The Gita on Why You Push Away the One You Want Most
Some people don’t fear love. They fear what love might reveal. They fear that if someone gets too close, the truth will slip out, that they’re not as strong as they seem, not as detached as they pretend, not as unbothered as they act. And once someone sees that truth, they’ll use it, leave, or make them feel small again. So their behavior looks contradictory from the outside, but on the inside, it has a painfully clear logic.
Why They Pull You Close, Then Push You Away
They pull close because connection feels good. It feels safe for a moment. It feels like relief - someone finally understands them without them having to explain. But the moment they sense real intimacy forming, something inside tightens. Not consciously. More like a reflex born from an old wound:
a memory of rejection,
a moment of being shamed for needing too much,
a betrayal that turned openness into embarrassment.
So the pushaway isn’t about confusion. It’s about survival.
"Do not yield to unmanliness, O Partha; it does not become you. Shake off this cowardice." (Bhagavad Gita 2.3)
Krishna’s teaching is not about condemning fear. It is about acknowledging it, understanding its roots, and then acting with awareness. Fear is protective, but it can also trap the heart in patterns that keep both the self and others at a distance.
Why They Act Possessive But Stay Undefined
They want closeness. They want someone there. They want emotional presence. But “defining it” feels like stepping into a space where they can be left, exposed, or hurt again. Undefined relationships offer a strange comfort: not fully in, not fully out - connected, but not committed to the point where loss can devastate.
Ambivalence isn’t indecision. It’s a fear response.
"Perform your duties established in yoga, O Dhananjaya, abandoning attachment. Be even-minded in success and failure. Equanimity is called yoga." (Bhagavad Gita 2.48)
They are shaken because past pain is still alive inside them. Their nervous system still believes love = danger. The healing begins when they learn: Pain from the past is not pain from the present. You are safe now, the danger is not here.
Why They Give Emotional Intensity But Avoid Depth
Intensity is safe. Depth is not. Intensity can be turned on and off - it’s a surge, a moment, a wave. Depth requires being settled, consistent, vulnerable. And consistency is dangerous to someone who learned early that stable things collapse suddenly. So they stay in a space where they can feel, but not be held. Where they can open the door slightly, but never enough for someone to step fully in.
"Fix your mind on Me, be devoted to Me, sacrifice to Me, and bow down to Me. By doing this, you will come to Me alone. I truly promise, you are dear to Me." (Bhagavad Gita 9.34)
The Gita reminds us: your true self cannot be humiliated. What seems like rejection is often only a reflection of the ego, not the soul. Pulling back won't protect you from pain - it only repeats the pain in a different form.
Why They Charm, But Fear Giving Too Much
Charm is a shield. It lets them connect without revealing themselves. Charm allows interaction without intimacy. It creates warmth without risk. Giving too much is terrifying because it hands another person access and people with access have, in their past, caused harm.
The fear is not “I don’t want to love.” It’s “If I give too much, I’ll lose myself.”
"When one withdraws the senses from sense objects, as the tortoise withdraws its limbs, one attains steady wisdom." (Bhagavad Gita 2.58)
The lesson here is subtle: Withdrawal and guarding are natural, but conscious awareness can prevent the pattern from harming ourselves or others. To stop fearing depth, you must first meet your own depth. You cannot share what you have not dared to explore.
The Emotional Doorway They Live In
The most accurate way to describe this pattern is this: They live in an emotional doorway.
Inside the room is full vulnerability - too risky.
Outside the room is isolation - too painful.
So they stay right at the threshold: close enough to feel connection, far enough to avoid danger. Half in. Half out. Never giving enough to be hurt. Never stepping back enough to be forgotten. And without meaning to, they hold others in that doorway too - waiting for clarity that never comes.
"You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never let the results be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction." (Bhagavad Gita 2.47)
Love fully. Retreat when necessary. Vulnerability is not weakness, it is the only path to intimacy, growth, and liberation from fear. If your worth comes from someone else’s reaction, everything will feel risky. But when your worth sits inside you, giving love stops feeling like losing power.
Not everyone is here to humiliate you.
Not everyone is here to leave.
Not everyone is the past.
Your Control Ends At Your Actions, Not At How Others Receive You
People who fear humiliation tie their entire identity to how someone responds. If someone leaves, they feel unworthy. If someone rejects them, they feel defective. The internal logic becomes: “I won’t risk giving anything that can be used to shame me later.” Over-attachment leads to suffering - not because love is bad, but because the self hasn’t been separated from someone else’s approval.
Humiliation only hurts this deeply when a person’s identity isn’t anchored in themselves. They’re terrified.
Terrified that closeness will expose a part of themselves they fear is unlovable.
Terrified that if someone gets too close, the old pain will repeat.
Terrified that giving fully will end with shame, abandonment, or being made to feel small again.
So they do the only thing their nervous system learned to do: stay halfway alive. And the people who care about them end up waiting in the doorway too - hoping one day they’ll believe they deserve to step all the way in.
Why They Pull You Close, Then Push You Away
They pull close because connection feels good. It feels safe for a moment. It feels like relief - someone finally understands them without them having to explain. But the moment they sense real intimacy forming, something inside tightens. Not consciously. More like a reflex born from an old wound:
a memory of rejection,
a betrayal that turned openness into embarrassment.
So the pushaway isn’t about confusion. It’s about survival.
"Do not yield to unmanliness, O Partha; it does not become you. Shake off this cowardice." (Bhagavad Gita 2.3)
Krishna’s teaching is not about condemning fear. It is about acknowledging it, understanding its roots, and then acting with awareness. Fear is protective, but it can also trap the heart in patterns that keep both the self and others at a distance.
Why They Act Possessive But Stay Undefined
They want closeness. They want someone there. They want emotional presence. But “defining it” feels like stepping into a space where they can be left, exposed, or hurt again. Undefined relationships offer a strange comfort: not fully in, not fully out - connected, but not committed to the point where loss can devastate.
"Perform your duties established in yoga, O Dhananjaya, abandoning attachment. Be even-minded in success and failure. Equanimity is called yoga." (Bhagavad Gita 2.48)
They are shaken because past pain is still alive inside them. Their nervous system still believes love = danger. The healing begins when they learn: Pain from the past is not pain from the present. You are safe now, the danger is not here.
Why They Give Emotional Intensity But Avoid Depth
Intensity is safe. Depth is not. Intensity can be turned on and off - it’s a surge, a moment, a wave. Depth requires being settled, consistent, vulnerable. And consistency is dangerous to someone who learned early that stable things collapse suddenly. So they stay in a space where they can feel, but not be held. Where they can open the door slightly, but never enough for someone to step fully in.
The Gita reminds us: your true self cannot be humiliated. What seems like rejection is often only a reflection of the ego, not the soul. Pulling back won't protect you from pain - it only repeats the pain in a different form.
Why They Charm, But Fear Giving Too Much
Charm is a shield. It lets them connect without revealing themselves. Charm allows interaction without intimacy. It creates warmth without risk. Giving too much is terrifying because it hands another person access and people with access have, in their past, caused harm.
The fear is not “I don’t want to love.” It’s “If I give too much, I’ll lose myself.”
The lesson here is subtle: Withdrawal and guarding are natural, but conscious awareness can prevent the pattern from harming ourselves or others. To stop fearing depth, you must first meet your own depth. You cannot share what you have not dared to explore.
The Emotional Doorway They Live In
The most accurate way to describe this pattern is this: They live in an emotional doorway.
Inside the room is full vulnerability - too risky.
Outside the room is isolation - too painful.
So they stay right at the threshold: close enough to feel connection, far enough to avoid danger. Half in. Half out. Never giving enough to be hurt. Never stepping back enough to be forgotten. And without meaning to, they hold others in that doorway too - waiting for clarity that never comes.
Love fully. Retreat when necessary. Vulnerability is not weakness, it is the only path to intimacy, growth, and liberation from fear. If your worth comes from someone else’s reaction, everything will feel risky. But when your worth sits inside you, giving love stops feeling like losing power.
Not everyone is here to leave.
Not everyone is the past.
Your Control Ends At Your Actions, Not At How Others Receive You
People who fear humiliation tie their entire identity to how someone responds. If someone leaves, they feel unworthy. If someone rejects them, they feel defective. The internal logic becomes: “I won’t risk giving anything that can be used to shame me later.” Over-attachment leads to suffering - not because love is bad, but because the self hasn’t been separated from someone else’s approval.
Terrified that closeness will expose a part of themselves they fear is unlovable.
Terrified that if someone gets too close, the old pain will repeat.
Terrified that giving fully will end with shame, abandonment, or being made to feel small again.
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