Facing Your Fears: Overcoming Barriers to Love

Looking back and struggling to understand how time passed and we still haven’t found a relationship. Often we wonder what is wrong with us and why it is so hard to find love.
Surely something must be “broken” if I do not achieve this stage in life and unlike my friends, I struggle to focus on a reasonable partner to spend my life with.
This investigation frequently fills and saddens my clients and I truly understand these people.

It is so frustrating and painful not to achieve this desire.
In my experience, when we try to understand the root of difficulties in finding a relationship, we eventually arrive at fear.
We are full of fears and it is time to face them, I believe that if we illuminate our shadows, we can overcome them.
The first step always begins with identifying the difficulty.

Difficulties in finding a relationship relate to two main categories – historical and psychological difficulties and social and technical difficulties.
In this article I will focus on the first category.
When a child touches a flame for the first time, he burns his finger.
This simple action teaches him a principle that will accompany him all his life fire is warm, but also dangerous if touched.

The brain learns the warning and applies it until our last day.
Similarly, every emotional burn we experienced in love is imprinted in our brain and teaches us to be careful.
An emotional burn is a painful breakup, failure, physical or emotional harm, social rejection, betrayal, trust crisis and more.
What affects our romantic relationships is not always romance itself, but the dynamics with parents or primary caregivers in childhood.

We were born into complexity and historical difficulty.
Everyone experiences childhood injuries, mild or severe, from family or school.
We carry the beliefs of previous generations, this crosses generations and genetics and is rooted through upbringing, environment, culture and genes.
Our starting point in life is not clean, It is enough that my great grandmother was betrayed for me to experience it as if it happened to me.

The address is on the wall from birth and becomes a tattooed mark in adulthood.
All this epigenetics creates psychological difficulties and we load ourselves with defense mechanisms and tendencies, which aim to protect but also make life hard, It is important to distinguish between fear and anxiety.
Fears include fear of shame, fear that I am not enough, fear of being hurt, fear of guilt, fear of losing myself in a relationship, fear of missing out, fear of mistakes, or fear that it will end.
All these fears can serve as motivation, but anxiety is an amplified fear that creates avoidance.

Instead of acting, we decide to avoid dating or entering a relationship.
Avoidance is a direct result of anxiety, and it is somewhat justified, If our family history and romantic experiences are imprinted in our body, it is natural to avoid situations that could produce new pains. The brain does not distinguish between a new person and past injuries, If we experienced disappointments in dates, suffered repeated hurts, naturally we will be of low faith and despairing. Avoidance will become our comfort zone, where anxiety rests and is quiet.

But during this time we remain stuck, not hurt but also not playing.
Love is the playground of the brave.
Our fears are the dragons we must face.
No pill of courage? We can deal with our history and difficulties in relationships through small steps, gradual exposure and overcoming defense mechanisms.

The best example is setting boundaries.
Setting boundaries is a technique that replaces avoidance and restores a sense of power and control. Every small success that overcomes fear strengthens self-confidence and self worth.
Love will come later, but we must strengthen our belief system and build new defense mechanisms.