“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.” ~Marianne Williamson
Love terrifies me.
After having loved, courted, and married the love of my life, things went sour. Over the course of a few years, our marriage crumbled and our relationship came to a sudden halt.
When you’ve only been with one person, loved that person to the core, and believed that person to be your soul mate, you take the breakup unusually hard.
Yes, tears. Yes, sorrow. Yes, seclusion. Yes, withdrawal. Yes, not wanting to get out of bed.
I experienced every symptom of heartbreak to its bitter end. The breakup was like a tsunami in my calm life.
Over these last couple years of healing, I’ve found it difficult to let down the walls protecting my heart and find the courage to trust someone new.
I’ve had to actively take steps to overcome my fears of love.
Here are six ways to remove the protective walls around your heart and permit love to bloom in your life.
1. Make peace with the past.
In order to move on from heartbreak, you have to be willing to let go of all that has happened. Yes, you shared a lot together. Yes, it all meant something. And yes, it was supposed to have lasted a lifetime.
But things don’t always work out the way you want them to. You simply cannot control all the circumstances that unfold in your life.
People make mistakes. Your ex may not have been mature yet, not fully conscious or developed as a person, or they didn’t know who they were at the time. They may not have had enough life experiences or enough emotional maturity.
You cannot hold onto grudges, inequities, and resentment toward them because of what happened in the past. As difficult as you may find it, you have to let go and forgive.
There are a couple of ways to do this: first, take responsibility for your part in the relationship; and second, try to empathize with your ex. Try to consider where they might have been at that point in their life, understand their shortcomings, and extend compassion toward them.
To heal, go through the grieving process and try to let go of the past. Don’t let this movie continue to play in your mind like a scary horror flick. Imagine this relationship as a film you’ve already seen and don’t allow it to replay repeatedly in your mind, scarring you for life.
Also, be grateful for the good times you shared and the lessons of the past relationship.
2. Nurture and show yourself compassion.
After you let go of the resentment and heartache, take care of yourself.
It’s easy to beat yourself up and blame yourself for your shortcomings, faults, and your role in the breakup.
You’re not perfect. But think about how much you’re growing and learning about yourself. No one else in the world other than this past intimate life partner could have helped you grow so much.
Be grateful for the insights about yourself you’ve gained. Treat yourself in a healthy and positive way.
Eat better. Get back to exercising. Go back to those yoga classes and meditation practices. Read books on healing and growth. Sleep more. Relax more. Allow for more downtime in your life.
Treat yourself as well as you would treat someone you cared a great deal about.
3. Share your pains and sorrow.
A big mistake I made during my healing was isolating myself from everyone I knew. I was embarrassed and in pain.
I’ve since found out that not sharing with others was a heavy and toxic behavior. Keeping it all in was too much to bear.
I initially started seeing a counselor, then started sharing my experiences with acquaintances and colleagues at work. Over time, I eventually shared my pain with friends and family.
The sooner you share with others, the easier you’ll find your journey back to healing.
You’ll also find yourself being much more vulnerable than ever before. This can be scary, but you’ll soon find that all the falsities and insecurities about yourself will fall away.
In the process of becoming vulnerable, you’ll start getting to your core, your real self. You’ll find that it’s in this honest place that your true power lies.
People want to be there for you during this difficult time. Make space for them to do it.
4. Seek love in other parts of your life.
Even if you’re not ready for a romantic relationship right now, allow love to come in from other parts of your life.
Spend more time with friends and people you genuinely care about and love.
Pursue those hobbies that make your heart sing, and do those activities that make you feel good.
Try to infuse as much of your day with love. Eliminate activities, people, and tasks that constrict your soul.
Schedule loving and feel-good activities into your calendar. You’ll start noticing how your internal positive vibrations will spill over to external positive circumstances.
The more love you cultivate in your life, the more love you’ll see around you.
5. Sit with the beliefs that scare you.
The way to deal with your fears of dating and loving again is to confront all the many negative beliefs that will pop up in your mind. There will be many of them.
The opposite sex is no good. People will only hurt you. You were not made for love. You are unlovable. You don’t have the ability to love. You’re broken. Your past made you this way.
If these misguided beliefs come up, acknowledge them and sit with them.
Ask yourself if these beliefs are real or a result of past negative experiences. Do your beliefs apply to everyone? Have others been able to find love and compatible relationships?
Are your beliefs based on truth or your deepest fears?
Question your beliefs. Challenge them. Or simply sit with them and allow questions about these false beliefs to come up.
By sitting with your fear-based beliefs and considering alternative ones, you’ll realize that your fears will have less power over you over time.
If sitting is too passive of an exercise for you, test your beliefs with friends who have had positive experiences with love and relationships. Permit them to help you shift your beliefs and perspectives on love.
6. Continue practicing small acts of courage in opening your heart.
To love again and open up again is a challenge after a heart-crushing breakup. When your heart has been ripped out and your broken relationship feels like shattered glass, it’s hard to trust again.
It’s hard to believe again. It’s hard to open up yourself again.
It can’t be done overnight but it can be done through small steps and over time.
It can start by saying “hello” to the next person who greets you.
It can mean returning a smile.
It can mean saying “yes” to coffee and not filling up your mind with dozens of reasons why coffee with this person is a bad idea.
It can mean saying “yes” to a blind date.
And it means saying “yes” to someone who wants to introduce you to someone who they think is a great match for you.
Take tiny steps of saying “yes” when your heart screams “no.”
You might believe that no amount of pleasure or happiness is worth the pain and suffering you’ve endured. You can’t afford the emotional, psychological, and mental games another ruined relationship is going to bring your way.
I get it. I’ve been there and wallowed in that place for a long time. Ultimately, I realized we have only two choices: be a prisoner of our heartbreak or break free and chose to re-write our story on love.
Love is possible if you make a choice to do the work to open up your heart again. You’ve come a long way. You’re more knowledgeable about yourself, smarter about relationships, more savvy about love, and better able to handle changes.
Your heart can break open into a satisfying and fulfilling relationship. Past darkness can open up to the most brilliant light.
Open your heart to the possibilities of new beginnings and more joy.
Man at heart window image via Shutterstock

About Vishnu
Vishnu is a writer and coach who helps people overcome breakups to rebuild their lives and live with purpose. He blogs at www.vishnusvirtues.com For Vishnu's latest book, 10 Sacred Laws of Healing a Broken Heart, visit his Amazon page here.
Beautiful post, thank you for sharing your experience, and how you came through to the other side of heartache! Great insight! 🙂 I love when you said “Ultimately, I realized we have only two choices: be a prisoner
of our heartbreak or break free and chose to re-write our story on love.” and also that we are more capable, knowledgeable, more mature, etc… we just need to realize it! 🙂
Reading this article is like a miracle for me. It broke down my feelings and guides me to a whole new (much more positive) place. It makes me so very grateful for the internet, for those of us who don’t have many helpful human resources in our lives. Thank you so much for sharing this.
Regarding “You’ll start noticing how your internal positive vibrations will spill over to external positive circumstances.”
This has gotten me into trouble because you start to expect that it will spill over to the external and if it doesn’t happen you are start to feel bad.
For example, I’m practicing self love and I feel really great but that has NOT translated to manifesting a loving relationship. Then I start to feel bad.
thank you for your feedback and comments! yes, it’s not so much a learning but a recognition within ourselves.
Thank you for reading and your comments. I’m glad you found the article and post helpful. and thank you to Lori and Tiny Buddha for creating this places of sharing and helping each other. We are all in this together – letting go of our past, overcoming grief and living the life that’s possible for us.
This is a beautiful, touch post, Vishnu! This doesn’t only have to apply to love, but other areas of our life. I see too many people living their life in fear rather than love. I have done this as well. The 2 things that resonated with me the most: Make peace with your past and practice small acts of courage to open your heart again.
I also want to say that no matter how love turns out, it’s a beautiful experience and you should count yourself fortunate to have experienced that. Some people go through their entire lives not knowing what love is.
Hey Shannon, I would simply suggest continued practice? ANd letting go of expectations?
We can spend this time improving ourselves not for the sake of a new relationship but to become the best people we are capable of.
When you’re feeling bad, try more compassion and more self-love. And patience with yourself?
Also, although you may feel like it’s taking a bit of time, I’ve found that additional time allows for more growth, self-understanding and wisdom. What do you think?
hi Priyanka – thank you commenting and glad the post resonated. Yes, good point – not only does it apply relationships but to other parts of our lives. I guess anything we are fearful of. And excellent addition – gratefulness for the love shared! As well as the growth and wisdom that came along with it. Reminding ourselves of all the positives of lost or broken love helps us not only let go but appreciate what we went through. Thank you again.
A lot comes with love. I think keeping our heart cracked open in the times when we just want to shut down our heart is not easy, but it’s the only way to live life fully! Loved your words 🙂
Love your articles Vishnu! This one hits home as I just recently separated from my partner. Healing for me was reminding myself of all the reasons why this man was NOT a good fit in my life and that I deserved much more. Healing sometimes is so hard and time consuming! Sheesh. Thanx for another great post! ♥
Number 5 seems to rear it’s head straight after a breakup for me ! It’s like the event is reinforcing a belief I didn’t know I had before the breakup happened. I can move on with my life with a more positive belief – that a better relationship is round the corner.
Thank you for sharing your story here, Vishnu !
Great post Vishnu! And something I have been giving a lot of thought to lately. I am one who takes a long time to get over heartbreak, and getting past the fear is difficult for me. I am taking the baby steps as your describe and also actively working to let go of the emotional pain. It is not easy but I hope the journey is worth it in the end.
A completely authentic post and great advice which I’m sure many people like me can identify with.
Thanks so much for your kind words, Paul. This is the journey that I’ve gone through and I’m glad it’s resonating with others who are on similar life journeys. Thank you again for reading and your comment.
Thank you so much Iva for your kind comments. Healing is hard and time consuming but I think that’s also where our growth and wisdom comes from 🙂 Our partners are our greatest spiritual lessons and teachers.
Thank you Lisa. I’d say go at it on your own pace, as you are doing. There is no right time or too long for anyone. We each have the tools and we each have our own journeys to take. It’s the small steps and small steps of courage that’s going to help us let go of the fear and embrace love again.
Thank you, Razwana. Glad that point about beliefs resonated. It is the one thing that holds us back and only comes to light when we’re experiencing something like a breakup. Once we identify these limiting beliefs, we can go about trying to change them.
Hi Vishnu,this is sandeep read this post today,wanted to help one of my friend who is let down by a past cheating experience,didn’t knew how can I help her in getting out of this,but now I know what can I do,ur lines are encouraging.thank you.
I am so glad I found this forum. I am 5 months post breakup. The most difficult thing I have had to endure in my life. He was my everything but I guess I wasn’t enough for him. I am slowly getting over it and like the article says to learn from the past. I didn’t think I could be attracted to other guys until recently. Although it’s too soon for a relationship because I still need to figure my life out, I am grateful to learn that I am allowing myself to be attracted to other men which I thought was impossible. Thank you for giving hope to someone like me. This article helps me believe that I will be okay.
I have gone through the other posts too written by you and I must say that I deeply feel and understand these words because I am going through the very same situation. The 5th point – sitting with the beliefs that scare you – is the most difficult phase to overcome because I feel no one will ever feel for me or make me feel that way again, neither will i be able to emotionally invest that easily again. But I don’t lose hope, and I have decided to focus on the main goals of my life like my career and my family who will never stop loving me no matter what.
thankyou for your inspirational and encouraging words. 🙂
Indeed , this forum has proved to be a saver . I have found this at a time when I desperately needed something to get me going through everyday and inspire me to live through this rough phase of my life. I feel relieved that I’m not the only one and there’s no reason to stop living your life, that one day I will be able to love again and trust again.
How do one make peace wid da past??hw to forgive wen da past memories keep coming bck…even by saying I forgive u nd say let go da pain is stil there…nd thr are few days wen u feel so much of anger nd hatred towards dat person followed by so much of pain…
just saw this. tnx Ananya. hope is all we have.