You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.

“You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.”
Barbara de Angelis

You can never lose by loving because love is the supreme positive emotion which we can ever experience. It can also be said that love can be the most painful emotion when it is lost. I know from experience; a broken heart can completely tear your soul apart. The question examined here is if a day of love is worth a day of pain? I sit here right now examining this question and wondering if the pain I have felt over lost loves was worth the joys it brought.

Including teenage love (which isn’t always real love) I have been in love a few times in my life. I do remember the exciting joys of when you first start flirting and getting involved. It is so new and so exciting. I remember when I was teenager talking to my girlfriend for hours at night never running out of things to say. The conversations would last so long until one of us fell asleep. There was this great feeling of becoming connected. Nothing can beat the certain excitement over the butterflies you feel when you first start falling in love. I remember wanting to spend every waking moment with them because I didn’t feel complete without her. The joys of being loved, and loving was the greatest narcotic of this thing we call life. I remember these dream feelings, but I also remember the nightmare destined to follow.

The days and months prior to and after the loss of my first love was the most painful emotional rollercoaster I have ever been on. I could sense the impending doom of our relationship which only caused me to try to cling to her even more tightly. This clinging did nothing but put the final nails in the coffin of our relationship. When it was finally said and done it felt like somebody ripped my heart out of my chest and defecated on it. For months and even years I felt the after affects of my loss. I am sure every one of my readers can relate to the joys of your first or even third love, and can also relate to the pains of those loves lost. So I ask again was the two years of happiness, worth the two years of pain to follow?  

I think I would have been better off holding back than jumping into things with both feet forward. I had love and acceptance issues growing up, and when the first person who came around outside of my family started to show me love I was hooked. I wanted my life to be completely about her and us, and this over smothering eventually caused the downfall of our relationship. We were just teenagers yet we were dating like adults. After this relationship I held back on every one of my subsequent relationships. I built a wall and system which kept me from falling that deeply in love with another person again. I had many different relationships after; but I held back on each and every single one of them. The last thing I ever wanted to feel again was the pain of a broken heart. I think even today there are still remnants of this wall. So I ask again was two years of love worth the damaged caused many years later?

I think love is like reincarnation in the Buddhist faith. With every life you learn a new lesson on your path to enlightenment and enter into Nirvana. I think in each time we enter into a relationship and allow love to enter our hearts then feel the pains of love leaving we take with us a valuable lesson to apply to our next relationship. With enough lessons mixed with fate we finally end up with the one we are truly meant to be with. Hopefully with enough lessons learned you will become an enlightened mate, and not be the douche which caused your last four relationships to fail.  

I think this advice is great but I have to question the credentials of the source. De Angelis is a relationship consultant, and personal growth advisor. She has written fourteen best-selling books on these topics. This all sounds great right? Well she received her master’s degree in psychology from Sierra University which isn’t like going to a real school. She then followed this degree up with a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia Pacific University which is now-defunct unaccredited institution. Okay so just because of these two things we can not necessarily discredit her knowledge of relationships, but we can with this… she has been married and divorced five times! I personally do not think anyone who has failed that many times at marriage should be qualified to give others advice on relationships. I leave you with some lyrics from “The Rose” which speaks eloquently on not holding back.

“It’s the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance
It’s the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance
It’s the one who won’t be taken
who cannot seem to give
and the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live”

“The Rose” by: Bette Midler  

I think if I didn’t head the advice of this song than I would have never found my rose. If I never allowed the seed of love to be planted than I would be alone with out my wife and family, so I guess you could say either way you look at this conundrum; it all ends up working out in the end.