How to Open Your Heart Up to Love
Have you ever been hurt by someone in your life? Have you ever hurt yourself in some way? Has someone ever directly or indirectly told you that you aren’t worthy of love? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then chances are you have some pretty big emotional walls up right now.
When we get hurt in some way, it is our natural instinct as humans to protect ourselves from potential future pain. This can be from physical pain or emotional pain. While this can be a very helpful instinct in situations where there is actual danger, it becomes problematic when our brain starts seeing everything as potentially dangerous.
This occurrence is very common in relationships between people. It looks a little something like this . . .
A person gets hurt by someone and they experience emotional pain. Their brain interprets that pain as a threat and finds a way to avoid that threat. The brain then starts assuming that everyone that is even slightly similar to that person who originally hurt them is potentially dangerous (just in case they might be). This then leads to the person not allowing themselves to get close to anybody else just in case they may hurt them in the future.
Do you see the problem here?
Yes there are people out there that will hurt us either intentionally or unintentionally, but that is not going to be everyone. By trying to avoid those people that may be harmful to us, we are simultaneously avoiding people who could also be amazing additions to our lives.
In this post, I will discuss ways to get your brain out of this protective cycle and bring your emotional walls down. Follow these suggestions to begin opening your heart back up to love and healthy relationships. Whether that looks like new friendships, romantic endeavors, or your love for yourself, these tips will help you to let love into your heart.
*This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive a commission on products or services purchased through those links. However, I do not promote any product or service that I do not fully support or believe in.
Trusting Yourself
In order to start letting other people into your heart, you must first have complete trust in yourself. You must know for 100% certainty that, even if someone does hurt you in some way, you will be okay and make it to the other side of the pain. This unconditional faith in yourself will also increase your ability to love yourself as well. It is the foundation for letting love in.
But you may be asking yourself, well how do i build trust in myself if I don’t currently have it? That is a great question, let me answer that for you!
The most effective way to actively build up trust in yourself is to intentionally create opportunities where you can test that trust. This looks like making lots of decisions, trying new things, meeting new people, or really anything that you are unsure of what the outcome will be.
Doing these things allows you to start building up evidence that you can and will survive through things that both go well and that don’t go the way you planned. Because, let's be honest, not everything new you try or every person you meet is going to be the best experience, and that's okay. That is actually an even better experience for building your trust.
The more times you successfully make it through a situation that didn’t go the way you wanted, the more proof you are giving your brain that you are trustworthy. So stay open to new experiences when they appear naturally and intentionally begin adding them into your life and see your trust in yourself grow.
If you want some ideas to start you off, go check out my list of 50 activities to do by yourself. A lot of these things may be new for you (especially the act of doing them alone) so it is a great place for you to start.
Respecting Yourself
Having respect for yourself goes hand in hand with having trust for yourself. If you do not respect yourself, then why would you want to let people into your heart? Also, there is a much higher likelihood that other people won’t respect you if they see that you don’t respect yourself.
Many people who do not have respect for themselves feel as though they would somehow be hurting the people around them by letting them into their lives.
This is not the headspace that I want you to be operating from!!
You deserve love and respect from every person you meet and that also includes from yourself. Respect is a basic human decency that we offer most other people, so it makes me so sad to hear when I have clients that do not respect themselves.
So how do we go about changing this?
The simplest ways to begin building respect back up in yourself is by getting more intentional with the promises you make with yourself. If you are constantly breaking promises that you set with yourself (ex. “I’ll go to the gym tomorrow morning”, “I will make time for myself this evening”, “every week I will finish a new book”, etc.), that is the quickest way to lose respect for yourself. So if this is something that you do frequently, it is time to start looking more closely at those promises you are making.
This involves getting really super honest with yourself about the promises you are willing and able to uphold and the ones you know you won’t follow through on. It is much better for your relationship with yourself to make fewer, more consciously chosen promises than it is to make a ton of promises that you end up backing out of.
So think about what is truly realistic with your schedule, mindset, and current life situation when making those promises. Now, this is not to say that you shouldn’t challenge yourself because that is important to growth as well. However, do not challenge yourself as a pace that will be setting yourself up for failure. Remember, life is a marathon not a sprint and the same goes for your personal growth journey.
Setting Boundaries
Now that you have more trust and respect for yourself, you are probably starting to understand that you want and deserve to shave some boundaries set with the people around you. Now the boundaries that I'm talking about here are different than the emotional “boundaries” you have to protect your heart from potential hurt.
No, I am talking about setting up expectations with the people in your life based on welcoming in the things that you enjoy and not allowing the things that don’t serve you. These boundaries come from past experiences and learning what you want and don't want in your relationships, not from a place of worry or fear of what could come.
First, acknowledge where it is that you feel like some boundaries could benefit you and those you are in relationship with. Next, become very clear on whether this is a boundary that you are willing to enforce or not. Setting boundaries that do not get enforced consistently will make it more difficult to set boundaries in the future and potentially impact that level of respect we were discussing before.
Once you have recognized the boundaries that you want to set and are willing to enforce, have a conversation with the person/people that it would impact. Be upfront but kind about this new expectation because you can’t expect them to follow it if they don’t know about it.
Knowing Your Worth
To tie this all together, simply you have to start knowing and believing your true worth in this life. You are the one that decides what you're willing to put up with and what you won’t accept. If you have trust and respect for yourself and know that you are worthy of love and healthy relationships, then you will start growing this belief in others as well.
Like I said earlier, there will be people that you encounter that will hurt you, but if you have done the work that we have discussed here, then that possibility won't seem as scary anymore. You will know, for a fact, that you can handle anything or anyone that the Universe throws at you.
Now let’s dive a little deeper!
Okay now that you have the basics down, I think it is about time for you to really go for it on this journey to letting love back in. In my opinion, the best person to start with on this journey is yourself. If you can learn to fully and unconditionally love and accept yourself, the rest will begin to fall into place naturally.
To support you in this endeavor, I want to tell you about this once in a lifetime opportunity where you can learn from 30 of the world’s leading experts in self-love and personal growth from the comfort of your home. I am talking about the one and only Self-Acceptance Summit!
This summit is jam packed with so much wisdom, knowledge, and easily digestible content al about how to love and accept yourself with ease and compassion. These world renowned teachers will guide you towards building the relationship you have always wanted with yourself and that you deserve to finally experience. So what are you waiting for?? Click here to learn more about this amazing opportunity and finally let love back into your heart.
