Love: What are you so afraid of?

Human: Well, I don’t trust love.

Love: You don’t trust me?

Human: No. It hurts to trust you. Every time I open up and trust you, I get hurt. Sometimes I hate you. Then, I hate myself. I hate this. It’s too hard. And now I think I’m broken because I know I’m supposed to trust you, but I just don’t.

Love: I see. Your heart is broken.

Human: Yes. I really need you.

Love: Let me send you some love.

Human: No, I don’t trust you.

Love: It’s hard when you long for something so much, but you can’t trust it.

Human: Yes. I hadn’t thought of it that way.

Love: Of course not. You confuse the walls of your heart with love. It doesn’t keep love. It keeps me out. The things that have hurt you were not love. That was pain—pain that hasn’t been loved. Pain that gets passed from human to human. Pain that, because of trauma, wounds, or unconscious cycles, is confused with love. It happens in connection with other humans with whom there is love.

Human: Yes.

Love: It’s the lack of love that hurts; it’s the lack of love that you do not trust. But you have confused that with love, connection, and belonging.

Human: Oh.

Love: When you open your heart to me, all of the things that are not love come up. But that stuff can finally be healed when I am there.

Human: Oh.

Love: You must forgive me. I haven’t hurt you. It was these things that are not love. It was that I wasn’t there that caused the pain. If you forgive me, then you can start to forgive the past—forgive the pain. Then you will see that I am something entirely different.

Human: But, how do I do that?

Love: Think of all the things that you do not trust about me. Now, try to recognize that it’s the pain and trauma that you don’t trust. Love is continuously confused as pain, fear, shame, or grief that has gotten stuck. Those places are the places to bring me—ask me to teach you how to love there.

A warrior of love has the courage to stand on the edges of the heart, rather than the borders where there are walls and a lack of trust. A warrior of love recognizes and can boldly claim that he or she is not free on the borders. There is no trust there—it does not know how to love. You can cry out, and I will come. I will help teach you the way. It’s not something you can figure out without me. That would be more of the same—more of this fear and pain and hatred.

Human: Okay, let’s do that. Where do we begin?

Love: Right here. Right now. In this place. There is no searching. There is only here in your crying and lack of trust in me. Right here. Let’s love on you. You don’t have to trust me to be loved. You don’t have to do anything. In fact, being honest about not trusting me is love! And the grief that is falling through your tears, that is love too.

Human: I love you.

Love: I love you too.