Society today is very unpredictable, but our loving relationship should not be. A loving relationship should be stability building, consistent and deeply caring because as human-beings we are built for safety. Safety is our primary emotional need, greater than all of our other emotional needs including sex. Sex without a foundation of safety and connection may be thrilling and meet our excitement and bodily needs, but will most likely not build a lasting relationship. Because safety is the primary need for us as human-beings. Children must have safety in their lives to help them to reach their potential, via a strong, safe male and female support system and beyond this to the outer family or social circle, but we need safety as adults too, especially in a loving relationship.
So, what do I mean by safety?
We need to know that the person we are choosing to be with, actually has our best interests at heart. Neither care nor love can be faked. We can instinctively sense safety and sincerity too, some people would call this intuition which is neither right nor wrong, but we are actually hard-wired neurophysiologically to sense safety and other aspects of safety. Our neurological system is incredibly sensitive to accomplish this: we are sensing, listening, watching all the time to know whether a person is threatening or safe. Yes trust builds, and we relax more into relationships but this happens over time. Relationships only deepen over time when care and safety is there.
Be mindful everything affects us as human-beings unless we are socio-paths, which most of us are not. If we have a relationship with someone at work, or an ex for example, and this relationship is unsafe, reactive and so perhaps there is fighting in communication. This will throw off our safety navigation system as a cascade of emotions run through our body and mind to prepare us for survival. These emotions can stay in our system long-term and can build up due to implicit and explicit memory. Basically, how we store cognitive, and emotional events and experiences. If we don’t clear these emotions via caring friendships, coaching or therapy, etc. we can feel traumatized. This stressed state is not good long-term for anyone’s health as it lowers immune function. We need pro-social, loving, caring positive relationships. We are built to support each other.
The reality is a loving relationship will require a 9/10 amount of care and support, whether to a child or an adult, so this child or person is nurtured and so reaches their potential. Because dependent love will never work long-term, wanting a person to do what we want. We need to help our children and partner to grow into what they want to. I also don’t say 10/10 because this is unrealistic and too much pressure, we are all human so we are going to make mistakes!
If you are struggling with a relationship that has broken down and so reactive due to diminished or an end in respect for one another, remember your safety navigation may be off with interactions with others as the stress-based emotions affect us. Surges of negative stress hormones and emotions from an unsafe environment affect the way we think and there will be a lot more adrenalin in your system. We may have cognitive thinking like ‘we are not good enough’ if a child, or ‘we have to sort our life out’ if an adult, when actually all we need is secure relationships and safety. So, build the structure you need to return to a safe, secure life, and from this place optimism will flow back into your heart and mind.
It is, the most natural of things to feel safe in the arms of another you care about, and to know they care about you. It is why we feel peaceful in the safe arms of another. This is more natural than driving a car, or working on a computer, yet we have become more accustomed to inhuman habits, and lost touch of what’s important and needed to us as prosocial, loving, human-beings. But if you are traumatized from a difficult relationship or an upheaval in life this will affect your ability to relax into this, you are doing nothing wrong, just work to clear the emotions, as long-term this is not good for health and work out who is safe in your life, and build those relationships.
Safe, stable and fun relationships will build your life, and if you have children safe, stable and fun relationships will dramatically help to build their lives too. Safety is our primary emotional need, we have around ten other emotional needs, but this need should be at the forefront of our heart and mind everyday, to build a great life and to help children to flourish too.
