Are You Blocking True Love? Loving Wholeheartedly and Its Importance to Relationships

Love is one of the most desired experiences a woman longs for. She wants nothing more than to love and be loved by the man of her dreams, as do men, they also want nothing more than to love and be loved by the woman of their dreams…

However, one of the biggest mistakes that women make in relationships is putting up a wall of sorts that prevents us from loving wholeheartedly. While it is imperative to make informed decisions about your love life, when you lack vulnerability and the means to love wholeheartedly, you hurt yourself and the potential love of your life.

I’ve Been There Myself

I too have been guilty of this in the past – unable to live and love wholeheartedly as a result of previous experiences. To me, it seemed more logical to know as many facts as possible before I fully committed myself to a relationship. After experiencing so much hurt, pain, and rejection, I vowed that I wouldn’t fall prey to the same nonsense again.

I unknowingly built a wall. I figured, whoever my true love was, would understand and stick by me through this. If he wasn’t willing to break down the barriers I had built, he wasn’t worthy of my love to begin with. I would put him through secret tests, ask a million questions, and whatever else I could do to reassure myself that he was not going to hurt me.

Basically I was on the look out for signs that he could or would be trouble, and as much as I thought I was covert in my mission, most of my “secret investigations” where not so well disguised after all.

Sure, being wise with your heart is not an issue, the problem with my approach was, I was “half-assing” the relationship and losing his feeling of safety and trust with me. I was so in my head that he couldn’t feel me or connect with me.

It wasn’t until I was willing to wholeheartedly love that I was able to attract and create a lasting relationship.

What Does it Mean to Love Wholeheartedly?

As you can see, failing to be vulnerable, building walls, and half-heartedly loving someone can actually lead to the demise of something that could be great for you. In order to amend these behaviors it is important to first understand what it means to love someone wholeheartedly.

Essentially, to love someone wholeheartedly means to love them without condition or reservation. It ideally means to love with all of your heart. To give yourself completely to them. One of the mistakes women make in relationships that keep us from giving ourselves freely to someone is holding onto past experiences.

What Happens When You Carry Old Wounds Into the Present?

Yes, it is important to learn from past experiences so that you don’t repeat them in the future. However, it is a delicate and fine line between learning a lesson and allowing your past to dictate your future. Let’s take a closer look at what happens when you take wounds from the past into the present.

When you hold onto the pain from the past, you end up reliving the hurt over and over again. The truth is, you have not truly healed from a bad breakup or past relationship if you find yourself building a wall to prevent it from happening in the future. Essentially when you hold onto the past you are doing a few things:

• Hindering your heart from being open – how can you truly open yourself up to love if you’re constantly wondering about the day he’s going to hurt you, lie to you, cheat on you, or up and leave you? Your heart stays closed because it is “preparing for the worst”.
• Preventing your new guy from loving the true you – If you’ve “blocked out” a portion of your heart, he is not able to love the true you.
• Pushing him away – While he may deal with the walls you have built for a short period of time, no guy wants to play “cat and mouse” their entire relationship. Eventually as his efforts fall on death ears and a hardened heart, he will lose interest and start to pull back.
• Causing yourself pain on a daily basis – When you’re over analyzing his every move, his every word, and trying to put together similarities from the past, you are reliving the pain you experienced before over and over again.
• Allowing your ex to deter you from a brighter future – What’s worse is that when we put up walls and block out the guy we’re presently dating, we’re actually allowing our ex(es) to dictate our future. We assume that the new guy is just like the old one, we hold off or over analyze, and eventually the new guy loses interest. Essentially, the bad choices our ex has made, are keeping us from potentially loving a great guy.

Alright. So You’ve Established That You’re Loving Half-Heartedly. So How Do You Fix The Issue?

Do you believe that you’re not giving yourself fully to your new relationship? Even if you’re not currently in a relationship but realize that you largely contributed to the demise of a previous relationship, you have some work to do. Here are some suggestions below:

1. Adore Yourself

You cannot wholeheartedly love someone else if you don’t first love, appreciate and adore you. You need to learn about who you are and embrace every part of you. Despite what others may feel about you or the perceived mistakes you’ve made, you must value and accept the ALL of you.  If you are sure of yourself and complete before getting into a relationship, it makes it a lot easier to get over the hurt that may arise along the way to intimate loving.

2. Remove Expectations Of Hurt

When you go into a relationship with expectations (positive or negative), you set yourself up for trouble. If you expect him to never hurt you, and he does, you’ve hurt yourself. If you expect that one day he’s going to cheat on you or lie to you, and you put up a wall, and he gets tired of chipping away at it, you hurt yourself and the potential for true love.

You have to let things unfold naturally. Yes, you should have values, and limitations to what you’ll allow in a relationship as far as treatment goes, but expecting him to be perfect or waiting for him to mess up is a surefire road to heartbreak.  The reality is – HE WILL MESS UP and SO WILL YOU!  When you have faith that you will work out your differences along the way, this allows you to live more for today and love with all your heart.

3. Love Him Completely

You cannot control every aspect of what will happen to you in life, and trying to do so prevents you from loving wholeheartedly. Having the mentality that you’ll give 100% of yourself IF he doesn’t hurt you prevents him from being able to love you fully. Don’t put conditions on your willingness to love. Understand that even Mr. Right won’t be Mr. Perfect. No human is. There are going to come times where he WILL fall short, but imagine if you were held to such high standards and fell short, wouldn’t you want another chance? If we were judged by our first mistakes, we’d all be in a world of trouble. Instead be open to what comes your way. You never know, he just might surprise you.

4. Love with Integrity

When you love yourself wholeheartedly, you’re able to love with integrity. When you know your worth, you know what you will and will not accept. Ideally, when you love with integrity, you know you’re not going to date a man who treats you poorly or takes advantage of you. You have no fear in speaking the truth and essentially you won’t settle or sacrifice yourself for the sake of “being in a relationship”. You know what your deal-breakers are, versus, what are simply minor annoyances.  Most grievances can be either; overcome through healthy communication and understanding or accepted for what they are. Live with integrity and heart.

5. Love Mindfully

I’ve talked before about what mindful loving means – to love in the present. To be fully aware of what’s going on here and now and being okay with that. Instead of stressing about what you expect him to do, what you think he might do, what might happen a few years from now…. Love him for who he is and how he treats you today. Treasure those moments by truly being present in them. When you feel your mind wandering off to the past or future, take a few deep breaths and remind yourself of what’s happening today.

Getting There Will Take Time

It can be hard to let go of the past and just live in the here and now. To be truly vulnerable with a person and not worry about what is to come. However, it is extremely important and the real meaning of true love. You can’t expect someone to love all of you, if you’re constantly withholding your true self from them.

Loving wholeheartedly will take time as you peel back the layers of the past, retrain your brain, and start making a daily effort towards change. If you feel yourself falling back into your halfhearted ways, take a few deep breaths, remind yourself of your behaviors, and try again. As he sees the effort you’re putting forth to give him all of you, you will give him a safe place to do the same.

I hope this has brought you some insight on your current or past relationships. Sometimes we think we’re over something that hurt us, but subconsciously we’re reliving it over and over again.

Fear of vulnerability is one of the biggest blocks and biggest mistakes women make in relationships, which stops the natural process of love from developing. However, when we let our guard down and truly focus in on the good there is in the present, more times than not we can experience the love we long for.  BE the love you desire.

Fear does not breed love. Love and trust breeds’ love.