There are many persons in this world that have phobias. True, deep terror at the thought of confronting certain aspects of daily living. Wide open spaces. Closed, confined spaces. Spiders. Snakes. Oxygen.
Yep, that was a new one for me: anemophobia, the fear of oxygen.
As strange as that sounds to me, it got me thinking. To me, anemophobia is fear of something that is necessary for our survival, that keeps us alive.
I think there are many of us that possess fears such as this. Maybe not of oxygen, but fear of another necessity for living. Absolutely essential for our survival.
Love.
Whether we would care to admit it or not, love is a life force. It keeps us alive both physically and spiritually. Whether we are talking about having love, pursuing love, or grieving over lost love, in all capacities, it is necessary for us to survive as a human species.
However, there are those of us in this world that have a love phobia; fear of love. Even though these persons know that they need it in their lives, they fear it just as much. And not just a timidity about it, a nervousness and feeling that love is hard to come by, hard to achieve, and often not worth the energy or possible hurt of it all. I am talking deeper and more complex than that.
Love phobia; those that are so terrified about love coming into their lives, or staying in their lives, that they avoid it at all costs. They have an isolative existence; they do their best not to connect with others. They act as if they don’t need other people, they busy themselves, they get buried in careers or parties or activities that may have some joy in them, but have a hollowness to them as well.
I have known these individuals in my lifetime. I have known them to be very deep, profound individuals, capable of the greatest of love, to give and to receive. However, they are deathly afraid of it. They are so deeply imbedded with this phobia that they feel paralyzed without it, yet fear it so deeply they avoid it.
And, their lives, though busy, are empty in many ways. Empty because they are void of true, deep intimacy with other people. They don’t know others and others truly don’t know them.
There is a deep sadness to that.
However, people get over their phobias every single day. We each have it within our power to face our fears, and then, to overcome them. We can do that. Truly, we can.
To live without a love phobia, still invokes a bit of fear. To live authentically, to let others know who you truly are, elicits fright in us all. However, the result is true connection with others, true human companionship, true love of self, first and foremost, as well as true love of others.
There is magic, wonder, balance, and absolute bliss in an open heart with true love in it.
Fear of love, fear of oxygen, both of these can bring about a death of sorts. In my life, I need to leave all phobias behind, to walk into my future with an open heart, a full soul, and anything in this world available to me.
It is awesome.




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