Creating Safety and Security in Yourself and Relationships
Creating Safety and Security in Yourself and Relationships
Focus on safety to reignite intimacy, flirtation, and play in your relationships
Security is the foundation for many of the wonderful aspects of relationships: playfulness, silliness, great sex, authenticity, and depth. Sometimes when a client has reached out to me to create a healthier relationship, or to have better sex, the root cause was a lack of safety in their relationship to be their authentic selves. This lack of safety numbs intimacy, authenticity, and vulnerability.
I’ve noticed in both my own life and with my clients the temptation to bypass the need for security and instead shortcut to get to the good stuff: hot sex, that wonderful flirtatious banter they once had, or space and freedom to be themselves and pursue their dreams. However, those are all products of security.
In the sex therapy profession, safety is known as the foundation for arousal for most people. If you want better sex, consider working on safety, not buying lingerie. If you want a more playful relationship, consider creating a practice of allowing edit-undos / celebrating mistakes, not telling more jokes. Create the conditions necessary for the fun stuff to arise, instead of quick fixes.
In this post I explore 7 aspects of creating security in your relationships and in dating.
Security is earned, not freely given: Your Insecurity is Wise.
Security is co-created
Conflict is an essential ingredient for security
Security comes from creating a beautiful garden you both want to come back to, not a big fence around the garden
There is no such thing as full security
Your relationship with your insecure self is foundational to security
Your relationship with your partner’s insecure self is foundational to security
Security is earned, not freely given: Your Insecurity is Wise.
A client of mine started dating someone and reported feeling insecure. My client was mad at themselves and wanted to fix their insecurity. They felt their insecurity was going to ruin the relationship. I wondered aloud: “should you be feeling secure with someone you are just getting to know?” Perhaps the insecurity was showing a true longing: that they want to feel secure with this person and the real truth is they don’t yet; not because something is wrong with them (or their partner), but that they genuinely haven’t built security yet.
Instead of judging the insecurity, what might it be like when you feel the pangs of insecurity to allow the feeling and whisper to yourself “security is important, and we don’t have it yet, and we’re not supposed to” without moving into blame or shame (something is wrong with me or this relationship). Security is earned.
You don’t start a relationship with security. You earn it by going into conflict and seeing that the person wants to repair, by saying no and seeing that the person respects - perhaps even wants - your no, by sharing a scary part of yourself and seeing that your partner still shows up, by seeing them flirt with someone else (see my article on Jealousy) or flaunt their individuality and yet still come back to you. Security is created through experience.
You do not get good at a sport or a craft without the lived experience of investing in the activity. You are not suddenly good at Soccer. Relationships are no different. Think back to when you started to learn to drive: You did not feel confident at driving, yet you were not supposed to. You become confident after the lived experience of driving. Our insecurity was important, there was a time at which our insecurity prevented us from going onto a highway when we didn’t yet feel safe driving on our neighborhood road. Your insecurity kept you safe. Your insecurity can be wise. Your insecurity says “I want to feel safe, but I do not yet”, and that makes sense. You can learn a lot about asking it: “what would help you feel safer?”
See what happens when you validate it and promise to listen to it, does it cling tighter to you or does it give you more space to love?
Security is co-created
Security is a 2-person project. You can create the foundation together.
You learn that you can handle differences by turning towards each other after conflict.
You learn that you can say no in part by having the confidence to say no, but also because your partner does not abandon you but rather affirms your no, even if sometimes it hurts them. Feeling safe to say no creates security to say yes more (especially in sex).
You learn you can show your flawed sides when your partner doesn’t emotionally or physically leaves you (maybe they even celebrate you, or they don’t react negatively when you thought they would).
Conflict is an essential ingredient for security
In my first long term relationship I remember telling my friends that the relationship was great because we “never fought!” Now I’ve since learned that wasn’t something to celebrate. Research shows real security and trust is not because there is no conflict, but rather the result of good conflict and good repairs.
Feeling safe with your partner is a byproduct of conflict and repair. Conflict and differing needs are part of real relationships. Meeting all of each others needs or being available or turned on all the time at the same time is a fantasy. A relationship is a never ending process of coming together and falling apart. A genuine relationship is a never ending process of ruptures.
Repeatedly learning that you both can go from rupture to repair creates trust. You have security because you know you’ve done it before. After the 100th rupture and repair, you might feel safe even when your partner is very mad at you, because you both have gone through this before.
If you don’t fight or avoid conflict because you feel insecurity, you paradoxically will likely stay insecure because your security is hollow and not tested by experience.
Security comes from creating a beautiful garden you both want to come back to, not a big fence around the garden
I notice that many non-monogamous couples focus on creating security in their relationships by making agreements that prevent their partner from doing something, especially things related to falling for other people. These agreements are all about building a big fence around the garden that is your relationship. “If only our fence was bigger and stronger, then we will have security!”
The thing is, real security is not created by building a bigger more powerful fence: more constraining agreements, but rather building a beautiful garden that you both want to come back to. Do you laugh together, play together, have great sex? Do you celebrate each other? Do you affirm each other? Do you like growing with each other? Real security is created by creating something you both want to come back to.
When you create a beautiful garden you’ll naturally want to come back, even if there are other gardens elsewhere.
When your garden sucks, it doesn’t matter how big your fence is.
Focus your agreements less on protecting what you don’t want and more creating what you do want your time spent together to look like. I learned this from my mentor Libby Sinback - she teaches polyamory courses and I’m an assistant in one of her courses right now.
There is no such thing as full security
Insecurity is part of life. Thus no matter how much you both create a beautiful garden or master rupture and repair, you will at times feel insecure. This does not mean your relationship or you are broken. This means you are alive. The only problem with insecurity is hating your insecurity. If when you feel insecure you beat yourself up, or think something is broken, your relationship with your own insecurity is insecure. Part of security is allowing yourself to be insecure, and being able to stay with the emotion of insecurity instead of solving it.
Your relationship with your insecure self is foundational to security
I like to feel the sensations of insecurity, identify where they are in my body, breathe with them, and imagine opening the door for my insecure self and saying come on in for tea. I like to say “ah, feeling secure is important to you” and affirming it’s beautiful longing for me. I try to stay with insecurity as long as I can; validating it without trying to make it go away. Usually when it feels heard in its beautiful intent, the volume of it goes down and it’s just a part of my team, not the captain.
Here’s a guided exercise for when you feel insecurity:
Name it: Ah I’m feeling insecure
Allow it: Visualize insecurity as a part of you. See what they look like, how they walk, what they are wearing, the look in their eyes. Imagine opening the door for this part of you, and tell it “come on in for tea.” Give them a gentle smile and serve it a cup of tea without solving them. This is creating a relationship with your insecure self, instead of abandoning it. The most painful part of an emotion is not another person leaving you during that emotion, it’s you leaving yourself. Sometimes I like to say “this too belongs” which I learned from Tara Brach.
Feel it: By staying with this part, and feeling where it is in your body, breathing with it and allowing yourself to enter into curiosity with how does this feel in my body (aka: I feel my chest pulling apart, I feel my jaw tightening, I feel my fingertips moving towards action, my breathing is tight, my thoughts are faster), you are staying with the emotion and starting to create a relationship with it. Over time you will feel an emotion, but not be scared of the emotion. The first emotion - insecurity - is not the problem, it’s that we run from that emotion and so we never complete the cycle of the emotion.
Validate its good intent for you: I like to take a feeling and say “ah, so ________ is very important to you” to show this part I see it’s beautiful intent. It’s always a very beautiful thing they are hoping for me. Continue to validate it’s emotions:
“Feeling secure and safe in a relationship is very important to you.”
“This person is very important to you - yes”
“I want to be in companionship - yes”
“Feeling safe is really important to me - yes”
Keep this process up and as this part feels heard, especially if you give it a gentle smile and don’t judge the emotion, you will fall back in love with yourself and into open heartedness.
If needed, ask for it’s wisdom:
“What would make you feel safe/ what can you ask for to seed the feeling of the security in the relationship?
What if insecurity isn’t the problem? What if the answer lies within allowing insecurity?
What if insecurity is the answer, not the problem?
What if trying to get rid of insecurity is what creates suffering, not insecurity itself?
Can you sit with insecurity without solving it or escaping it?
Your relationship with your partner’s insecure self is foundational to security
When your partner becomes insecure, sad, scared, ashamed, rejected, etc, are you able to separate your emotions from theirs or do you start to feel those painful emotions as well?
When he/she/they are in a heightened state, do you then run from them, or jump into deep problem-solving or try to save them from their feeling instead of holding space?
Ask yourself who is it for: Are you helping them to regulate their discomfort, or your own? If so, you might be creating insecurity in your relationship because your partner may sense that their authentic feelings are overwhelming to you when shared. You may need to create more boundaries around your partner’s emotions, work on codependency, or work on your own relationship with these emotions. This is something I am working on in my own life. As Dr. Alexander Solomon says “what happens inside me impacts we.” So if you’re feeling overwhelmed by your partner's big emotions you may also be co-creating insecurity.
In Conclusion
Tending to your relationship with insecurity rather than denying its existence, is a foundational relationship skill. Each time you stay with your partners’ - or your own - insecurity without running from it, solving it, or becoming it, you move towards creating a genuine relationship between yourself and your insecure parts.
If you can create a culture of allowing mistakes and having compassion you will create more stability in your relationship. A phrase I learned from my mentor Libby Sinback to invoke compassion is: “Everyone is doing the best they can with the tools they have available, including me.” I use this phrase in my head often.
When this relationship is stable, temporary emotions won't push you to withdraw, self-ridicule, compare, or hide because you have built a grounded relationship with insecurity. See what happens when you allow your insecurity to be felt instead of pushing it away. See what happens when you trust that it’s telling you about an important need. Lastly, if you can relate with compassion to your partner's insecurities, you will often relate to your own insecurities with compassion - and vice versa.