How past heartbreak builds barriers – and how we begin to heal and open again
We are often encouraged to fit into a generic standard to fit in. Anything that falls outside of that spectrum can then be seen as a flaw. But what if your flaws aren´t actually flaws, but your greatest strengths that just don´t flourish in the environment that you are in?
Most people long for love, partnership, deep connections and a sense of community. And like most things we deeply long for, it brings up lots of fear at the same time.
I meet so many people whose hearts have been broken in the past and they never fully healed. They felt that the pain was too much, and (subconsciously) decided to push it down, move away from it or suppress it. This pain can be related to romantic relationships, but also with friendships or family members. Heartbreak is related to love, and love is more than romantic love. As a result from this pain, they have become somewhat cynical about love or feel like it is not for them.
This response is very understandable. To be disappointed, abandoned, rejected or hurt by someone we care about so deeply is incredibly painful. We may feel that when we decide to embrace that feeling we will never fully recover. It can feel much safer to stay away from meaningful connections altogether, to avoid the pain that comes with losing them or the connections changing.
When we haven´t fully acknowledged the pain from our past experiences, we close part of our hearts off from love.
We tell ourselves that we can´t handle the pain that comes with loving so deeply, and so we build barriers around our hearts to protect ourselves. Those barriers take many different shapes and forms.
For some people, it is independence to a fault. To protect themselves from hurt, they decide that they don´t need anyone and won´t let anyone in fully. If this is you, you may have a community of people around you, but it stays at a surface level. You feel like you can´t fully rely on them and so you never do, out of fear of getting disappointed. Or you feel afraid to fully open up and share your deepest feelings. The relationships you have stay at a level you feel comfortable with and don´t deepen over time.
For others, the barrier is people-pleasing, overanalysing every interaction and avoiding conflict at all costs. This approach may make you feel like you are very tuned in to the people around you, but you don´t feel safe enough to be fully yourself. You are constantly on edge, wondering how the people around you really feel about you. Healthy relationships are reciprocal, and don´t require you to perform or mold yourself into something that is acceptable to those around you.
We may also idealize past relationships to avoid opening up to new ones, self-sabotage when a new connection is about to form, test partners or friends to see if they will leave you or jump from one relationship to the next to avoid the grief and heartbreak we feel when something meaningful ends.
All of these are usually behaviours that we don´t consciously choose, but rather nervous system reactions to make ourselves feel safe and avoid pain.
Our nervous system perceives pain as unsafe, and as a result our bodies will do anything to make us feel safe. But these behaviours also rob us of the change of building something meaningful.
With deep connections, loving partners and meaningful friendships comes a certain type of pain. None of us are perfect, and we all sometimes do things that hurt others, and get hurt by others. But that doesn´t mean that these relationships aren´t worth it or meaningful. When we find the right people, a certain level of pain and disappointment is the price we pay for love.
We all come with a certain amount of emotional baggage, and close relationships often bring up our deepest wounds. When we learn how to acknowledge those wounds, these triggers can be a chance to heal and grow together. But when we don´t know how to be with our feelings or express them in a vulnerable way, they can damage the bond we share with others.
We don´t need to be perfect to have great connections, but we do need to let ourselves be vulnerable. When we share how we feel without blame, we let the other person in. Depending on their response, the relationship can deepen and grow.
What we are invited to learn is to process the pain from the past rather than react from a wounded place.
Since most of us never learned what to do with our deepest feelings, we often react when our wounds are touched. Reacting can look like lashing out, withdrawing, making up stories about how the other person feels about us without asking them, or ending a relationship or friendship after the first sign of conflict.
All of these are defence mechanisms that we often learned as a child, to protect ourselves form the pain of rejection. At the time, these feelings probably felt like too much, and we develop these mechanisms to make ourselves feel safe. Now that we are grown up, we can learn how to be with those deep feelings.
While we may have picked up that it is unsafe to feel our pain, we can slowly teach our nervous system that it is safe. We do this by slowly, gradually, opening ourselves up to the feelings from the past and regulating ourselves back to safety. Every time we do this, we give ourselves the evidence that we are resilient, and that we can handle the pain. And every time we accept the pain rather than react in an attempt to make it go away, we integrate that layer of the pain so that we become a little lighter.
Our resistance to the pain has made us build barriers around our heart, which make it hard to let the love in fully. Every time we choose to feel it, to acknowledge and process those feelings, we break down a little part of those barriers. We teach our nervous system that it is safe to receive love, and we become more receptive to the love that is presented to us at that moment in time.
Feeling safety around love often starts with self-love, so be gentle with yourself in this process.
A great way to start feeling safe around receiving is to give yourself what you need. This could be anything from taking good care of your body or making time for activities you love.
This is not an easy process, especially if you have been hurt many times. But it is never too late to give yourself a chance to receive the partnership, community, friendships or loving family connections that you have been longing for.
If you would like some support on this journey and could use my guidance, feel free to send me an email.
If you enjoyed this article, perhaps you will also enjoy:
Why loneliness feels so hard – and how to find connection again