Scared of acting on new love?

What happens when you’ve been hurt in a past relationship and you find yourself falling in love again? Sometimes, even though things with your new partner are going well, little triggers show up from your past relationship hurts that can send you reeling into fear and doubt — fear of getting hurt and doubt of moving forward with your new relationship.

Here are some things to do when you find yourself scared of moving forward with new love:

1. Decide to Trust Love

So you’ve been hurt before … join the club. This is a brand new relationship, and the same does not apply, your hurts are in the past. You can leave them there. You cannot go through life without disappointments and failures. Those help you grow and figure out what you really do want.

2. Step Back

Fear feeds on itself and becomes an insidious cycle, kind of like the Blob from that ’70s movie. When you’re in a state of raw fear, you can’t even hear what your partner is telling you. Everything becomes colored with the paintbrush of fear. Take a walk, go to the gym, dive into a project. Stop thinking about it; stop talking about it. Anything to break the fear cycle.

3. Go Back to Basics

What is it that first attracted you to your partner? What attracted them to you? Focus on those things. Sometimes we give such “Make or Break” importance to things that don’t deserve it. Focus and appreciate the good that is there.

4. Avoid “All or Nothing” Thinking

Just because you may feel fear about getting hurt, it doesn’t mean it’s going to occur. Have you ever noticed the scariest things you worry about rarely happen? And the green, hairy monster behind the door is always much smaller than you think.

5. Be Adventurous Enough to Remove Your Armor

Fear leads to feelings of insecurity and defensiveness. Sometimes we end up adding another layer to our spiffy clothing ensemble. A layer of hard armor, the kind you see in museums where you can’t even see the other person’s eyes. In fact, you can’t even begin to recognize the person in a suit of armor. You partner feels this suit of armor, no matter how hard you try to pretend it isn’t there. This only ends up killing the blush of innocence that love can bring at any age and tinges each interaction with doubt and mistrust. Pretend you are an extreme sports buff and let yourself jump off the ledge and into love.

It’s not a tragedy to trust love and get hurt. The greater tragedy would be to simply stop trusting and not allow love into your life. To place a dense covering of lead over your vibrant heart. OK, OK … so easier said than done… but things that may seem hard in the beginning are always easier with practice. And just because something isn’t easy doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing. The truth is that even if your new relationship does not work out, you already know from past experience that you will not die of a broken heart. You will heal again. Take a reasoned leap of faith.