Summary

The article discusses the author's personal journey with the anxieties and challenges of navigating new love, emphasizing the importance of self-validation and emotional management.

Abstract

The author of the article, Joe, shares his experiences with the complexities of new love, highlighting the anxiety and insecurities that often accompany romantic relationships. He challenges the romanticized notion of love as a graceful fall, instead describing it as a tumultuous and potentially painful process. Joe reflects on his historical fear of unworthiness in relationships and the high stakes he used to associate with finding love. He advocates for self-validation and personal growth as key components in managing relationship anxieties. The article provides insights into how to approach new love with a healthier mindset, including practices like maintaining self-awareness, engaging in self-care, and managing anxiety through various techniques. Joe emphasizes that while love can be a source of growth, it is crucial to build a fulfilling life independently of a romantic partnership.

Opinions

The author believes that love is often portrayed in an idealized way, which does not reflect the reality of the anxieties and challenges it can bring.
Joe suggests that much of the anxiety in relationships stems from a belief that love validates one's worthiness, which he has personally struggled with.
He posits that self-validation and finding fulfillment outside of romantic relationships can lower the stakes and reduce anxiety in new love.
The author emphasizes the importance of being aware of one's inner monologue and patterns to avoid repeating past mistakes in relationships.
Joe shares that despite understanding the principles of managing anxiety in new love, it is still a practice that requires continuous effort and self-care.
He acknowledges that love can still be painful and uncertain, but with a strong sense of self and emotional management, one can navigate these challenges more effectively.
The article conveys that love should not be the sole source of one's happiness and that maintaining independence and personal interests is vital in a relationship.

Relaxing Into New Love

Navigating Anxiety, Expectations, and Potential Pain

One of the biggest misconceptions around love which I had to shed growing up was the idea that love was something you fell gracefully into. Two eyes meet, the chemistry blossoms, and happily ever after soon follows.

In my experience, it was more like two eyes meet, the chemistry builds and thereafter explodes sendings rubble into the sky to leave the markings of ground zero in its wake. Love hasn’t been easy for me, from the anxiety I feel at the beginning of a relationship, to the anxiety I feel in the middle of a relationship, to the anxiety I feel after.

Maybe I’m focusing too hard on the negatives. There are moments of calmness and happiness, and falling for someone is always exciting, but I’ve historically fallen quick and hard, and have been burnt as a result. Unconsciously I feel as if I’m wary of love, even when it appears genuine, as I believe the spark will soon die out despite it’s humbling beginnings.

Needless to say, I’m not one to back down from a challenge. Recently I’ve been dating someone new, which has been great but has awoken some insecuritites.

I wanted to talk about navigating new love today and how I’ve learned, and continue to learn to manage my emotions, and expectations. Whilst love can be painful, it can also be a catalyst for some of our most prominent growth work, if we allow it to be.

Anxiety, Worthiness, and Emotions

If you’re like me, then you likely experience a lot of anxiety in your relationships. You’ll also likely be familiar with the insecure attachment styles; anxious, avoidant, and disorganised — but if not, you can check out a few of my other articles linked at the end of this post.

A large part of my fear in relationships has always been around worthiness — in part because of a historical belief I’ve unconsciously held that the attainment of a relationship must mean I am desirable, valuable and loveable. I believe many of us operate unconsciously through this belief system. As such, much of the anxiety generated through my relationships comes from the fear that if I lose it, or aren’t chosen, then I must not be worthy enough to sustain love.

The problem with this mentality is that it increases the stakes drastically when it comes to new love. No longer does falling for someone only involve getting to know them, and searching for mutual compatibility and future partnership, but it becomes the ultimate worthiness check. It brings into question our character, and our validity as a human.

It’s no wonder then why we can experience so much anxiety.

Further anxiety may also show up in other ways; such as through a fear of emotional depth, as expressing your emotions may be something you lack in practice in — as is the case with the avoidant attachment style. Love may also feel straight-up dangerous to you, due to volatile and chaotic past experiences where stable love was never modelled.

All of the above makes love a risky and fear-inducing space. So how do we move through it?

Moving Through Anxiety In New Love

Now there isn’t a two-step guide to overcoming anxiety in new love, as anxiety can originate from several areas depending on your belief systems and unique histories.

What’s helped me however is relinquishing the hold new love has over me. By that I mean, relinquishing the need to be validated by love, and finding ways to validate myself with or without it. Of course, it’s nice to feel loved and being in a secure partnership does wonders for ones health, self-worth inlcluded. To say we can’t benefit or should never benefit from a healthy relationship would be a lie and unrealistic, it will happen whether we want it to, or not.

However, its key we’re approaching love from a stable space within ourselves. Big changes occured for me when I stopped relying on relationships to fill my cup and started to build a life full of things that could do that instead. This looked like starting passion projects, like this, and writing to help others. Acts of services are great ways to feel of value and feel good in yourself. I also surround myself by supportive and stable friendships and hobbies that I can turn so not to rely too much on my romantic partnerships.

Removing the stakes I am unconsciously tying to my relationships takes the edge off new love. It means I can focus purely on getting to know someone, without the undercurrent of feeling like I NEED to win this person’s approval into order to gain status and validation. It means I can ultimately love them for who they are, and not the saviour they’ll never be. All of this will decrease fear as it’ll mean I feel safer, with or without a relationship.

Does that mean love won’t still hurt, and that things will definitely work out? No, but it means I can feel confident in my ability to handle either outcomes. When we’re comfortable with whichever result, we’ll naturally feel less anxious.

Alongside this we should also be engaging in anxiety management practices — which I encourage as anxiety needs to be moved through in order to healed and won’t simply go away. See some articles linked here on this. When it comes to more anxious and disorganized attachment styles, you can also read more on through these articles here.

My Day To Day Practice

All of the above is well and good in theory, but practicing it on a daily basis is a different story. As I’ve ventured into new love myself, I’ve ensured to keep in mind the below points.

Being aware: New love isn’t the time to be falling into unconscious patterns, as these have likely created problems in the past. Love is triggering and it brings up thoughts and feelings that may have been forgotten during single-life. I aim to maintain awareness of my inner monologue and the origins of some of my feelings in order to not fall into old patterns. This takes practice and requires self-awareness, which can be built through self-inquiry on your own, or with a therapist.
Filling my own cup: New love is attractive, and it can pull us out of practices we previously had that fufilled us, outside of love. I keep in mind to not neglect my self-care, to spend time with others and to engage in hobbies that fulfil me. This maintains my independence, whilst bringing someone else into my life.
Managing anxiety: I write this article from a place of knowing the answers but in truth these answers only take the edge off my anxieties. I still get anxious, and I still rub up against unconscious beliefs. As our beliefs are forged early on in life, it takes a while for them to dissipitate and for new ones to form. My self care practice involves meditating, consciously breathing where necessary, and disengaging from thoughts I know are rooted in anxiety and are untrue.

Final Thoughts

There is so much to say on this topic that a 5 minute article can hardly cover it all. What you’ll find through my writing is the constant revisting of this work, albeit through different lenses and under different circumstances. Let me know your thoughts on this article below and if it resonated with you and maybe your own tips on navigating new love. Be sure to leave a few claps if you enjoyed, and you can follow Above The Middle for more like this.

Have a great week,

Joe.