Journey of Attachment: The Undeniable Urge to Bolt

You say you want a relationship, so why do you feel an urge to bolt after a date? Or when things start to get serious? You think it’s because they aren’t the right one, but it has nothing to do with them. It’s about you. You’re afraid of intimacy so you sabotage, although not consciously. It’s on autopilot so you don’t realize what’s really going on. All you know is you’re not getting what you want and it’s frustrating. Maybe you’re also afraid of losing control, or you envision yourself in hellacious pain because of past experiences, so you do what you can to avoid it. Bolting before things get scary provides a momentary sense of relief, but it won’t lead to what you want. When you date with the intention of finding a relationship, but walk away judging them for parting their hair the wrong way or having a “boring” job, you are successfully talking yourself out of what you say you want. You turn small things that don’t truly matter into deal-breakers because the prospect of getting close to someone is so scary. Instead of looking at your own fear, you think your date is the problem, which lets you off the hook. The problem is, you’ll keep doing this until you realize the common denominator is you. When your actions are the opposite of what you say you want, leading you to run in the other direction, you end up hurting yourself. If you want a relationship (or anything else), you need to look at how you’re preventing it. Since self-sabotage is often unconscious, you have to go deeper and look at your fears. Then it’s about taking action TOWARD what you want, not away from it. Yes, it will be scary and that’s what you want. When you feel yourself go the other direction, revisit your fear. Then remind yourself of what you want and walk toward it.