Fear of Loving and Feeling Loved and Wisdom from "The Babe"

In my October 22, 2006 Post, “Loving and Feeling Loved” (loving-and-feeling-loved), I discussed how fear can be an integral aspect of a loving relationship. Subsequently, after reading the Post, a friend of mine asked me an intriguing question: “To what extent should fear be a deterrent to my getting into a loving relationship and feeling loved by someone?” Good question.

As an opener, let’s look at the concept of fear. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (wikipedia.org), “Fear is a basic emotional sensation and response system, a feeling, initiated by an aversion to some perceived risk or threat.” To a large extent, the relationship of fear and feeling loved, is captured in a quote from my soon-to-be-published novel, Fear of Feeling Loved: “That’s the biggest risk you take – allowing yourself to feel loved by someone else.”

In many university lectures, self-help amd pop-psych books, I use sports analogies and metaphors to illustrate the points I am making. To wit, it occasionally has been suggested that I must have been vaccinated with an ESPN needle. My answer to my friend’s question was no exception. First, I reminded my friend that the great baseball player, Reggie Jackson, aka “Mr. October,” retired with 563 career home runs, which ranks sixth among major league batters. However, he also set a major league record by striking out 2,597 times (baseball-reference.com). Secondly, I reminded her of the great Babe Ruth (baberuth.com). Babe Ruth's career mark of 714 home runs stood as the all-time record for 39 years, until Hank Aaron hit his 715th on Opening Day of the 1974 season. Not only that, “The Babe” led the American League in home runs 12 times and had a career .342 batting average. And, somewhat similar to Reggie Jackson’s records, Babe Ruth also had a career 1330 strikeouts (ranked 83rd) (baseball-almanac.com).

Now you’re probably wondering what all of these statistics about great baseball players’ hits, homeruns and strikeouts have to do with the question, “To what extent should fear be a deterrent to getting into a loving relationship and feeling loved by someone?” Think about the following well-known, famous pearl of wisdom:

“Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.”
George Herman “Babe” Ruth

Batter up! Bill