Why you push love away when you want it most

People come to me wanting love. Not always romantic love, though often enough. Sometimes it's wanting to feel close to their kids again, or to be properly known by a friend, or simply to stop feeling quite so alone in a house full of people. And sitting right alongside that wanting, almost every time, there's a wall.

That's the oxymoron. The thing we want most is the thing we're most defended against, and both are running at full volume in the same person at the same time.

What love asks

It isn't love itself that frightens us. It's what love asks. To be loved you have to be seen, and to be seen is to risk someone getting a proper look and deciding against you. Worse, they might not decide against you at all, and then you'd have something to lose. Plenty of us would rather never have it than have it and watch it go.

How we manage it

So we manage it, usually without noticing. We deflect the compliment before it lands. We say we're fine when help is offered. We give and give and give, because giving keeps us in charge and receiving doesn't. We choose people who can't quite reach us, or we leave first, or we stay so busy that nobody gets close enough to try.

None of this looks like fear from the outside. It looks like independence, or high standards, or being the strong one.

The wall isn't selective

The catch is that the wall isn't selective. It was built to keep out rejection and disappointment, and it does that job beautifully. It also keeps out warmth, tenderness and being properly held, because there's only the one door and everything has to come through it.

Let one thing through

You don't dismantle something like that in an afternoon. But you can notice it, and noticing is most of it.

The next time someone offers you something good, a compliment, a hand, a kindness you didn't ask for, watch what your body does first. If it tightens, deflects, or goes straight to a joke, that's the wall doing its job. You don't have to knock it down. You just have to let one thing through.

Journalling prompts

• What do I do when someone offers me something good?
• Where am I giving so that I never have to receive?
• What would I have to risk to be properly known by someone?
• Who has been trying to get close, and what have I been doing about it?

See how healing sessions work.