- Taking
the Risk of Loving
by Margaret
Paul, Ph.D.
To love at all is to be vulnerable.
Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly
be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you
must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it
carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements;
lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.
but in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will
change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable,
irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the
risk of tragedy is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where
you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations
of love is Hell. - The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis
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I am grateful that a friend
sent me the above quote, as it wonderfully states a vitally important
subject that we all need to struggle with - to love or not to
love.
I had to confront this issue when I had my first child. Having
grown up as a very lonely only child, I had wanted children ever
since I could remember. I wanted to experience the sweet innocence
of a baby's laugh and the happy sound of children playing. I
want so much to give my love to a child. But I wasn't prepared
for the overpowering feeling of love that I had when my first
child was born. It felt as though my heart would burst out of
my chest. And, of course, along with the profound love, came
the fear. What if something happened to him? Could I survive
his loss? How can I love fully alongside this fear?
When my first grandchild was
born, my daughter faced the same dilemma. "How can I let
myself love so much when loss is always possible?" And she
came to the same conclusion that I did - that I would rather
love fully, even if I end up losing the person I love rather
than hold back and never experience to profound joy of loving
fully. The saying, "It's better to have loved and lost than
never loved at all," took on great meaning for me. |
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Yet in my work with individual,
couples, and parents, I see that many people do not have the
courage to love fully. Some choose not to be in a relationship
for fear of loss. Others choose not to have children for fear
of loss. Some do enter relationships and have children but hold
back, being too afraid of not being able to survive loss if they
should lose their loved one.
What they don't realize is that what C.S. Lewis stated is so
true - "The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk
of tragedy is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where
you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations
of love is Hell. They think they can get away with not fully
loving. They don't realize that their emptiness is from NOT loving.
Living with a sense of emptiness is a very sad way to live. Better
to feel the grief, heartbreak and loneliness of loss than to
live empty due to choosing not to love fully.
I want to encourage you to take the risk of opening your heat
and loving. After all, this is what life is all about! If you
hold back on loving due to fear of loss, you miss out on the
greatest joy that life has to offer. |
