Why We Push Love Away Even When We Want It | EP17

Have you ever been loved… and still felt uneasy?

In this episode, I reflect on a pattern I began to notice in my own relationships — how fear, insecurity, and unworthiness can lead us to push love away, even when we deeply want it.

Sometimes it’s not that love is missing. It’s that we don’t know how to trust it. Sometimes we don’t push love away because we don’t want it.
We push it away because we’re afraid it won’t stay.

Email: elenaswy@gmail.com

IG: @elenaswenyu

Transcript

How I Met Jesus — Episode 17

Why We Push Love Away Even When We Want It

Hi, this is Elena.

Welcome back to How I Met Jesus.

In the last episode, I talked about the voice of unworthiness in relationships.

There was always a quiet voice whispered to me:

“You’re not enough.”

“You don’t deserve this love.”

And sometimes, that voice is so subtle that we don’t even realize it’s there.

Of course… everyone wants love. Everyone wants to be loved. But sometimes, we unconsciously push love away because we don’t know how to trust it.

Have you ever experienced that? Have you ever met someone who treated you with kindness, respect, and care… and instead of feeling secure, something inside you felt uneasy? I didn’t fully understand this pattern in myself until recently.

When relationships didn’t work out, I used to think the problem was always the other person. Maybe they weren’t committed enough. Maybe they didn’t understand me. But over time, I began to notice something uncomfortable.

I had my own patterns too.

Recently, I found myself in a new relationship. And I started noticing something familiar. My old patterns were coming back. When the other person treated me with kindness, respect, and care, instead of feeling safe, something inside me felt… unsettled. And almost automatically, my mind would start asking:

Is this real?

How long will this last?

What if it suddenly disappears?

Sometimes without even realizing it. But this time, I didn’t immediately react. I started observing. Watching my thoughts. Watching my reactions. And that awareness helped me see something I hadn’t fully understood before.

In past relationships, I often let fear take the lead. And without realizing it, I would begin to test the relationship. I might question their intentions. I might become overly sensitive to small changes. Sometimes, I would even create tension where there was none.

And underneath all of it… there was fear. Fear that something good would not last. Fear that if I allowed myself to fully trust love, losing it would hurt even more.

Sometimes we don’t push love away because we don’t want it.

We push it away because we’re afraid it won’t stay.

As I sat with that awareness, I began to realize something even deeper. It wasn’t really the relationship that felt unsafe. It was the possibility of losing it. Because when you’ve experienced love as something unstable… something conditional… something you had to earn… even real love can feel unfamiliar.

And unfamiliar things don’t feel safe. Sometimes, they feel threatening. It was never love that felt unsafe. It was the fear of losing it. That realization was hard. Because it made me see that I wasn’t just afraid of being hurt. I was afraid of trusting something good.

I’ve been reflecting on the stories about Jesus, and the way He loves people is not fragile. He doesn’t withdraw His love when people doubt Him. He doesn’t walk away when people are afraid. He doesn’t abandon people when they struggle. His love is steady, patient, not easily shaken. And that helped me realize something. If I am already deeply loved by God, then I don’t have to treat a relationship like it’s my only source of love. I don’t have to hold onto it like it’s my lifeline. I don’t have to prove myself just to keep it.

When you know you are already loved by God, you stop treating relationships like your only source of love. Because when love comes from God, you no longer need to depend on people to feel whole. And that’s when something new begins to grow in me. The ability to receive love… without fear. Not clinging. Not testing. Not controlling. Just receiving. And maybe that’s what real freedom in love feels like.

For a long time, I thought love meant:

holding on tightly

making sure it doesn’t leave

doing everything to keep it

But now I’m learning something different. Love is not something I have to fight to keep. Love is something I can receive. And when I begin to feel secure in God’s love, relationships stop becoming a place where I try to prove my worth. They become a place where I can simply show up. Not performing. Not competing. Not trying to earn love. Just sharing love.

And maybe that’s what healing looks like. Not that fear completely disappears. But that love becomes stronger than fear.

Prayer

Let’s pray.

Dear Lord,

You know the fears we carry in our hearts. You know the places where we have been hurt, and the ways we have learned to protect ourselves. Sometimes we long for love, but fear makes us push it away. Heal the parts of our hearts that expect abandonment. Teach us to receive love with peace instead of fear. Remind us that Your love is steady, patient, and faithful. And help us learn how to love others not from insecurity, but from the confidence of knowing who we are in You.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

Before we end today, I want to leave you with this:

Sometimes we’re not afraid of love. We’re afraid of losing it. But when we begin to trust the love God has for us, we no longer need to hold onto people like they are our only source of life. We learn to receive love — without fear.

If this episode resonated with you, feel free to share it with someone who might need to hear it. And if you have your own story, testimony, struggles, or questions, I would truly love to hear from you. Thank you for being here and listening. See you next time.