Feeling safe being loved
What would that be like?
Have you felt unsafe letting others love you? Have you felt unsafe when someone says they love you? Were you immediately guarded and reserved? Did you feel a distrust or skepticism about their intentions by telling you they love you?
If so, you’re dealing with one of the major elements of the Love Wound:
No one will love me.
This was something I explored a long, long time in my healing journey. It constant challenged me and sabotaged my relationships with others. Friendships were shallow because of it. Dating and intimate relationships were scarce and fraught with anxiety and confusion.
All because I didn’t trust others would really love me as I am and that I was not lovable.
As I healed the Love Wound, things began to shift.
Once I began feeling lovable and worth being loved, I could see how people I love had used love against me. This got me exploring the idea of Safe Love.
I learned safe love about knowing who is safe to share love with and receive love from. Knowing who is safe is easily discovered by watching their behaviors.
Below is what I’m teaching students in week 6 of HEAL about safe love and how to detect safe people:
“Love needs to be safe. It needs to be deeply safe and secure.
But love wasn’t safe for us. It was unreliable. It was unavailable to us. It was used to control or dismiss us. Sometimes it simply wasn’t there at all.
And then we felt like we’d caused this to happen. It is a very natural thing for the child mind to do that. That is because the child brain is naturally self-centered and hasn’t developed the awareness of external factors are at play.
This kind of awareness grows as we mature into adults. We begin to develop was is called, “theory of mind”. This means we are aware that others have a different point of view, different experiences, and have a different take on the world (and it is all ok).
This is how we begin to develop deep empathy and connection with others and ourselves (as long as we’re in a safe space to do so).
As we heal, we need to begin to consider a different point of view on Love. You see, for love to become safe again, we need to see that love was never the problem or the cause. It was the person that was.
Take that in for a moment.
Love didn’t hurt or harm you. The person you loved and you trusted did.
This is a distinct separation that helps you begin to see that love wasn’t a threat at all. You see, love and loving someone and being loved isn’t a risk once we know how to identify people who are SAFE to love and let love us.
Safe people have very distinct differences in how they behave versus unsafe individuals.
Safe people:
Respect our boundaries and our no’s
Respect our feelings and actively listen
They do not pressure us or shame us
They ask questions and ask permission
They make space for us in their lives
They own their behaviors and mistakes
They have a life of their own and they invite you into it
They are kind and generous They build us up and promote our best selves
This is distinctly different from Unsafe People:
Dismiss our emotions
Shame or shun our boundaries
Push past boundaries
Make us feel crazy through gaslighting and questioning our feelings and perspectives
Attack our character and sense of self
Use us for benefits
Discard us when we draw up boundaries
Ignore our complaints We often feel like we’re walking on eggshells or wondering what we did wrong
…”
To really thrive in our relationships, we must heal our relationship to Love and build the awareness of safe love in our lives. I help you get this through HEAL’s clearing tools on shame, guilt, fear, and fatigue, and its daily integrative meditations that help remove the shame from your identity and integrate love into who you are, giving you a new experience of yourself to live from.
One student says,
“The week 6 DIM (daily integration meditation) is really beautiful. Another one where I ended up as a puddle by the end. I found it very warm and believable. I had the most resistance to the part about people wanting my thoughts and opinions, but it passed quickly. ”
This is just one day of clearing on this! Big change is coming in their life as they continue forward.
Heal the Love Wound, heal your life!