Hello, hello. Welcome back to The Self Love Fix. Happy September, and happy Virgo season! This week, I want to ask you a question. I want to ask…how open are you to receiving love?

Whether you are single or dating, I think you are going to find this post to be a bit of an eye-opener, something to really think about. You can sometimes think you’re open to receiving love when actually, you’re putting up all sorts of one-way walls—barriers that you can’t see, but are super obvious to anyone you’re trying to date. Receiving love involves vulnerability, but how do you get there? Let’s talk it out.

What Are You Protecting?

When I’m speaking of being open to receiving love, I’m really speaking to my people who lean avoidant or anxious-avoidant. And the important thing I want you to consider here is this: if you have your walls up while dating, closed off to receiving love, what are you protecting?

When I think of dating, a big reason people have their walls up and inadvertently close themselves off from receiving love is because of past hurt, such as somebody cheating on you. So maybe instead of being open to receiving love, you have a heart of stone now where it’s like, “I’m not letting anybody in,” or if you do have a partner, you think, “I’m not going to go there. I’m not going to express that emotion,” because there isn’t trust there. There isn’t a belief that you’re safe to share that. But unfortunately, if there’s a lot of suppression of emotions, they operate in extremes.

Extreme Emotions

What do I mean by operating in extremes? When we suppress anger,  frustrations, sadness, jealousy, or any of our normal human emotions, they only ever get expressed in extremes, exploding when you finally can’t take it anymore. So maybe you don’t trust yourself to express your emotions because they only come out in extremes, and your partners never respond favorably to these overwhelming shows of emotion, so you continue to reinforce the belief that you have to hide these feelings.

How to Avoid Extremes

A big part of solving this problem is recognizing the way you’re communicating your feelings to your partner. What is your communication? When you are experiencing discomfort, jealousy, frustration, or anger with your partner, are you at the very least communicating that feeling to them?

I think that’s a really good tip for people who have trouble with emotional expression or lean avoidant or anxious-avoidant. If you’re struggling with receiving love and afraid to say why you’re feeling what you’re feeling, at least tell the person that you’re dating. Relationships are built on emotional connection. Taking ownership over what you’re feeling by saying, “Hey, I’m I think I’m feeling a little jealous right now. Hey, I think I’m feeling a little angry right now. I think I’m feeling a little whatever right now,” forces us to take accountability and ownership over our emotions while also not leaving our partner to play a guessing game.

I’ll tell you another thing—and just a warning, this might be a little bit of a trigger—but if you’re not open to receiving love and you’re not building an emotional connection with someone while you’re in the dating phase, your foundation is going to be very surface level and very shaky. It’s built on nothing. Maybe it’s built on sex. Maybe it’s built on them not really seeing the real you—that happens a lot with avoidance. We put on masks because we are afraid for people to see our imperfect side, the part of us that hasn’t done laundry in God-knows-how-long, the part of us that leaves things laying around the house every now and again. You try to hide those things from someone, but vulnerability is key in building emotional connections, which is key in building relationships. So if you decide you’re going to enter the dating market or a relationship with a heart of stone, well, here’s the deal…you might just get a heart of stone back. Seriously. I know that’s hard to hear, but this is why I say it’s so important to date with your heart wide open. As much as you might not want other people to see these imperfect parts of you, hiding them away will also make you intolerant of seeing other people’s imperfect sides. This is where you get into avoidance in dating and relationships. I’ll start with dating first. This is where you get the, “Oh, why does he laugh like that? Oh, why did he just make that weird facial expression? He’s definitely not my type. I definitely can’t continue seeing him. Why is his hair like that? Why does he wear clothes like that? Why do they look like that? They were cute last week, but something happened. What’s going on?” And you repel everyone that comes into your field. You find something wrong with them and you don’t want anything to do with them after a certain point. And here’s the thing: that certain point usually happens when there starts to be an emotional connection.

What Does Avoidance Look Like?

If you lean avoidant in a relationship, it might look like getting snappy and angry after an intense, emotional moment with your partner. Or maybe, all of a sudden, their laugh just becomes so unbearable. You start to question compatibility over very minor things like not watching the same shows, or getting irritated at the way they sweep the floor. It becomes a hyperfixation on things that are actually irrelevant to the relationship.

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How to Solve The Problem of Receiving Love

So if you lean avoidant or anxious-avoidant, I really invite you to take a look at where you might be blocking yourself from experiencing and receiving emotional connection. What are your fears there? I would do a deep dive, because love really requires surrender in every aspect, in emotions especially.

The best thing you can do to open yourself up to receiving love in relationships is to try not to go in with the aim of making yourself look the best you possibly can. Instead, you want to go in with the aim of connection.

What does that look like? It looks like actually caring about what someone shares with you when you’re on a date, or engaging with your partner when they’re sharing with you and sharing parts of yourself while listening to them.

Don’t hold back your cards; reveal who you are. You don’t wanna date the same way you play UNO, hiding your cards. Don’t give UNO energy; share something about yourself! That’s how you build connections. That’s how you start receiving love. Emotional connection is the backbone of relationships and the backbone of love.

Vulnerability is crucial to receiving love, as well. Understand this. Whenever we make a decision to take a chance on love in life, there’s always a possibility to be hurt. And you’re not alone in experiencing being cheated on or a relationship just ending abruptly, things like that. It happens, but don’t make your heart stone-cold and cut yourself off from the possibility of receiving a love that could just crack your entire heart open, that will leave you never the same, just because of what you encountered in the past. Instead, when you’ve come to a place where you’re feeling regulated emotionally, use that experience as a gift to take a look at what your experience can teach you about your desires, your needs, and how you can work on receiving love.

Don’t Shy Away From Your Responsibility!

Last thing—and this is gonna be a huge blow to your ego—but when a relationship ends, don’t shy away from looking to see where you had a hand in this. I would not recommend trying to do this when you’re freshly out of a relationship; you probably wanna work on regulating your nervous system first. But if it’s been some time, you’re probably at a place of acceptance where you can examine things more closely.

Don’t skip that, though. When people skip that and stay all up in their ego, they end up attracting the same thing, just with a different face. Trust me, be willing to have your ego take the backseat and examine yourself. You’ll thank yourself later—and you’ll find it so much easier to start receiving love.

Be sure to connect with me more over on Instagram @theselflovefix. I’d love to hear what you thought of this post and what your major takeaways were. DM WOD to get access to enrollment for Woman of Desire, the premium 4-month live group program designed to help you manifest the relationship that matches your standards.

Head over to my website to learn more about how we can work together to shift your energy & transform your life.

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