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I recently read about this concept called neuroception, coined by Stephen Porges. He’s basically talking about the brains ability to intuitively anticipate and react to our partner’s body language and social cues. Porges says that neuroception has a lot to do with whether we feel safe with our partners.
So the question is, do you feel safe?
I’m not asking about abuse. I’m asking whether or not you feel emotionally safe in your relationships. Truth be told, there are many individuals who don’t feel safe in relationships not just because their partners aren’t exuding safety but also because they themselves have experienced feelings of unsafety in their earlier relationships.
A little self disclosure here. There were several times in my relationship with my husband that I did not feel emotionally safe. It took me a while to realize that some of my early relationships had a really significant impact on that. I had always been hyper vigilant to anything that felt like irritability, anger or frustration. Guess what? In relationships those feelings are gonna come up and sometimes they are gonna be directed at you. Unfortunately, in my relationship my way of responding to that was to become emotionally flooded and shut down. This in turn led my husband to believe that I just didn’t care. And that in turn led him to feel more frustrated and irritable which triggered more shutting down for me. See how that doesn’t work? Neither of us knew what we were doing to each other or why. We had to do some work to figure it out.
So how can we feel emotionally safe?
1. Get to know your partners history.
2. Communicate your thoughts and fears and challenges.
That’s a start.
3. Go to therapy if you need to.
4. Invest time and energy into your relationship.
5. Value your partners feelings even if you don’t understand them.
Emotional safety is important! If you don’t have it, work on it!
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