How We Love When We’re Healing

Understanding how we show up in relationships after we’ve been hurt

There’s something both sacred and scary about the moment we begin again in love. Even if we don’t call it that… even if we’re just texting someone new, saying yes to a first date, or letting ourselves imagine the possibility of connection again… it’s such a tender moment. And for many of us, it doesn’t come easily.

Because when we’ve been hurt (which 99% of us who’ve lived to at least 30 years old have)… when someone changed their mind and disappeared just as we were opening our heart and settling into the connection… when trust was built and then broken… it leaves us a bit scathed. We’re never the same again. These experiences of hurt, rejection, loss, or betrayal fundamentally change our heart and often dictate the “kind” of heart we carry into our next connections.

And that heart might not be the same open, hopeful, eager one we started with when we were young and just beginning to date and love.

We Don’t Just Enter Relationships… We Enter With a Certain Kind of Heart

Observing myself and my clients over the years, I’ve come to notice something:

We don’t just “enter relationships”... We enter them with a particular kind of heart… A certain degree of openness... A certain relationship to hope, risk, and vulnerability that are ingrained into our desire and pursuit of love… and a certain way of relating to love itself.

These different “hearts” we bring aren’t fixed; they evolve over time (and often with support, reflection, and healing). And, they’re not good or bad, right or wrong… they’re simply shaped by our experience. And often, they tell a story… of what we’ve lived through, how we’ve had to adapt and protect ourselves from further pain, and what we still long for in life and in love.

The Many Hearts We Bring to Love

My heart, for one, has been on a journey. From open and hopeful, to hurt and therefore cautious and guarded, to tenderly wanting and beginning to open and trust again, the experiences of my life have caused my heart to undergo quite a transformation - one that continues through this very day. My heart’s taken on many forms, and I want to share a few of these “heart types” with you here. Maybe you’ll recognize yourself in one (or in all of them), or maybe you’ll recognize someone you know in them too.

From open and hopeful to hurt and therefore cautious and guarded to wanting to open and trust again, the experiences of my life have caused my heart to undergo quite a transformation.

The Naively Open Heart

The naively open heart is a heart that jumps in with both feet. It’s the heart I had as a young girl… full of trust and love and wonder… believing in the best in people. With this kind of heart, we’re beautifully sincere, although sometimes we show up present and vulnerable well before trust has truly formed. And so, this heart hasn’t yet learned how to discern… how to tell whether the person on the other side is trustworthy of receiving their vulnerability and care. Often, this heart leaps a little bit quickly because it longs to be healed through love. “Finally, someone will come and be consistent in their care, their emotional attunement, their love,” this heart thinks. It’s so beautiful in its innocence and oh so very brave, but at the same time, it can bypass its own deeper needs for safety, clarity, and steady pacing in looking for love.

The Performing Heart

The performing heart tries to be what others want it to be. Does that sound exhausting to you? Because it does to me. But for the performing heart, that’s what it’s gotta do… After all, it learned to survive through shape-shifting — becoming pleasing, impressive, funny, sexy, spiritual, successful — anything it learned as a way to feel worthy or chosen. And underneath the performance is often a quiet fear: Will they still want me if I stop performing?

I remember this heart well. Blonde hair, an agreeable attitude, always curating myself to be what I thought was “desirable.” But beneath all that was a deep longing: to be seen for who I really was, and to be loved for exactly that.

The Guarded Heart

The guarded heart has learned how to protect itself. It’s had to. It’s been hurt a lot and so, understandably it holds back a bit. It might seem slow to trust or reluctant to open up and share… but it’s not because it doesn’t want love. It’s just that it remembers what it feels like and costs to give too much, too soon.

I lived with this heart for years. Honoring its wisdom felt safe and it helped me survive, but I also know it’s not where I really wanted to be. I longed for something more… I wanted the freedom to relax, to soften some of the guardrails, and to open to love again… safely.

The guarded heart deeply wants to love but it also knows what it feels like and costs to give too much, too soon.

The Shut-Down Heart

The shut-down heart is a cousin of the guarded heart. Like the guarded heart, it’s been through A LOT, and because of that, it’s gone quiet inside. There may still be a longing for connection inside, but it’s buried under numbness or indifference. For this heart, there’s just no space or energy to try and open to love again. It says, “I’m fine alone,” and maybe that’s true… but often, beneath the surface, there’s a parallel truth: I want connection… I just don’t know how to open again.

This heart doesn’t need pressure. It needs gentleness, time, and a sense of safety that it can trust.

The Cautious but Hopeful Heart

The cautious but hopeful heart is tender. Seasoned. Wise. It’s been through pain, and is still willing to open and believe in love. It doesn’t deny the past, but it doesn’t let the past define the future either. It doesn’t rush, but it doesn’t shut down. It’s learning to trust its own pacing, to be discerning without closing off, to stay open and curious without abandoning itself. It’s self-connected and willing to take emotional risks… when they feel right. Not to prove anything, but because it believes in real love and it believes in itself too!

I think of this heart as a kind of kintsugi heart… like the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with veins of gold. The cracks don’t disappear; they become part of the beauty. The heartbreak, the mistakes, the disappointments… they’re still there, but they’ve been tended to with care. And what emerges is something even stronger and more radiant than before: a heart that carries its history and still chooses to hope.

This is the heart that says, “Yes, I’ve been through a lot… and I trust myself enough to open again slowly. Because love is worth it. And so am I.” This is the heart I write to you from today.

The heartbreak, the mistakes, the disappointments… they’re still there, but they’ve been tended to with care.

 

We Move Between These Hearts

We don’t live in just one of these hearts. Often, we move between them…. sometimes in a single week and sometimes across seasons of healing. You might feel a guarded heart in the morning, a hopeful one by nighttime, or you might cycle through them as different parts of you show up, each carrying their own story, their own longings and desires, their own wise protectiveness. And what I’ve found in my many years as an evolving human longing for healthy, deep connection — especially within myself — is that we can get curious and ask:

• What kind of heart am I bringing into the dating arena, or into this relationship with this person?
• What is this heart protecting, hoping for, or afraid of?
• And what might it need from me right now?

The Path to Secure Inner Attachment

This is the real work of secure inner attachment (the beautiful building block of healthy attachment to another person): Not forcing yourself to open or rush toward love to prove you’re “ready” or because you can’t handle being alone… but meeting your own heart with presence and care. Letting it be cautious… letting it be hopeful… letting it be exactly where it is, while gently offering it the presence and care it may have missed before.

A Final Word, From My Heart to Yours

I want to remind you, my friend, that you are not weak for having been hurt. You are not behind if it takes you time to trust again. And you are not broken for needing safety, clarity, or care. In fact,your sensitivity is a strength, your discernment is wisdom, and your ability to open to love again, after everything, is the most beautiful sign of your courage.

And the more you practice bringing a cautious but hopeful heart — to others and to yourself — the more self-connected and fulfilling your relationships will become. You don’t need to abandon your hope to stay safe. And you don’t have to abandon your safety to stay hopeful. You can hold both. And that… is such a powerful place to begin again.