This idea of love is a curious one.

Re: "Love of who we are or fear of showing it."...

The love of who we are is easily, and usually, misunderstood. Is it the egoic self that loves who he/she is or is it an unalloyed love, which is compassion and the totality of all there is?

When one fully explores the sense of self until it disappears then the answer is obvious. Until then all reference returns to the egoic self in an effort to fortify, protect, and hide within it. And this is where fear is held.

Fear is not the opposite of love. Love has no opposite because it is irreducible and fundamental. Fear is the self's mechanism of attempted protection and defense. When the self is exposed as no more than an accretion of thought then fear goes along with it. Until this is realized, at best it remains an intellectual idea or a philosophy.