The Paradox of Love: Vulnerability and Fear
St. Catherine of Siena wrote often about love, and how our souls yearn for authentic communion with others—as well as with God. In her Dialogue she insists:
The soul is drawn by love …The soul cannot live without love. She always wants to love something because love is the stuff she is made of, and through love God created her.
Yet love is also scary. What if we’re rejected, mistreated, abandoned? These are real fears, and they can cut deep—especially if we were rejected, mistreated or abandoned in childhood. As Dr. Conrad Baars points out in Feeling & Healing Your Emotions (p. 119):
The child’s need for feeling loved is as fundamental as his need for food, air, and shelter. He cannot live if this need is not satisfied. Exist, yes, but not really live as a human being should … he cannot develop that part of his emotional life that is primary—his humane emotions which, together with his intuitive mind, determine his happiness and his capacity for making other people truly happy. The other part, however, his assertive emotions, usually develop to excess—too much fear and despair in some, too much energetic striving in others.
And this creates a variety of issues.
The desire for love conflicting with the fear of love is a normal human reaction to the traumas and tragedies of our fallen world. We all love—and we’re all afraid on some level or another. These emotions aren’t good or bad; like all emotions, they’re neutral. It’s what we do with them that make the difference.
In psychology, the desire to love and be loved—combined with a fear of rejection—is called the “central relational paradox.” Although we desire love in its fullest, our fears keep us from obtaining our heart’s desire. This can manifest in two primary ways: we can give our vulnerability too freely, without discernment or caution, or we can become controlling toward others.
