Fear of Commitment
Hello there, all you commitment phobes.
Just kidding.
In all seriousness, the fear of commitment is a serious deal.
It's basically a state of perpetual avoidance.
Now, no matter whether this is the fear of commitment
to a relationship or a fear of commitment to a job
or the fear of commitment to a decision,
it's basically like trying to move through life or drive through life
with a parking brake on.
So first, what we have to do is to understand commitment.
Commitment is a state of dedication.
But we can simplify commitment by looking at it this way:
To commit yourself to something is to put your energy into something,
to put yourself into something.
The more committed you are to something, the more of your energy and thus yourself
you put into that thing.
If you sit with this idea of commitment for a while,
you might already be experiencing the awareness of what exactly
scares you so badly about commitment.
If not, I want you to ask yourself:
"What is so scary about giving my energy to something
or putting myself fully into something?"
I'm gonna give you a hint here.
And that's that most fears on Earth, if not all of them,
boil down to the fear of losing something.
For example, even if you say something like
"I'm afraid that I'm gonna gain a whole bunch of more problems"
the flip side of that is that you fear that you're gonna lose inner peace.
So when you're looking for what you really fear,
look for what it is that you fear that you're going to lose.
The most common fear experienced by people who fear commitment
is the fear of losing freedom and of being trapped.
And the ultimate fear for people who fear commitment
is the fear of making decisions.
When you fear making decisions, you fear losing options.
If you fear commitment, your fear has caused you to develop an addiction
to the sweet security of escape.
You fear making the wrong decision and being trapped
with the potential consequences (especially losses) of that choice.
And this is your personal subconscious definition of failure.
Obviously, like usual,
these patterns find their roots in our childhood.
Ideally, if you were to grow up in homes that were completely loving,
we would know that mom and dad come back when they go away,
we would know that even if we rebelled or even if we misbehaved
we would essentially be welcomed back with open arms.
In an ideal household, we would not have to be perfect
in order to be included, in order to be loved,
accepted and not abandoned.
But some of us do not grow up in this kind of home.
If we fear commitment, we had to grow up too fast
in a world where the message was:
"You do have to be perfect according to my definition of perfect
in order to be loved, included, not abandoned and get the things that you want."
Responsibility became something to be feared
because it came with too much pressure.
The stakes were too high so we learnt to avoid it.
We grew up in an atmosphere of control, not an atmosphere of love and intimacy.
We were brought up to essentially have one foot in and one foot out
because we couldn't trust one or both of our caregivers.
If you do not trust someone, there is no way to be invested in
so instead, there is a constant state of emotional panic.
It's obvious to see that when the sensation of freedom
would be so important for us to keep hold of
if our indication of our safety level had to do with that sensation of freedom.
This is especially important if what you suffer from
is a fear of commitment to relationships.
You perpetually have one foot in and one foot out of them.
It's really important to realise if you're in this boat,
you have a deep desire, if not a desperation in fact
for a close secure relationship, that is intact with intimacy.
But what is happening is that your fear of it not going well
and therefore losing or being abandoned by your partner
or to the opposite extreme, your fear of losing yourself to
the relationship, which feels a little bit like being engulfed
or being devoured by them,
is so incredibly strong that you can't go where the other
you instead just go into a state of deep freeze.
For those of you who suffer from a relationship commitment phobia
relationships and love were not about love when you were younger,
they were about control.
People in your life, especially primary caregivers,
were interested in control and as such
they were not concerned with your best interests.
They were concerned with theirs.
This made you emotionally unsafe, physically unsafe or both.
To stay safe, you quickly saw
that you had to keep the control.
You always had one foot in and one foot out with them.
Now, in relationships you do the same thing.
You subconsciously seek to always be in control
and have an escape ready while avoiding personal responsibility
which in turn makes you very passive aggressive.
And one way you gain back this control so as to freeze up.
When you clam up or freeze up,
no one can do anything about it.
They are absolutely powerless to your unmovable state.
So this, in conjunction with not committing to either decision
feels safer you you.
When you freeze up, your survival mechanism has been triggered.
When you can't perceive an escape and therefore you can't decide
between either running or fighting (which is fight-or-flight mechanism),
you have one option left and that option is to freeze.
This is what gives the commitment phobe
this feeling of sort of dragging their heels
or turning into a rock
or existing in a state of living death absent of momentum.
So what should you do if you see that you have a fear of commitment?
But you don't really wanna live that fear of commitment anymore
because it's ruining your life?
The first step is
that you have to recognise
the number one truth when it comes to commitments.
We loved to tell the story that there is such a thing
as fear of commitment.
And while all of that is true on one level,
it is ultimately not objective truth.
The objective truth is,
there is no such thing as a commitment phobe.
Why is that?
You can't live one second of your life
without being committed to something.
Your energy is going completely into something
in all moments of the day,
the question is "into what?"
For example,
the person who is not committing to a relationship out of fear
has already chosen to be fully committed to freedom.
The person who is procrastinating
has already chosen to be fully committed to distraction.
The person who refuses to make a decision
has already committed to being irresponsible,
or shall we say,
to whatever perks come with not being responsible.
This means, any time you find yourself not committing to something
it means there is something else that you are completely committed to.
Often, you can find what you're committed to
on the opposite side of the scale.
You need to take time and put some serious energy
into discovering what these subconscious commitments are.
Only then, you have the power to ask yourself:
"Do I really want to be committed to those things?"
So you need to really ask yourself: "What DO I want to be committed to?"
Notice that that question is completely different than:
"What should I want to be committed to?"
Two
You need to get completely present
with the negative impact of not committing.
We're only gonna change something if we think
there is an actual need to change that thing.
So you have to see the damage
that not committing has actually done to your life.
You have to see the damage that it has done,
the damage that it is doing and the damage that it could do.
For example, see the opportunities you've lost by not acting on them.
See the rejection other people feel,
see the successes that you have not achieved or you might not achieve
because you are unwilling to give it your all.
And someone else is.
Step three.
Love the aspect of you that is afraid of committing.
Step outside of the perspective of the one who's afraid to commit.
Far enough to feel compassion for and love towards
the aspect of you that is so incredibly afraid.
The aspect of you that was controlled and not loved well enough.
The aspect of you that needs to feel a sense of freedom
because you need safety.
If you resist this self by trying to force it to change
because you resent it, you will only be trying to control yourself.
And so, what will happen
is you will start to become passive aggressive with yourself
instead approach this subject with love.
Desire this aspect of yourself to shift because you want the best for it.
This will cause an inner transformation.
Step four.
Become more aware of and dedicated to
the things you actually DO want.
This state of not committing is a state of avoidance.
It means you're more committed to staying away from something
than going towards something.
You have to figure out what it is you do wanna commit to,
what it is you do want
and what it is you do need.
As opposed to focusing on what you do not want, do not need
and want to stay away from at all cost.
If you feel the state of avoidance crop up in you,
the state of internal resistance,
which is gonna feel a lot like trying to open a clamshell
that doesn't wanna open
or like walking with weights attached to you.
Think about what it is you're trying to avoid
and then, basically pit it in that moment
and figure out what it is that that avoidance it telling you
that you do want instead.
Then, put all of your energy into that consciously.
Commit to that.
If you are afraid of relationship commitment
you might find that you cannot commit
to the relationship in its totality.
That might be too overwhelming and too scary.
But you might find when you feel this internal resistance
that it's ok for you to commit yourself
to something smaller within the context of the relationship,
like communication.
So commit yourself fully to communicating every day.
Step five. Get present to your needs
and meet your needs every single day.
For people who grew up in atmosphere of control
needs are enemy number one. Why?
Because if you are needy, you're somewhat dependent
on the person that you need something from.
This gives them the control if they don't have your best interests at heart.
People who fear commitment will suppress their needs
and not communicate them and will try to convince themselves
and others that they do not have them.
This is especially important if you're struggling with relationship commitment phobia.
Relationships are about mutuality, not control.
It's about accommodating each other
in a way where both people's needs are met.
If you do not express your needs and deny them
whilst trying to meet your partner's needs
you'll eventually feel controlled by them and at their mercy
without even knowing that it's because
you never express your needs
and you never gave them a chance to meet them.
To understand more on this subject, watch my video on YouTube titled
"Meet your needs".
Step six.
You need to get deeply in touch with your feelings.
If you are afraid of commitment, then you feel as if
you have to at some point cut off your emotional connection.
So as to maintain control, and therefore stay safe.
If you're in a relationship with somebody,
who has a commitment phobia
what this feels like, this cutting off of emotions
in order to gain control is
a push and pull.
To begin this practice, watch my video titled
"How to heal the emotional body".
Especially, I want you to sit with that feeling of being trapped.
If you have a fear of commitment, you are in a business of
constantly trying to mitigate and avoid future pain.
What does this mean?
If you develop a willingness to feel,
especially to feel pain
then that aspect of you that wants to avoid it at all cost
is no longer in control of you.
Because you've consciously stopped running away from that monster.
This stops the unhealthy avoidance pattern. It can no longer subconsciously rule your life.
It's important to know that if you have a fear of commitment,
you are not very self-aware.
You are prone to lying to yourself to avoid deeper truth.
So really being with your emotions will reveal
the deep, real, gritty inner truths of yourself.
These are the truths that you will build
the life you really want on top of and around.
Seven.
You need to explore the idea of perfect, so that you can let go of it.
The inner critic in your life is ruining your life quite honestly.
As much as you might want to you cannot get this life right.
You are not going to find the perfect partner,
you are not going to find the perfect job.
And in fact, your attempt to continually find something
that is perfect is your attempt to avoid the risk in your life.
In other words,
finding fault with everything is just a way to justify
your fear so you don't have to take the risk
to move forward and through it.
It will also help you to deliberately shift
your focus away from all of the things that are wrong
about whatever it is you're afraid to commit to
and on to whatever is right about it.
Love is the opposite vibration of fear
so anytime you're dealing with fear, if you can shift to a focus of love,
you will no longer be feeling the sensation of fear.
So if you're afraid of your partner, what do you love about them?
If you're afraid of the job, what do you love about it?
If you fear making the decision, what do you love about the decision?
Or about making decisions in general?
Criticism goes hand in hand with perfectionism.
To understand more about criticism, you can watch my video on YouTube
titled "Criticism".
Eight. Practice meditation.
Meditation will pull you out of those states of panic
where you are completely controlled
by your escapist, avoidant control patterns.
This will allow you to shortcut the self-sabotage
and instead make you present with
exactly what is right here, right now in front of you.
You can start with mindfulness meditation.
To understand how to do this, watch my video on YouTube titled
"Mindfulness Meditation (The Observer Self)"
Nine.
Commit to increasing your self-esteem and improving your self-image.
Whether you want to admit to it or not,
if you have a fear of commitment, you struggle with self-esteem.
This is especially true for those of us, who have issues with commitment
because we're afraid of abandonment.
If you never invest your energy fully into something
it's never gonna yield results.
So it's obvious why you would not have a very high level of self-esteem.
And ironically, if you do commit to something and invest yourself into something,
you will see results which will in turn improve your self-esteem.
What do you appreciate about yourself? What are your strengths?
Take an inventory of your positive attributes and anything that
causes you specifically to feel good about yourself.
If you suffer from commitment phobia, it is completely understandable
why you are the way you are.
You ended up like this to survive the world
that was created for you and the subsequent worldview
that you came out of that experience with.
You are justified in staying this way for the rest of your life.
You are justified at not making decisions.
You are justified at not committing to that job or that relationship.
The question is: "what is it costing you?"
I want you to consider that any commitment is a risk including...
the commitment to non-commitment.
You will die one day and I can promise you
you did not come to this life to arrive at that death safely.
The greater risk in life is not taking risks
and waiting for opportunity that may never come.
The risk you take when you're afraid of commitment
is not really living.
No success will come unless you invest your energy into something.
And I can promise you, it's already invested in things
just not the things that make for a successful life.
You cannot get this life wrong. So break free from the paralysis.
You have been thinking
the commitment is the thing that is going to trap you.
When in fact, it is the very thing
that is going to currently set you free.
Have a good week.
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