Emotional Safety
What is it? It is the state of being able to express deep feelings that you’d otherwise keep to yourself knowing that the person you’re telling won’t judge you or look at you different. Knowing that they will understand and empathize with you and see things from your point, that even if they don’t, they will be gentle with you. You can trust them. You can tell them.
Being vulnerable is not a weakness, it is a strength, one we often overlook. Because we live in a world that rewards strength, we learn from a young age to hide our insecurities, our desires and our fears. We hide them so well that sometimes we forget they are there until someone points them out, then we get shattered and hurt because we haven’t had time to process all these emotions and how they made us feel.
When you don’t feel emotionally safe with someone, you keep things at the surface. Even when you’re raging beneath the seemingly still exterior and that rage will eat you from the inside out, it will poison you and eventually you won’t be able to keep it still anymore and things will get ugly. In order to prevent that, you’re going to have to have atleast one person in your life you feel emotionally safe with, one you can talk to about the hard stuff and unwind to, if not a good friend or sibling or partner, you can always pay a therapist.
You can be with several people in your life and even develop long lasting friendships with them without feeling emotionally safe with them. Always being the tough one, keeping things to yourself can sabotage your relationships because believe it or not some of these things that are ‘touchy’ subjects really do affect our behavior. Thoughts are very powerful, even subconscious and repressed thoughts still affect behavior. That is why it is important to be self aware, to know what triggers you and question why and to be able to have atleast one person you can talk to about it.
And if you don’t feel emotionally safe with anyone at all, don’t pressure yourself. Take your time, when you find the right moment with the person who feels right, talk to them. And if they perhaps they blunder and fail to react appropriately, don’t blame yourself for opening up. That’s not on you.
You will find so much growth has been stunted by the things you kept to yourself for your emotional safety, you will let go and begin to grow as a person when you start to discuss your vulnerabilities.
