5 Emotional Safety In Your Relationship Tips
When it comes to having a loving and healthy relationship, emotional safety is paramount. Building trust with someone and feeling secure enough to be honest and vulnerable with them are two important aspects of relationship building.
Put another way, emotional safety is the ability to feel comfortable enough to genuinely express yourself with another person and show up as your most true self.
There are two sides to emotional safety. Your spouse will be more receptive to your actual self when you feel emotionally comfortable and can express yourself fully. Furthermore, when both individuals in a relationship feel comfortable, it creates a safe atmosphere in which a deeper and more loving connection may develop between the two.
It is important to be safe.
In violent relationships, there is no such thing as emotional safety. If you are a victim of abuse, whether physical or emotional, you have a number of alternatives for getting assistance. Reach out to a trusted friend, family member, or therapist, or contact a domestic abuse hotline if you need assistance.
What are the advantages of being in an emotionally secure relationship?
When you find yourself in an emotionally secure relationship, there is a good probability that you will benefit from it in a variety of ways. The following are some advantages of emotionally secure relationships:
You have a sense of being respected and valuable.
You have the freedom to be completely yourself without fear of being judged.
You may be honest about your flaws without fear of being exploited.
You have the confidence to communicate and express yourself without fear.
You have the sense of being seen, heard, and understood.
The most crucial thing to remember is that an emotionally secure relationship fosters a deeper bond.
According to Brené Brown, author and postdoctoral researcher of social work at the University of Houston, “connection is the energy that consists of individuals when they feel seen, heard, but instead valued; when they can give and receive without feeling judged; and when they derive nourishments and strength from the relationship.”
5 Emotional Safety in Your Relationship tips
5 techniques for establishing emotional safety in your relationship
Do you have questions about how to establish emotional safety or are you confused where to begin? To help you foster trust and vulnerability in any relationship, we’ve broken it down into seven practical steps.
1.Respect for limits and informed consent
By creating personal limitations, setting and respecting boundaries may help to strengthen the sense of safety and security in a partnership. Your spouse will get insight into your limitations when you communicate them to them. They will then be more likely to share theirs with you as well. Consider boundaries as a way of not just defending yourself, but also safeguarding your connection with another person.
It is important to establish boundaries in all aspects of a relationship, whether they be physical, sexual, intellectual, emotional, or financial in nature. When you establish a boundary, it is critical that both you and your partner adhere to it. Here are some examples of boundaries that help to maintain emotional safety:
maintaining your dignity when revealing personal information gradually conserving your time by not overcommitting and asking for space when you need alone time expressing your degree of comfort with sexual intimacy
Pay close attention to how you communicate nonverbally.
Emotional safety is ensured via the use of body language.
If you are married, whether you know it or not, your spouse is constantly interpreting your facial expressions such as vocal tone, eye shape, posture, and other micro expressions. “If you approach your partners with hard gaze, tightly squeezed lips, and short phrases, they may not feel comfortable,” says Dr. Jake Porter, a certified professional counselor in Houston who specializes in relationship issues.
In his words, “the important here is to recognize that we are individually accountable not just for the words we speak, but also for the manner in which we communicate them.”
Practicing paying attention to your nonverbal communication before you approach your partner is a wonderful strategy to prepare yourself. Take a moment to consider the question, “What am I sending with my body language right now?”
2.Be a listener who participates in the conversation.
When it comes to maintaining a good relationship, active listening is essential because individuals need to be heard and understood in order to feel comfortable and valued. In the words of Dr. Isabelle Morley, a registered clinical psychologist in Massachusetts, “active listening” means “putting aside your barriers and distracting thoughts and actually taking in what your partner is saying.”
“Being able to actively listen means that your spouse will feel comfortable telling you about any anxieties or difficulties that occur,” she continues. “Instead of allowing the situation to worsen or your spouse to get resentful, you’ll be able to handle it promptly and simply,” she says.
Active listening may be practiced in a variety of ways, including:
nonverbal indicators of listening such as smiling, nodding, and keeping eye contact asking your partner questions or requesting clarification summarizing or thinking back on what was said expressing your agreement or disagreement with what was said
3.Transparency should be practiced.
Transparency is a critical component in developing trust and emotional safety in a relationship. You may reduce the possibility that you or your spouse are concealing anything from each other by practicing transparency with them.
“General openness about your ideas, emotions, and activities is a wonderful approach to create trust, communication, and security,” says Morley. “You don’t have to disclose every detail of your life with your spouse,” she adds.
4.Give your spouse the benefit of the doubt if you don’t know what to do.
The concept of giving your spouse the benefit of the doubt is refraining from passing judgment and instead being intrigued about the reasons behind their actions. “Most people’s motives are subconscious, and they are often tied to the baggage that they bring to the relationship,” says Rabbi Shlomo Slatkin, a licensed imago relationship therapist in Baltimore.
“When we stop criticizing and making up tales about why our spouse did what they did, we begin to see them in a more favorable light, coming from a place of compassion and understanding,” he continues. “We may not agree with them, but we can at the very least provide a secure atmosphere that is free of conflict,” she says.
6.Establish a culture of responsibility and follow-through
Following through demonstrates to your spouse that you are trustworthy and that you place a high importance on the connection. When you commit to something and follow through on it, you are actively building trust with your spouse by demonstrating your commitment to him or her. However, it is not necessary to complete the task in a single day.
Making it possible for your spouse to witness your persistent effort, even if it is in modest increments, demonstrates your dedication to the relationship. Keep your spouse informed of your progress, as this will assist you in holding yourself responsible as well.
7.Take into consideration couples or relationship counseling.
The viewpoint of a mental health professional may assist persons in relationships in developing emotional safety by concentrating on how to cope with conflict rather than on the nature of the issue in question.
In Porter’s words, “couples therapy develops emotional safety by assisting couples in understanding how they operate together as a system.” I’m less interested in the substance of what they’re fighting over than I am in the process of how they’re fighting when I deal with couples, says the author.
If they concentrate on the subject of a disagreement while I mediate it, he says, “they will wind up right back in the therapy office the next time they can’t come to an agreement,” he says. “Instead, by assisting them in developing a new method for how they handle conflict, we may position them for success as life continues to present them with obstacles.”
Let’s take a look at the big picture.
When it comes to having a good and happy relationship, emotional safety is essential. There are a plethora of approaches to establishing emotional safety, and some may be more effective for you than others. Consider experimenting with a few of the strategies we’ve found and determining which ones are the most effective for you and your spouse.
When emotional safety is established, the consequence is a connection based on mutual trust, respect, and unwavering support. Not only will you feel more seen, heard, and acknowledged, but you will also feel a sense of belonging to yourself and your partner as a result of the process. Try to be patient with one another, and then watch as the advantages of being open and vulnerable begin to manifest in your lives.
5 Emotional Safety in Your Relationship tips
