Have you ever heard or felt the sentiment–“I’m afraid to love anymore because I don’t want my heart broken again”?

God is Love, and it’s a spiritual right and liberty of every one of God’s children to be filled with love, to feel loved and to love others without hesitancy.

So how do we conquer the fear of loss that would hold us back from experiencing a life of over-flowing, unstoppable, and unquenchable affection?

Understanding the nature of true love helps.

If we set conditions on our love, we set ourselves up for possible loss. Affection destroying questions loom like, “What if the other party doesn’t live up to our expectations? What if they act contrary to my desire? What if they don’t return the favor?” What-ifs roll over our mental turf like threatening military tanks causing us to withhold kindness.

True love gives without expecting anything in return.

Use the sun as a model for giving love.

The sun shines upon one and all without regard to who is being blessed and what they will do with the blessing. The sun just shines. It doesn’t ask “What will the people do with my shine? Will they make good use of it? Will they return the gift? Will they care?” The sun shines. That’s what the sun does, and it thrives in doing what it was created to do.

Love loves. Love doesn’t ask, “What will the loved do with my love? Will they love me back? Will they care? Will they be my friend?” Love gives without qualification and without conditions. There are no strings attached to true love.

Jesus said,

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

There is huge freedom in loving others like God loves us, unconditionally and impartially. We never fear loss, because our gain is not what we get back from the one we bless. The gain is in the comfort, peace and joy we find within from loving unselfishly.

The best Life has to offer is not in what we get from others. It comes from living true to our God-given individuality of expressing unqualified love.

God did not create us to live isolated, lonely lives. God created us to love.

As we shower others with kindness in the same way God showers love on us, our individuality blossoms and prospers. We do not ask “What will the other person do?” before we love them. We ask, “How can I love them better?”

The block of ice that forms around the human heart afraid to love melts away as one realizes that love does not come from another person and therefore cannot be taken away by them. Love is God, and we find this Love in living true to our spiritual self,–our loving self.

It doesn’t matter what others do, say or think. Their opinions or actions do not affect the love coming from above that truly warms the heart, melts the hardened character and turns an otherwise dreary impoverished mortal existence into an oasis of bubbling spiritual joy and affection.

When our goal with love is to give unselfishly, not expecting anything in return, we will never fear a broken heart again, for there is no vulnerable affection held inside to be broken in the first place. Our affections are pure, centered on the spirituality we give, not on recognition hoped to receive.