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"Dare Greatly" - Emotional risk-taking

Homburg

Homburg

Daring greatly
Joined
Aug 28, 2007
Posts
13,578
Dare Greatly
It is not the critic who counts; nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcomings; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end, the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

~ Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
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This is my favourite quote, written by one of my personal heroes. I strive to emulate this quote, but find myself failing to do so all too often.

Regardless, this post is not about TR. It is about risk taking. Specifically emotional risk taking.

I was talking with a friend that finds herself in a situation, and from a string of similar situations, where she placed herself in emotionally vulnerable positions, took the risk of loss, and the person with whom she took this risk held back. Took no similar gambles. She was asking me if I knew why. I really didn't, and still don't, but it caused me to examine myself a bit.

I realised that I take risks. I try to make sure that they are calculated risks, but they are gambles nonetheless. We all do, any time we really get involved with someone else, really allow them into heart, mind, and trust. Some are just far more risk-averse than others, and I agree with her. I don't really know why.

Yes, I've heard all the stories of how so-and-so burned thus-and-such and they never really recovered, but I honestly find myself at a loss. I've found myself wrecked, emotionally destroyed. Yet I recovered, and took more risks. I've had my trust abused, yet I am still open about who I am, and about my life. So is this friend.

Now, I don't fault anyone for keeping to their own council, or being private. Cool beans. But I wonder about those who won't take emotional risks in relationships. Those who remain aloof and emotionally available. Why? Why enter into a relationship at all if you do not plan to open yourself to that person?

These are honest questions, and not motivated by anything in my personal life. I've no agenda or personal interest. I am simply looking to understand emotional reticence, and need to maintain distance even as one ostensibly closes distance in a relationship.

ETA: Please feel free to reply if you are emotionally available. I don't want to limit this. All I ask is that this not turn into a rant against those who are unavailable.
 
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I can only speak for myself but I've been on both sides of your question. For me I often make decisions on a cost/benefit basis. If the likely cost outweighs the likely benefit, it's a no go and vice versa.

For much too long after I was divorced I wasn't emotionally available to men. In my estimation, the risk of getting hurt was just too high and frankly I wasn't sure I could survive it. I didn't think I could afford to take the risk.

After many years, I was in a different place and realized how much I was losing by not being emotionally available. That changed the balance in the cost/benefit analysis. I was prepared to take that risk even knowing I might pay the cost but hoping to reap the benefits. Parts of the results have been wonderful; parts have hurt like hell - but I've promised myself never to go back.

Don't know if it helps but that's how it's been for me.
 
I am both.

I do things all the way, 100% balls-to-the-wall or not at all. If I don't feel like I can give it my all, I don't. If there's something holding me back, I don't even try. Because I do give all of myself under certain circumstances, I'm usually terrified I'm going to get hurt, and for that reason, I hardly ever put myself out there like that.

But when I do, it's intense. It's hardcore. I just don't believe in doing things halfway.
 
Your timing is interesting. I've thought this very thing with Eliot Spitzer's recent fall from grace. He said something, (that, frankly, at this moment I want to embrace, under normal circumstances.)

“As human beings,” he said, “our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” Which he cribbed from Confucius.

And those are honestly true words. We all have the ability to screw up, at one time or another. (Although his screw-up was a big one, on many counts. How on earth does he explain his behavior to his daughters?) Another thread, I suppose.....

Anyway, I digressed. I admire most the person who falls, gets up and brushes themselves off to start again. Always.

In reference to your original question, there was an article in my paper today about wives who stood by their husbands who had made poor choices. It pointed out that spouses generally know more than anyone else about the transgressor. I know I was all in support of Mrs Spitzer dumping him until I really thought back. If I screwed up that big-time, I honestly know, deep in my heart, that Mr LB is right behind me. And always will be.

Homburg, I never have felt "burned," even though in an earlier life I felt hurt. I do know, though, you don't know pleasure or joy, unless you've felt pain or sadness.

I'm a passionate person. Emotional unavailability is foreign to me, I think. I just don't hold many grudges when it comes to emotion. :heart:
 
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LilyBart said:
Homburg, I never have felt "burned," even though in an earlier life I felt hurt. I do know, though, you don't know pleasure or joy, unless you've felt pain or sadness.
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This is the core of my experience as well. The world is a grim place. We should strive for whatever joy we can find, and there is no chance to taste that shining triumph unless that chance is taken.
 
For me it comes not so much in the fear of being burned. It's kind of a two-parter. As anyone who has loved deeply, I have hurt deeply. I know that having found it before, I will find it again. I am the hopeful pessimist, the romantic realist. I approach each relationship with the outlook that he could be everything I need, but prepared that he will fall short. I would love to be able to present myself as an open book, but I can't. Part of me has the fear that if someone were able to look into my soul and see what lurks in the depths (both good and bad) that they would turn and run. That in order to deal with it, they must know and accept me on other levels first. So I portion out little pieces as they are deserved. Show some to receive some, make an effort. If you don't you'll never see the full me. Otherwise you just see the facade or what you show me you want to see.

The last time I held nothing back did change me however. It made me more protective. At the beginning, it was perfect. It could not have been more fulfilling. After I was completely committed, emotionally bare, things went bad. Not in the emotional pain bad, but in the fear for your life bad. I came to realize that every emotion he showed was a conscious forgery. He perfectly mimicked every nuance that I gave because he was unable to feel any emotional attachment. In the end, he was looking at me completely capable of ending my life (and even contemplating it) with the same emotional effort he put into what to order for dinner. In the beginning I would never have imagined that would have been possible. He was a good actor, a good mirror. I know this has a great deal also to do with why I hold back until someone has earned my emotional investment. A man has to prove that he is capable of bringing his own emotions to the table, that he is interested in seeing what is further down. Until he has done that I'm not going to put myself out there. It's not that I am incapable of putting it out there, I am. With all of the passion and fire and feeling I have within me.

On the other hand, I do express my feelings quickly. I don't equate my feelings with my emotional level though. To me, they are completely separate. I feel love for my friends, and they are shown that. I can even feel love for a lover and show that without having stepped over into the emotional vulnerability. This has served me well many times and has blown up in my face at others.

Despite all of this, I long for that emotional vulnerability. I want to be able to find that man who can not only want to look for that depth within me, but go to those depths with me. I consider myself to take calculated risks. I'm not adverse to taking the risk, I'm just going to do it by my self-imposed rules. For me half of the heart's function is to be broken so it can heal to love more deeply. I'm never afraid of having my heart broken.
 
I'm a risk taker. I tend to pick my risks pretty carefully but I enjoy risk taking. I don't understand how you can fully live without being emotionally vulnerable and available to others. I refuse to go numbed and muffled through life.

I refuse to only live half my life, or even less, due to fear. I've been hurt plenty. The things I've been through might have made me shut down. I actually expected at this point in my life to be that way.

That was my vision of me in the future at one time. I didn't believe in love or God or anything really. I didn't trust anyone. I saw myself with no kids, no friends, no family, alone. I rather liked the idea.

For some reason something inside me refused to take that path. Now I mostly believe in me. I am blessed with a husband I could never have imagined and wonderful kids.

As it turns out I take risks. I've always taken them. I enjoy doing so. These days the risks I take are even less likely to kill me. I guess I'm slowing down some. LOL.

Of course it sucks when I get punched in the heart again, torn cartilage, or whatever, but to me it's more than worth it to truly LIVE!

Do I understand people that hold back? In a way, yes. I find it understandable but I'm so very glad that I don't do the same.

I have been surprised at the fact I rarely regret the things I do as much as I regret the things I didn't do. I try to remember that I could die at any moment. Do I really want to pass this opportunity up? No. Usually not.

:rose:
 
For me, it's not that I'm an emotional risk taker, it's that I don't know how to do anything else but be there 100% when I'm there. I guess my philosophy is much the same - if you aren't going to jump in whole heart, then why bother jumping? The problem with this, though, is that most people just don't emotionally invest. They stay emotionally unavailable. And when it starts to get too close, they have to step back and remove themselves from the equation. And then emotional pain ensues. I still jump off the deep end, even with that little niggling voice in the back of my head telling me that I'm going to get burned - but always the optimist, I jump anyway. Of course, the more pain, the fewer and farther apart the next jump. I'm sure at some point I'll stop jumping. The heart can only take so many bumps and bruises and breaks before it can't be mended anymore.
 
madetotakeit;26448413I am the hopeful pessimist said:
Romantic realist. That's what I am.

Thank you madetotakeit, that was the phrase I was looking for.

Romantic realist is a good thing. I guess, I just don't want to die without having lived life fully first. Realistic romance is part of the equation.

I'm having a less than successful technology moment tonight. Apologies.
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Oh, and can't we just say: "I did my best. I'm all that I will be." Thats is really more than OK. Isn't it?

At the end of the day, I'll be happy with that on my headstone. That, and that I've loved.

Which I have.

:heart:
 
Homburg said:
Probably true. I'm beginning to think this will be a question directed at llamas, but the only answers will be from ducks.
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I must be a duck.

Oddly, I pictured myself as a more glamorous animal. Certainly not a duck. ;)

Another sigh today......
 
I guess to be emotionally invested means that we have something with which to invest in the first place, and at this point I'm all tapped out.

I'm sure someday I'll see it differently, but self preservation takes hold and steers for awhile out of necessity.
 
LilyBart said:
Oh, and can't we just say: "I did my best. I'm all that I will be." Thats is really more than OK. Isn't it?

At the end of the day, I'll be happy with that on my headstone. That, and that I've loved.

Which I have.

:heart:
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I've uttered that phrase a time or two. A friend of mine who posts on a horse message board with me has this in her sig line, and I think it applies to me, too. Or, at least, I hope that it'll apply one day.

"She may not have changed the stars from their courses, but she loved a good man, and she rode good horses." :)
 
Homburg said:
Probably true. I'm beginning to think this will be a question directed at llamas, but the only answers will be from ducks.
Click to expand...

At this point, i want to be emotionally available; but i know deep down, i am not.

Due to people and their lies, the cage starts to close quickly around not just the emotions (joy of feeling the "rush", happiness, tears, hate, anger); but the love, caring and worship; also.

A person needs to protect all those feelings within a steel cage insides themselves once they have been hurt. Until all those emotions have had time to rebuild and strengthen themselves to face the world again.

And until that time comes, one cannot be emotionally available; or they would feel like nothing matters anymore. Its a state of "Protect and Serve" but in the sense that they are protecting themselves, and serving their emotions the time to rebuild.

If any of that makes sense.
 
My last relationship ended badly, to the point where I had a restraining order on the guy. It was messy and protracted because he wouldn't accept that things were over and allow me the space to heal or to move on with my life.

After that followed the most emotionally closed period I've ever had. I was weighing everything up too much and over analysing. You can't look at a guy and decide whether he's going to go psychostalker on you 2 years later but that's what I was trying to do.

I was still in the same frame of mind when I met Master. I was fairly aloof for most of our first date and spent much of it asking leading questions and trying to psycho-analyse him for potential stalker tendencies. The fact that I was seeking to get into my first D/s relationship only added to my paranoia at how much he might want to control me.

At the end of the date though, he kissed me and that was it. All my carefully constructed emotional walls disintegrated on contact. Everything about the date and him and the kiss felt so right. I gave myself a break, let go and went with it.

I haven't regretted it yet. Having said that, I haven't tried to dump him yet either. :eek:

They do say that the only difference between bravery and stupidity is success. Feel a sig edit coming on...
 
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I been through many emotional traumas, weathered the storms, and felt at times I had been through an emotional crushing machine, but despite this I am never able to withdraw to a place where I am emotionally unavailable, nor would I want to. It isn't who I am and as much trouble as it has gotten me into in both love oriented relationships, and non-love relationships where emotions are involved, I cannot flick a switch inside me to minimise the risk and so I concentrate on the positives and how much I have learned.

F says he has never met anyone as emotional as I am which coming from a Spaniard who is passionate and emotional himself is significant...lol, wasn't the first time I heard it though, but most likely the most healing. Despite the pain it has and does bring me, I am happy as the alternative would lose me so much of life's gifts, would be dull and boring, would not have helped me as a counsellor to appreciate how others are feeling and why, and would certainly never have fuelled and inspired my search which resulted in finding F. I am not sure it is something you can control easily, or for some, at all, if it is a deep part of you that has been there since birth.

Catalina:catroar:
 
I think that as I have become more dominant, I have learned to exercise more control over my emotional availability, much more than I ever used to. Dominance requires a degree of detachment a lot of the time. Inflicting pain and humiliating or otherwise using a loved and cherished partner is the flipside to a coin. The coin can be one side up or the other but it's not possible for my bitch Domme and my loving girlfriend to be operational at the same time.

I think I'm more mercenary about the relationships I get into now. When I was nilla it was all heady and spontaneous but now I vet people online, groom them and approach the notion of a relationship from a cost/gain perspective. Once I have found someone with whom my personality and kinks are compatible, once trust and a working D/s dynamic is established, I almost always fall for them but it's more of an informed choice, more calculated than it used to be.

My first love was wonderful and I lived for her. She turned out not to be gay once the youth and excitement of the things had diminished. Neither of us could have known beforehand so I never blamed her and we are good friends to this day. It did make me more wary of being another girl's first though. There are far more bi-curious women than there are lesbian ones and most of them would never have a LTR with a woman. That's without even throwing BDSM into the mix.

Live and learn.
 
intothewoods said:
I don't think most people who are emotionally unavailable are conscious of it.
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We have a win.

I don't consider myself open or not open. It depends who you ask. I'm very hard to get rid of once you've got me.

I'm better at applying brakes and making compartments than some people are, and worse at both than others. Both of those aren't necessarily bad skills to have. I do notice that if I choose not to be with someone who wants to be with me, there follows a list of unflattering attributes that must be mine. It's OK, I've done this to others, but I did more or less outgrow it and some people never seem to. I don't want to be one of those, I'd rather be able to honestly say that, right or wrong, I cashed in my emotional chips on the people I did that with, and in the end, whether they stuck around or ran off with them, it was worth it and my choice.
 
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Each time a relationship ended -
Each time I felt betrayed -
Each time my hopes were smashed on the ground - *

I added one more plate to my anti-feelings armour. Or a layer of concrete, to be sure. And some barbed wire, just in case.

At the end, I was choking inside my bunker. No light, no air, no warmth. But it was fucking safe, inside. No harm could reach me.

It took years, and all the love of my spouse, to slowly open the door, to let some light in, to chase rats out (And, to be honest, some outside counselling).

I fell 7 times, rose again 8 times...

_______
* the reverse is also true: each time I left someone, each time I betrayed someone, each time I smashed someone's hopes. Equally painful, for me.
 
Homburg said:
This is my favourite quote, written by one of my personal heroes. I strive to emulate this quote, but find myself failing to do so all too often.

Regardless, this post is not about TR. It is about risk taking. Specifically emotional risk taking.

I was talking with a friend that finds herself in a situation, and from a string of similar situations, where she placed herself in emotionally vulnerable positions, took the risk of loss, and the person with whom she took this risk held back. Took no similar gambles. She was asking me if I knew why. I really didn't, and still don't, but it caused me to examine myself a bit.

I realised that I take risks. I try to make sure that they are calculated risks, but they are gambles nonetheless. We all do, any time we really get involved with someone else, really allow them into heart, mind, and trust. Some are just far more risk-averse than others, and I agree with her. I don't really know why.

Yes, I've heard all the stories of how so-and-so burned thus-and-such and they never really recovered, but I honestly find myself at a loss. I've found myself wrecked, emotionally destroyed. Yet I recovered, and took more risks. I've had my trust abused, yet I am still open about who I am, and about my life. So is this friend.
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You say you are "at a loss" to understand. But Homburg, have you ever lost a cherished life partner (to death, divorce, personal betrayal, debilitating mental illness, whatever)? If not, then of course you can't know what that feels like.

You talk about people who have been "burned", and say you've been "emotionally destroyed" too, but it seems relevant to ask - by whom? You've been together with the same woman for most of your adult life, right? So are you talking about being "burned" by your wife? Since she's still around, then you may have been burned, but not burned + abandoned. There is a big difference between those two. If you are talking about whatever bottoms or partners you've had on the side, then you've always had the love and support of your wife to mitigate the effects of any burning by the others. True?

The above are *all* rhetorical questions. I absolutely do *not* expect any answers. I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but rather to help you focus on the fact that "emotionally destroyed" is a relative concept, and your Teddy Roosevelt quote may be inappropriate or even unfair in many cases. The image of a guy with face "marred by dust and sweat and blood" still charging valiantly across the field is dramatic and inspiring, no doubt. But what about the guy who just had both his legs blown off? Lack of "daring" is hardly the reason that he can't stand up.

Homburg said:
Now, I don't fault anyone for keeping to their own council, or being private. Cool beans. But I wonder about those who won't take emotional risks in relationships. Those who remain aloof and emotionally available. Why? Why enter into a relationship at all if you do not plan to open yourself to that person?
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Totally unrelated to issues of daring, being burned, etc., I note the following.

There are some people, on both sides of the coin, who value D/s relationships primarily as service constructs. Intense emotion, love, etc., are just not part of the D/s dynamic they embrace. Why do they enter into these relationships? Because they find D/s of this type to be satisfying and fulfilling in a host of different ways.

There are also some D-types who believe very strongly that emotion weakens dominance. Love makes one vulnerable - that's a fact. And some appreciate a D/s dynamic without emotional involvement for just this reason.

I don't fall into either of those groups, but have spoken to others who do.
 
JMohegan said:
There are some people, on both sides of the coin, who value D/s relationships primarily as service constructs. Intense emotion, love, etc., are just not part of the D/s dynamic they embrace. Why do they enter into these relationships? Because they find D/s of this type to be satisfying and fulfilling in a host of different ways.

There are also some D-types who believe very strongly that emotion weakens dominance. Love makes one vulnerable - that's a fact. And some appreciate a D/s dynamic without emotional involvement for just this reason.

I don't fall into either of those groups, but have spoken to others who do.
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I feel that way about slavery, not SM, not even D/s where there's any amount of consensus or permission-getting still in play. Relationships based on a central objectification are another kind of love and another kind of emotional entanglement which sates a set of emotional needs that a romantic one never will for me.
 
JMohegan said:
You talk about people who have been "burned", and say you've been "emotionally destroyed" too, but it seems relevant to ask - by whom? You've been together with the same woman for most of your adult life, right? So are you talking about being "burned" by your wife? Since she's still around, then you may have been burned, but not burned + abandoned. There is a big difference between those two. If you are talking about whatever bottoms or partners you've had on the side, then you've always had the love and support of your wife to mitigate the effects of any burning by the others. True?
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That came up on the poly thread, and it's interesting.

Personally I think that's an assumption that may not apply. It's harder for me to weather storms emotionally - not necessarily materially, fiscally, or when it comes to being able to be held and not feel alone-- but processing my emotions, going through them, feeling like I can let everything out? I do that better alone. With M I feel a burden of guilt - I'm not being strong, supporting, leaderly, in charge of myself let alone us. If my Bull were to really really hurt and abandon me or were to die, I think it will be harder for me in many ways to have M there, being kind to me, than to have to go it alone a bit. I wouldn't change that, I wouldn't not have it how it is, but I don't think it would mitigate at all, merely change up the set of worries and fears.
 
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