Many people tend to believe wholeness is the ultimate measure of their emotional health. They like to link it to their success in destroying their limiting beliefs about themselves. They define their wholeness by the migration from their insecure attachment style — whatever it is — to the secure one. What if we start by exploring what characterizes this latter style?
Secure Attachment style
You build healthy emotional boundaries
A quick tip to know whether it is the case could be how you handle some beloved person’s request, which will make them happy, but which is annoying you. It’s not that you don’t feel like doing it. It’s not about time or enough energy. Something in the favor is in phase-shit with your core values.
If you do it anyway, you can be sure you have some work to do concerning your self-respect. Pleasing people whenever is possible is lovely, shows you value the relationship and care. It can even be done with strangers. Thus, I will never stop recommending it.
Doing it at your expense, though, is not healthy and will only leave you with resentment instead of fulfillment.
Keep in mind that those who would be mad at you whenever you start standing for yourself and setting new rules are those who were enjoying taking advantage of you having no healthy boundaries. You will not lose them because they didn’t deserve to be in your world in the first place.
You listen actively
Instead of listening to respond, you listen to understand. Instead of listening to the words, you listen to body language and emotions. Instead of listening with the ears, you listen with the heart. This skill is the combination of your empathy and a mindset shift known as “Seeking first to understand, and then to be understood”. How is that even possible?
Your subconscious program is simply your friend. This makes you able to be present instead of being anxious and self-absorbed. This makes you curious to connect with the person instead of involving your autobiography and making it about yourself.
Ralph Roughton said it best:
When I ask you to listen and you start giving advice, you have not done what I have asked. When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings. When I ask you to listen and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem, you have failed me, strange as it may seem. Listen! All I asked was that you listen; not talk or do — just hear me. I can do it for myself. I’m not hopeless. Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not hopeless. When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself, you contribute to my fear and feeling of inadequacy. But when you accept as fact that I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince you and can get about the business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling. And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious and I don’t need advice.
You are successful in getting your point across
You know exactly what you want and what you don’t and can convey it effectively. This includes being able to clarify your expectations from a relationship and asking for the other party’s ones. The ability to express your thoughts and convictions transparently and plainly is not the only ingredient in getting your point across, though.
Being a person of integrity, and consistently walking your talk contribute to triggering those with whom you’re interacting to make the effort and complete the image themselves, even when you’re at your laziest state of mind and struggling with your eloquence capacity. They walk the extra mile for you because they know who you are on a deep level and that you deserved their trust!
You attend to the little courtesies
If you are a person with a secure attachment style, you know that the small things are the big ones in relationships. You know how to make a person feel seen, validated, respected, understood, and valued. You share yourself completely. You follow up on your real soul discussions, or on some events impacting them and which matter to some degree. You offer your support before being asked for it.
Even when you offer gifts, they are meaningful and personalized. It is not about fancy cars or trips or houses. It is about a deeper connection and creating another magical moment of intimacy through the gift!
You keep your promises
People tend to build their hopes and decisions around promises — especially when it comes to their basic livelihood. And even when it’s about a less vital need, keeping your commitments is showing you care, and this could build bridges of trust that span the gaps of understanding.
You will not be able to understand people from the very first interactions. It takes time, and that’s okay!
You are vulnerable and apologize quickly
It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one’s heart rather than out of pity. The internal security coming from your original Center the principles — by definition unchangeable and timeless — is stable and becomes limitless gradually.
Your Center is the foundation of your love manifestation. If your Center is your children, the love that manifests from that will mostly benefit your children. If your Center is the Principles, the manifestation of your love will benefit humanity.
You are not afraid of people taking advantage of your exposure and vulnerability. You won’t care because your self-love value is courage replacing the unhealthy ego need for protection.