What's it really all about?

[AlexEN]

Coach,

Would that we were all so centered and emotionally healthy. I don't know about you, but I'm nowhere near there yet, and until I am, I'm sorry, but "vulnerable" = "open to being HURT"

Puppy

Puppy, I get that. I am learning everyday. I am just trying to drop the fear of being hurt, I am finding the risk (fear) is mostly my doing. Would you rather be around someone who is open, gives honest feedback, shares their feelings, and has your best interest at heart or someone guarded and always waiting for the other shoe to drop? Life is much more fun playing offense instead of defense.
Cheers

ps Tell Mules to hook you up with me in the alt univ.

Was thinking more about this exchange between @Puppy and @Coach and it strikes me that the distinction may be at that intersection where the Fear of Hurt (preventing one from loving) is greater than the Fear of Loving (for fear of getting hurt).

@Coach, if I've got this wrong tell me, but what I hear you saying reminds me of an epiphany of sorts I had when I started to do The Work on me...

I remember, one sleepless night (like @Thinker's last night and with other very similar symptoms in terms of W's demeanor at the time), waking up with a start... and realizing that a recurring bad dream I used to have had become it's own self-fulfilling prophecy. I subsequently wrote about it in a letter to W (before I knew of her affair):

You know all about my impossible task dream, the one that I worry that S7 has inherited. [As a child, whenever I had a high fever, I would have a dream that would always wake me up in terror. I couldn't remember the whole thing, but I knew it involved some sort of "impossible" task or puzzle. S9 was 7 at the time I wrote this, but had described his nightmare the same way.] But, when we married that dream was replaced by one in which you left me and I couldn’t find you. I had this dream at least once a year... No one would tell me where you were. Those who knew were under strict instructions not to let me know where you could be reached. I’d always wake up in sheer terror with my heart pounding… but you were always there next to me and I’d hold you until I fell back asleep. I realize now that dream was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The irony is it created a fear in me that I tried to avoid. I was afraid to love you because the hurt would be so unbearable if you did leave. If I loved you too much, I feared getting hurt or embarrassed, neither of which I do well...

The possibility of that dream becoming reality is worse than the dream itself. In the waking world, I have more to lose and am more likely to lose you (if I haven't already) by not letting you know what I've never been good at communicating. While I can't make you love me again; I know that if I don't love you, I will surely lose the most important thing in my world...

I may be slow, but I’m no longer afraid, although it is a lesson I’m afraid I’ve learned the hard way, but maybe it was the only way...

So, @Coach, is that the distinction you are making? You can't let the fear of loving be the very thing that keeps you from loving fearlessly?

Or, should I go get a cup of coffee and start over again...

-AlexEN