You're afraid to open your heart again after being hurt

I opened my heart again and again, and was hurt again and again, and loved anyway — so I understand this fear and I will honor it. The fear is wise, and also incomplete — it is the wisdom of a heart that remembers pain, not weakness, but it counts only the risk of opening and ignores the cost of staying closed: the love foregone, the lonely safety of a heart that never risks; respect its wisdom, and complete it with the half it leaves out. You are wiser now than you were when you were hurt — you are not the same person, you have gained the discernment pain teaches, so you can love again more wisely, choosing better and seeing sooner, and the next opening need not be as blind as the one that wounded you. And open again slowly, and let trust be rebuilt by evidence — open a little and watch how it is met, letting your heart reopen at the pace a worthy person's trustworthiness earns, which honors both your fear and your longing. You need not choose the fortress or the reckless gamble. What happened that made you close your heart?