Three very great questions, ones I have been struggling with as well. Am looking forward to the responses that will follow.

Thank you for posting what I was thinking!

Because, because, because. Does that help???? Sorry I have no answer expect denial is a much easier way for some people to want to live.

For the same reason that as children, we learn not to put our hands on the hot stove again.

But that instinctual urge to shut down emotionally does more harm than good. A hot stove will always burn but love has many forms, some of which may hurt but a lot of which may heal.

Love is essentially a risk and we just need to decide who is worthy of that risk. Building walls around the heart won't prevent you from getting hurt again. It will only change the source of pain from people to walls.

Because we get it ingrained in our "reptile brain" that situations that cause pain are to be avoided. After burning our fingers, we tend to avoid touching hot things.
Emotional pain is no different - once we experience emotional pain over a situation, the same pain avoidance instinct makes it really hard to go into the same situation again.

My take is that once you have been through a fire...you have to sift through the ashes to see what can be salvaged. After you do that, you are left with sooty hands...it takes some time to get the soot and the smell off!

We all will trust again. There is no doubt in my mind about that, for all of us. We do that every day in this room. We trust in our friends. It will happen again

I'll take a stab at this one.

1) Being self serving or on the other end of the spectrum, self-preservation.
2) Due to the damage inflicted by another in the past, you want to protect yourself. Its only a natural response.
3) Same, as #2, but you have to forgive and move on. We are not meant to be alone. There is some one out there worthy of your trust. That you can believe in.

may be I hope when I have truly let go of the past it will just happen as before

To deny is to be afraid. Trust is earned. Love brings pain! I am sure this is not agreed by many but we learn as time our wisdom acts before feelings. So kidsrock I can not give the true answer yet for I am beside myself as well. I am sorry!

I think the answer is in the 2nd question. Why is it so hard to trust again? Most of us put our trust in the other person and ignored what our "gut" told us, hence denial. I think it's hard to trust others again because we are focused on trusting them instead of ourselves. If we learn to trust ourselves I think the rest, including love, will come.

Hear hear, wistful.

Thanks Sunny, I probably should have added that I'm really struggling with this right now. It really is hard b/c I've spent years ignoring myself in favor of trusting someone who wasn't deserving of that trust.

I think a lot of us ignore ourselves...or at least our own needs in favor of other people's needs. You are working on it now, so the past is the past.