy like they’re next to you. Find someone who can out-eat you when it comes to chicken wings and still think you’re cute for loving them.
Make sure you find someone who loves you and sees your potential, even in the moments when you don’t. And when you finally get that person, soak it all up.
So many people pray for that kind of love and happiness. Embrace it for what it's worth — something valuable and pure.
Don’t overthink and turn yourself into a nervous rut or question how long this bliss will last. Even if it does end, at least you can say you were happy and authentic with it.
You can’t let fear win every battle because of the rejection you may face. Your behavior can’t hinge on the fact that you could be lied to or fall for someone who won’t love you back. You can’t keep creating excuses to shut people out when you really don’t want to be alone.
Not everyone is going to use all their energy to fight for you to let them in while you’re working overtime to push them away. They will respect your wishes and back off, because they think that’s what you want.
Don’t tell yourself they never truly loved you because they didn’t fight — you made it too hard. You cut them out of your life, and they obliged.
At the end of the day, how open you are is up to you. You can keep typing those long messages and delete them before pressing send. And you can keep shoving your emotions to the back burner before it explodes in a fiery mess you can’t control.
You can certainly keep having those lonely nights in bed while you cry yourself to sleep and convince yourself you’re better on your own, despite urgently needing comfort and reassurance. But, that isn’t going to get you anywhere.
If you want the love you deserve and have been dreaming of your whole life, stop shutting people out and welcome them in. You’ve been imprisoned in your own mind for too long.
Brittany Christopoulos is a writer who focuses on relationships, love, and dating. For more of her love content, visit her Twitter page.