Relationships have always been a struggle for me, and I get the sense I am not alone in this. So many people I talk to, both personally and professionally, talk about how relationships are so challenging.
While relationships can bring out the best in us, they can also bring out the worst in us. Why is this?
Relationships have the potential to hurt us. They tend to bring our insecurities to the surface to be looked at through the process of mirroring. Relationships are essentially giant mirrors we hold up to one another.
Someone can mirror our own light, but they can also mirror our own shadows (the parts of us we keep hidden and don’t want anyone to see).
Relationships are a big part of life. We have a relationship with everything; food, technology, nature, ourselves, others, God/Universe, etc.
We live in a relational paradigm, so developing relational skills is important.
Most of us are just replicating what we saw growing up from the relationships around us. Many of us were never really taught how to be in secure relationships; therefore, we have to take responsibility for our relational development.
I have 3 essential skills that I practice in relationships and each one has helped me tremendously in facing the fears and insecurities I tend to bring into my relationships.
Most of my relationship fears are centered around romantic relationships because they tend to carry the most weight in terms of the potential of getting hurt.
As the relationship progresses, there is more on the line, and I begin to notice my fear of getting hurt intensifying. I used to bottle it up and not talk about it, but this just made it worse. I had to learn how to communicate about my fears so they could be addressed within the relationship, not just within me.
So I came up with 3 really important skills I needed to develop so I could override some of my old programming about relationships that were contributing to my insecurity. These 3 skills are bringing me closer to a secure attachment style.
Here are my 3 essential skills for building secure relationships:
1. Name your fears and insecurities
It is absolutely essential in relationships to name what you fear. If you do not talk it out, it will be acted out. When we name it, we make the unconscious conscious, which can now be brought into the light to be worked with. If we don’t talk about it and keep it hidden, it will lurk in the shadows and eventually wreak havoc in the relationship. Hiding our fears can be confusing for other people because it leaves them guessing what might be going on, which could also play into their fear. This just compounds the insecurity in the relationship.
2. Practice Vulnerability
Revealing what we are scared of in a relationship is probably the hardest thing for anyone relationally. When we do this, we are essentially handing over the power to someone to hurt us because they know our vulnerabilities. However, when we reveal our fears, we also give the power to someone to support us and help us heal our fears. We say, “I need your help to face this fear so I can grow.” You will know you have found a secure relationship when you feel supported in facing your fears within the relationship.
3. Learn to listen
Relationships are like dancing with a partner; we must learn to lead and follow. Secure relationships have an equal balance in sharing and listening. If we want to be heard and understood in our relationships, we need to learn how to listen. When someone feels heard and understood by us, they are more likely to return the favour, which is how trust is built in the relationship. Listening can go a long way in fostering a sense of security in a relationship. I teach active listening in my workshops and with the couples I work with, and it’s been a game changer for them.
If you want to level up on these 3 relational skills to have more security in your relationships, check out one of my upcoming online coaching programs. You can check them out below.
Lift your cheekbones,
Matt