A model I like to work with when it comes to emotions is to reduce them to 4 basic emotions:
- sadness
- anger
- fear
- happiness.
All 4 basic emotions have a function. Sadness helps you to process things. Anger tells you someone is crossing your boundaries and you must stop it. Fear warns you of potentially dangerous situations.
Fear only becomes a problem if it turns into irrational fear. Unfortunately, most of our fears are irrational.
I presume we are not born with irrational fears. Their origin is in negative experiences during our lives, especially in our youth.
Fear of commitment is irrational. Thus, there must be a situation (or more than one) in your past that created this fear.
Without going into detail about the root cause of this fear, there is a practical way of dealing with it.
Fear of commitment has to do with how close you are to letting another person get to you. A part of you is probably unsure about setting boundaries and as a reaction to that you keep people at a distance. These patterns are often automated and you do it without even thinking about it.
I think commitment is a basic human need. I often advise to keep a diary, purely on this subject of closeness/distance. Check every day: where and when did I let someone get too close to me? What was the reason I did that? And also situations where you took the right steps and stood your ground.
You can only change something if you're conscious of it. Keeping a diary helps you to start seeing the pattern, it brings consciousness. Thus, giving you the possibility to act differently.
By setting your boundaries and saying 'no' every time someone tries to cross them, you build up self-esteem. The part of you that thinks you're defenseless (and once you were) learns that is no longer so. In the present day, you are capable of saying 'no'.
In this very practical way, you can start resetting your old programming that has led to this fear of commitment. You could even say it's a fear of committing to yourself if you let your boundaries get crossed.
- sadness
- anger
- fear
- happiness.
All 4 basic emotions have a function. Sadness helps you to process things. Anger tells you someone is crossing your boundaries and you must stop it. Fear warns you of potentially dangerous situations.
Fear only becomes a problem if it turns into irrational fear. Unfortunately, most of our fears are irrational.
I presume we are not born with irrational fears. Their origin is in negative experiences during our lives, especially in our youth.
Fear of commitment is irrational. Thus, there must be a situation (or more than one) in your past that created this fear.
Without going into detail about the root cause of this fear, there is a practical way of dealing with it.
Fear of commitment has to do with how close you are to letting another person get to you. A part of you is probably unsure about setting boundaries and as a reaction to that you keep people at a distance. These patterns are often automated and you do it without even thinking about it.
I think commitment is a basic human need. I often advise to keep a diary, purely on this subject of closeness/distance. Check every day: where and when did I let someone get too close to me? What was the reason I did that? And also situations where you took the right steps and stood your ground.
You can only change something if you're conscious of it. Keeping a diary helps you to start seeing the pattern, it brings consciousness. Thus, giving you the possibility to act differently.
By setting your boundaries and saying 'no' every time someone tries to cross them, you build up self-esteem. The part of you that thinks you're defenseless (and once you were) learns that is no longer so. In the present day, you are capable of saying 'no'.
In this very practical way, you can start resetting your old programming that has led to this fear of commitment. You could even say it's a fear of committing to yourself if you let your boundaries get crossed.
