Day 262 - Love v. Fear Series: Part 3

It has been quite a while since I touched on the love v. fear dynamic.  Here are links to the previous entries:

• Opener
• One
• Two

Well, today as I was pondering my life and what to blog about, I thought about fear as it seems to pop up everywhere.  

Fear shuts down.  Fear will cause you to build walls, close off, and hide from any and everything that even resembles a threat.  It can make outspoken people quiet.  Or it can make them louder and more outspoken as a way of hiding behind empty words.  It can make shy people more quiet.  This is especially true when you are dealing with vulnerable, sensitive material.  When you fear ridicule or indifference, it can cause you to hold back, clutching tightly your pearls of self for fear of them being undervalued.  You become ultra sensitive and self-conscious, thinking that everything you do and every word you breathe will bring unbearable consequences like rejection.  While it is true that some things that you say/do will garner less-than-positive reactions or will even get you hurt or taken advantage of, the problem with living in this kind of perpetual fear is that it can remove all sense of self, leaving only concern for another person's opinion. When you live for the approval of others and not yourself, you are constantly monitoring yourself, hiding and tucking and editing as you try to make sure that what you present is suitable for what you think the other wants.  It also assumes that everyone will treat you the same, and that is not true either.  Even if you have seen a pattern, 100% of people will not treat you the same, because 100% of people are not the same.  Either way, this kind of thinking causes you to alter yourself and to make assumptions about what the other person wants/can handle.  So not only are you not connecting with them, but you are not allowing them to fully connect with you.  You have essentially decided what they can handle/love within you, and you shut down the "unacceptable" parts of yourself.  Doing this enough can make you ashamed of yourself and the parts that you feel you need to hide.  And when you don't accept yourself fully, you will always be like a bucket with a hole in it, leaking and always looking to be filled by someone else. 

Love opens up.  The beauty of love is that it does something akin to spreading a towel or blanket on the beach and inviting you to sit and enjoy the beauty of your surroundings.  It not only invites you to open up and share, but it creates a space in which you feel safe doing so.  You don't feel as though you have to weigh your words or be concerned with how you will be viewed.  You can feel free to be honest and open, knowing that you will still be just as cherished at the end of your sentence and sharing as you were at the beginning.
This happens when you love yourself enough to share who you are authentically.  When you accept who you are, you refuse to be hidden or altered, because you know that you are awesome as you are.  This is not to say that you don't continue to grow and change, but it does mean that your growth is motivated by your personal desire to be better and not your desire to impress others or to get them to love you.
This also happens when you allow yourself to trust the love that someone else has for you.  When you know that you are cared about by another person, that can encourage you to be open with them, trusting and releasing bits of yourself to them.  Though no one is perfect, and even the best of friends or closest of loves can disappoint you from time to time, there is no reason not to allow yourself to trust someone who has proven that they love and care for you and have your best interests as heart.  Trust is built over time, and so as you continue to trust bit by bit,  you will be able to open up further.  And when you are able to be in a space that is safe and open, allowing you to be your full, true authentic self where you don't have to hide and alter and tailor yourself, there is nothing more freeing....