Emotional Safety

Loving cannot happen without emotional safety.

I had an argument with my husband last week that wasn’t pretty. I was rude, mean, hurtful. After he left for work, I called him, said awful things, and then, triumphantly hung up on him. About two seconds later this thought occurred to me, “My word, Patti. Haven’t you learned how to love any better than THAT?!”

I spend most of my life walking in peace, walking in love. My career is built around teaching how to do these things. What happened?!

What happened was that I felt emotionally unsafe – and I lashed out in an effort to try to make myself safe again. The irony is, in doing so, I actually took safety from the relationship, and ultimately, from my own self. Being hurtful is not the way to safety. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, “War is not the way to Peace. Peace is the way to Peace.” So it is in relationships: peace is the way to peace; providing emotional safety for your partner is the way to receive emotional safety for yourself.

I truly believe the key to having a joyful, fulfilling relationship is emotional safety. And the key to that is honesty.

Let’s start with honesty. When you look yourself in the mirror, can you honestly say to yourself that you are providing emotional safety for your partner? Can you say that you are doing everything you can to provide it? Can you say that you are consistently and at the deepest level providing it?

So many couples I work with begin therapy believing marriage is about getting. I know they have turned a corner once they start thinking in terms of giving. Love starts really happening when the giving starts really happening. And the giving that needs to happen is providing emotional safety.

Are you doing that? In “Teach Only Love,” by Gerald Jampolsky, Dr. Jampolsky reminds us there are really only two emotions, love and fear. Said another way: if it’s not love, it’s fear. Are you operating out of love or fear? When I was battling my husband last week, I was definitely operating out of fear. Fear that I wasn’t safe, fear that he could hurt me, fear that I wouldn’t get my needs met. Fear, fear, fear.

As soon as I got honest with myself that I wasn’t providing emotional safety – only wanting to get it without giving it – I was able to shift into talking in a reasonable way about what needed to change in our marriage. Miraculously, but no surprise, of course, my husband was then able to hear me. We were then able to resolve the problem.

Relationships always have problems. Life always has problems. I think of it this way: life is messy. It’s like finger painting – fun, but messy. Just when you are beautifully juggling all the balls in the air, an earthquake hits and they go flying. There isn’t a day that goes by that there isn’t something that goes a little – or a lot – wrong. The only difference between good and bad relationships is that good relationships deal with these little and big problems as they come up, and in an emotionally safe way. Are you doing that with your partner?

Let me say a little more about what emotional safety is. It is listening instead of talking. It is letting go of control. It is making room for your partner. It is being open and honest and forthright. It is taking action when your partner is unhappy. It is noticing. It is being gentle and remembering your partner has wounds. It is being kind. It is doing no harm. It is seeing the Light in your partner and their sacredness. It is letting go of demands. It is being fully present and making it safe enough for your partner to be fully present. It is letting go of fear and remembering to love.

Be honest with yourself, are you doing all you can to provide emotional safety for your partner? Or are you just wanting to get what you are not willing to give?

My best regards to you,
Patti