I find myself vacillating between wanting to open my heart to people and wanting to retreat inside of myself and protect it like it’s something precious. My precious…

The latter is what I have historically done, but I’m reconsidering whether that has really served me.

I’ve been looking back on my life recently, and when I review the times I’ve kept my heart open, I can’t help but remember when it led me down a path of discomfort or pain or loss. So typically, I have kept it closed and just tried to move along through life without taking any risk. Sure, no risk = no reward, but if you don’t know what you’re missing, does it matter?

I’m sure this helped me avoid certain pain that may have awaited me, but then again, maybe I merely prevented some very solid and beautiful relationships from forming in my life. It’s good that I haven’t always closed off my heart completely because if I had, I never would have ended up keeping two of the very best friends in my life.

Sometimes I think I’m afraid to be happy, like maybe I don’t deserve it because of all the mistakes I’ve made in my life. Or maybe I just plain can’t recognize happiness the same way anymore. I suspect that being an overthinker has something to do with that. It’s not like I’ve been opposed to self-punishment during those thought patterns.

I’ve been trying to remind myself recently that every relationship, whether it be friendship, family, or love interest, is different, so we can’t treat them the same or expect them all to lead in the same direction, especially if we expect that direction to be a straight line. There are all sorts of reasons why your relationships with people end up differently than you expected, but sometimes you may just be pleasantly surprised with how things turn out. Besides, if you open your heart to someone and they completely blow you off, would it really be your issue at that point?

My quote of the day is this:

“Don’t believe everything you think.”

Byron Katie

Sometimes you just need to let things head down their own path. The thought of it both scares and excites me.