Can you give yourself safety if you’ve never experienced being safe? Read on…
Hannah writes:
I am discovering that my whole life was based on feelings of not being allowed to exist, and the total lack of safety and security.
What if your tangle starts at the earliest beginning of your life? How can you give yourself something you never had and you have no idea what that actually really feels like?
Dear Hannah:
I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through that; it sounds really hard.
However, there is hope. I learned from Eugene Gendlin that the caring and love we can give to ourselves does not depend on having received caring and love from others. We don’t have to have experienced love and care and safety in order to give them to ourselves… because our bodies have always known what was right.
You don’t have to first feel secure and loving. All you need to do is say, “Hello, I know you are there,” to the hurt, small, sad parts of you.
If you sense that those young parts of you feel as insecure as if they are standing on ice, then say that to them. “I sense that you feel as insecure as if you are standing on ice.”
And smile at them. And sense if they know you are with them.
It’s all about inner relationship… you are here with the young parts of you that feel this way. They can feel that you are here with them.
You don’t have to be or do anything else than that — just here with them.
Yes, this is a serious matter. There is a lot of suffering if there was no security from the start.
But you can be with the suffering. You can let others accompany you as well.
And step by step, what was always missing can be filled in, no matter how early in your life the absence began.
