By Rhonda Campbell

Wikimedia Commons – Public Domain

Real love is the most desired element in creation and yet, we often think about love through the lens of its complete opposite — fear. Real love quotes are often tinted with fear. Don’t think so? How about, “Real love is always chaotic,” “When love is real, it doesn’t lie, cheat, pretend, hurt you or make you feel unwanted. It’s supposed to be a cure to all your worries,” and “A person that truly loves you will never let you go, no matter how hard the situation is.”

Real Love Doesn’t Happen In The Past

It’s hard to find someone who hasn’t been burned by what they thought was real love in the past. Guess what? It is past experiences and past memories that hold us back from receiving real love. We keep expecting the past to repeat itself.

If you think about everything that you’re scared of, the common denominator might be that the fear is rooted in something that happened in the past. Scared to be abandoned or to feel as if someone else was “chosen” over you?

Were you picked last to join school sports teams? Did a friend choose to play with someone else instead of you when you were a kid? Did a parent transition, walk out or not keep in touch following a divorce?

Fear of rejection or abandonment could worsen if you experienced one or more of the above (or a similar event) several times as a child then experienced a hard breakup as an adult. That includes getting cheated on, manipulated, used or lied to.

What if you’re walking around constantly telling yourself that if you let anyone get close to you the past hurtful experiences will only happen again? How close do you think you’d let people get to you?

When you think about it, it’s a warped form of self-love. It’s also proof that we cannot protect ourselves and open up to love at the same time. There’s too much that we don’t know. There’s too much that we miss.

In fact, as we try to protect ourselves, we could end up blocking or pushing love away.

Just because you’re in a relationship that doesn’t mean that you aren’t avoiding real love. To keep from feeling alone, you could feel desperate to always be in a relationship, but choose partners who mistreat you, people who, like you, are also afraid of love.

Take time to examine your relationships. It’s time well spent. After all, as Real Love by Mary J. Blige says, we’re all looking for real love.

Are they healthy? Do you feel afraid of being abandoned, chosen last, over looked or hurt by your partner? Did anything in the past happen to you that created these emotions?

You could be dragging the past into each present second, and not be aware that you’re living in the past.

As Raymond Clarke learns in Love Pour Over Me, real love and good living require faith and trust. If you’re doing what Raymond was doing in Love Pour Over Me and trying to avoid relationships or closeness, consider trusting that you’ll be cared for by the Creator, your Higher Self or the universe (whichever term you prefer).