120: Why Am I Scared of Love?

Travel

Feb 5

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.

This post contains affiliate links to some of my favorite tools and resources. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Full terms & conditions here.

LISTEN ON APPLE

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

LISTEN ON OTHER CHANNEL

Recommended Episodes 🎙️

Journal Prompts for the Healing Journey 🤍

Free Journal Prompts

Timestamps ⏱️

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

Have you followed and left a review for New View Advice?

Let me know what you think of the podcast! Podcast followers and ratings help bring new listeners to the show, as well as help me to continue creating content. So if you enjoyed the show, I’d love to ask you to follow and leave a rating on your podcasting platform by:

Head to New View Advice on Apple or Spotify
Click Follow on your podcasting platform
Scroll down (or when promoted) click the 5 star rating!

This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool called Castmagic. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Amanda Durocher [00:00:01]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:00:21]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:01:31]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:02:16]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:02:42]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:03:20]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:04:08]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:05:10]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:05:39]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:06:15]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:06:39]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:07:14]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:07:51]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:08:10]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:08:55]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:09:45]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:10:15]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:10:50]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:11:25]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:11:41]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:12:36]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:13:22]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:13:42]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:14:09]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:14:55]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:15:29]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:16:02]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:16:36]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:17:23]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:17:45]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:18:32]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:19:19]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:20:08]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:20:32]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:21:23]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:22:10]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:22:43]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:23:16]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:23:58]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:24:28]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:24:47]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:25:10]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:25:34]:
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.
Amanda Durocher [00:26:06]:
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.