13/07/2026
Every month in my coaching and celebrancy newsletter, I respond to one anonymous reader question.
This month, looking at balancing fear and love:
Q. How do you balance putting yourself out there and being 100% committed to a person and also protecting yourself, because the reality is that many relationships end?
A. Thanks for this question—it’s a great one.
So much of relationships (and indeed, life itself) is paradoxical. We want to experience the deepest depths of acceptance and vulnerability, but we want the assurance that it’s not too risky. But those things aren’t compatible.
You ask how to put yourself 100% out there and commit to a person while also protecting yourself. This names the internal conflict between vulnerability and playing it careful, between giving your whole heart and holding something back *just in case* things go pear-shaped.
The quote from one of my favourite authors, Louise Erdrich, lays out my philosophy on this question. In it, she writes, “You are here to risk your heart.”
As I often remind myself, every relationship ends: someone leaves or someone dies. And along that pathway to an ending, there is likely going to be great joy, friendship, comfort, support, respect, adoration, fun, and tenderness. Surely those things sweeten life so that, when we reach the end, even a heartbreak, we look back with gratitude for what we have had.
In more concrete terms, the way I recommend holding this uncomfortable fact that no relationship lasts forever is by
-noticing what you appreciate daily and expressing it to your partner.
-continuing to nurture your own interests, hobbies, interests, goals, and pursuits, including friendships and vocation.
-moving toward accepting the fact that all of life is change—even if you and your partner stay together for many years, each of you will grow, change, age, and transform.
-as much as possible, staying in the present, with what is, instead of what may be. I know this is easier said than done, but often the very thing we fear and obsess over becomes true because of our fixation on it. Focus on what you do want (closeness, kindness, fun, love, longevity, etc.) rather than on the fear of what you don’t want (divorce, heartbreak, disconnect, etc.).
You are grappling with the vulnerability that we all have: to love is to open oneself to loss. But what’s the alternative? to never open yourself to love at all.
Love,
Janel
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