Safety and Connection: Part 1

“Emotional safety enables us the freedom to collaborate, dream, be wildly creative, share bold ideas, feel increased compassion, and express ourselves freely with one another.” Ellen Boeder

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My work as a therapist is informed by theories that make sense of how and why humans rely on connection to one another. We understand through John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory that humans are wired to bond: it’s imperative to our survival as children, and to our ability to thrive as adults. We’re also wired to protect ourselves from the devastation of disconnection.

Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory helps us better understand how our nervous system relies on feelings in our body to assess our level of risk and safety around us, and takes these cues or triggers and responds accordingly. This is informed both by what’s happening now, and by what you’ve experienced in the past (trauma).
Your body is in constant and unconscious analysis about how and when you are safe to reach for connection.

When you are in emotional distress, you move into a different physiological state. We commonly call this things like ‘being flooded’, ‘being triggered’, being in ‘fight or flight mode’. Your heart rate increases, stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are released, and your brain function decreases in your prefrontal cortex (where your ‘executive functioning, i.e., the grounded and mature part of you that has perspective) and increases in your amygdala (the fear center — think fight or flight!). Your thinking gets more rigid and catastrophic, and narratives regarding your deepest fears are activated.
The bind is, in this state, “when we don’t feel safe, our bodies don’t want to engage, connect, or provide the emotional warmth our relationships need to thrive,” thus perpetuating the cycle of disconnect in relationship.

In relationships, this can show up in very subtle and nuanced ways. Many couples get stuck in cycles of disconnection that go like this: Partner A is critical, Partner B counter-attacks, Partner A becomes flooded and shuts down, Partner B feels abandoned. Neither partner feels emotionally safe or secure. Watch this video on Taming the Cycle for a great example about this underlying emotional meaning when couples get stuck in their cycles of conflict.

When you feel hurt or afraid, how do you in turn contribute to a sense of emotional unsafely in the relationship? Do you pull away, shut down, or get angry and attack back?

Can you notice the instinct to self-protect in those moments? Notice with compassion, that you are just doing your best to keep yourself safe right now. But what if you could do something different with that fear or hurt? What if you could bring that to the relationship to be cared for and responded to instead? The body needs the support of warm and safe cues around it to help it feel safe to open up. 

We are so deeply wired to connect. But just as strong, our brain and body are constantly on the lookout for what they sense as unsafe or dangerous, emotionally. For people who have not experienced safe love, you have likely learned that connection and closeness are actually dangerous. Many people benefit from doing individual work around their childhood trauma and other relational experiences to help their body to give and receive vulnerability in safe relationships now. You may also benefit from working on these dynamics, and working to build emotional safety in your relationship through couples therapy.

What you can begin to do:

  • In the relationship: Consider what you need when you are feeling emotionally unsafe. What would help you to regulate at this moment, and to know that you are okay? It may be a reminder from your partner, and soft glance, or a hug. Could you ask your partner for that?

  • Process your part: Do your work on your traumas and experiences that have shaped your nervous system. Seek support in your healing, and in your ability to regulate your fear and hurt when it is activated in relationship. Physiological self-soothing allows us to show up with our whole-hearted self in the face of relational disconnection. From this place, we can better offer and receive the emotional safety that both partners are needing at that moment. (EMDR is a great method for doing this work in therapy).

  • Normalize the physiological response: Begin to identify and voice your body’s responses to emotional disconnection. Notice how you show up in the relationship from the protected stance, and perpetuate emotional unsafely in the relationship. Attend to safety and connection first. If this is difficult, agree to take a break, at least acknowledging the shift in body response that is blocking the connection.

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