terence

I have loved and lost - like most people. My love was never perfect, but it never died. It was but a flickering flame.

Why would you not want your flame to burn brighter the second time around. Why would you diminish it by saying "I've been hurt, so next time I am going to give less".

Your personal growth is not given to you through suffering alone. It is your chosen response to the suffering that determines how much you grow. So last time you loved, life kicked you in the arse. What is your chosen response???

• Burn brighter?
• Burn more dimly?
• or just not burn at all?

"between stimulus and response there is a space, in this space lies the freedom to chose your response. in those choices lie your growth and your happiness."

If you've been lead to believe that you have no choice, that you are "too damaged" to choose vulnerability again then you have been tricked. And it is a mean trick because the way out of loneliness and unhappiness is not to choose the easy thing, but to choose other thing (vulnerability, divestment of self). There is a precursor to choice, and that is awareness. Don't allow faulty ideas about personal entitlements and your source of security to rob you of your awareness about choices that would lead to joy and fulfillment which is what you were designed for.

You are not a rat destined to live your life on the tram track of "fear of pain and desire for pleasure". What makes you uniquely human is that space between stimulus and response. But that space needs to be exercised. If you get choice atrophy, then you forfeit that space which is the gift of being made in God's image.

Remember I said "My love was never perfect"? Well the more perfect you make your love, the less room there will be inside you for fear. And we have nothing to fear but fear itslef.
"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love". 1 John 4:18