How to love emotionally

This is really frustrating me. What is love supposed to feel like? Like a burning passion? Up until today, I've pushed myself to suppress emotion and now I've forgotten how to feel and how feeling felt. I've been "forcing" myself to harbor feelings of love of others and pretending sincerity in hope that the actual feeling can enter my heart, but I haven't been successful. In too many situations, I feel indifferent, stoic, cold. My mind guides me. I've stopped depending on my heart. I feel like a robot or one of those androids you see on Star Trek. Looks like human, but doesn't have human feelings.

now that you have gotten yourself in this position, it may be difficult to truly get out. unless you find a trigger of some sort, which would almost definately cause a breakdown in the emotional department. i put myself in that place once, things had gradually gotten so difficult that i simply could no longer allow myself to have emotion.

love... well love feels very different for each person. the only commonality i have heard is that it feels "warm." other than that, there are an almost infinite number of words and phrases that can describe varying types of love.

if you want to feel love, you must first be willing and ready to love. it is very scary, but the more you put yourself out there, the more you will get in return.

I agree with Wyote. And this may sound corny or cliche, but you'll have to learn to love yourself first too in order to be truly be open to love. I know what it feels like to be emotionally shut off. And sometimes no matter what advice you get, you won't be able to get out of it until you deal with the fears that are preventing you to feel love or any emotion. Chances are you have much pain from past experiences that you have buried which need to be dealt with properly. Like Wyote said, if you are able to make that step be prepared for emotional breakdown. But once your over that hurdle you'll feel more free to explore your feelings and emotions.

I you to love you need to trust. If you try to control your emotions around other people constantly, I guess that means you're also very careful about what you say to other people? In any case, try to relax, and be trusting of other people. Trusting means not worrying about what you say in front of them, not worrying about they think because you know they're your friends so even if you say something stupid its just a joke.

Past experiences have shaped my personality. I don't let anyone in to my real thoughts and emotions for certain reasons. It could just be that I haven't found the type of person I feel comfortable around. I'm also afraid of that emotional breakdown. But I'll see what I can do.

Thanks. I appreciate the advice.

"Past experiences have shaped my personality. I don't let anyone in to my real thoughts and emotions for certain reasons."

Like us all. I once had a very good friend, I trusted him, but he relentlessly tried to change who I was (basically, a geek), to make me care about things I didn't care about. Today I am still not comfortable around people who are "cool" or try too hard to be.

It might help to talk about your experiences, it always helps me. Probably my worst phases are when I deny my issues, talking about it forces you to admit things to yourself.

Thanks, Angelfire. Since you've welcomed me to open up, I feel more comfortable in doing so.

I've moved about ten times in 17 years and changed schools 7 times in 12 years. Add that with my deep emotional attachment to my environment and you have one very tortured soul. So I slowly began to suppress emotion to save myself some torture.

Second, people I deemed as successful kept their emotions in check. When people lost control of their emotions, they made a fool of themselves (at least in my perspective.) So I followed the example of my role models and learned to control my emotions.

The sad thing is, I feel little emotion as I write all this. The pain's all numbed now. Don't misunderstand me though. I'm not asking for pity, just some advice on how to reawaken my heart.

Its hard to build lasting relationships with people when you change social surroundings alot. Out of curiosity,when you don't like the people you are around, have you got in the habit of just waiting until you move to some other place or school?

Maybe you just need to build a trusting relationship with someone and just have some dumb fun! I mean, what do you enjoy and who could you do it with?

I may simply have trust issues. But thanks for the advice, Angelfire. I understand myself and my problem well enough to deal with it.

Boy, I love this site and its members.

emotional breakdowns arent that scary... they feel damn good in fact, like becoming a whole new person. buidling up to them sucks, but once you hit that breaking point you almost feel invincible for a little while.

they are very good if you are in a good position to handle them... trouble is people have them at really horrible times in their life usually... cuz of those triggers i mentioned before.