When Safety Feels Foreign: Learning to Receive What You Didn’t Grow Up With
Emotional safety isn’t just something we crave—it’s something we learn to allow.
There’s a moment I’ve witnessed in countless people I work with—and in myself, too.
You finally find someone who’s kind. Emotionally available. Present.
They listen without interrupting. They don’t walk away when things get messy.
They offer calm. Stability. Care.
And something in you quietly recoils.
You might feel numb or irritable.
Maybe you withdraw, or you suddenly want to pick a fight.
The tenderness of the moment feels unbearable.
And then comes the confusion:
“Why am I pulling away from the very thing I say I want?”
If you’ve felt this, I want to say something directly:
You’re not broken. You’re not sabotaging love.
You’re simply meeting the edge of what your nervous system has learned to expect—and what it still doesn’t quite know how to trust.
When Safety Feels Unfamiliar, It Can Feel Unsafe
We learn what love feels like long before we can speak about it.
If you grew up in an environment where attention was unpredictable, calm was suspicious, or closeness was conditional, then your body developed strategies to survive emotional instability.
You learned to read the room before you spoke.
You learned to stay ahead of rejection.
You learned that intimacy often came at a cost.
Even now, when someone meets you with warmth, attunement, or stillness, it may not feel soothing—it may feel foreign.
I remember someone once said to me:
“Eric, I feel safer when there’s tension. At least then I know what to do.”
And I understood that. Because when safety is unfamiliar, stillness can feel like danger.
When your system equates love with activation, you may seek out intensity—not because you like drama, but because you associate it with connection.
That’s the heart of it.
How This Pattern Plays Out
You may not consciously push love away. But the pattern is subtle, persistent:
You feel disconnected or bored around people who treat you well
You feel most alive when there's a chase, a rupture, a high
You withhold when someone gets too close, then ache when they pull back
You question or test consistent love, waiting for it to collapse
You long for stability but unconsciously provoke instability
These aren’t flaws in your character.
They are strategies your body still uses to stay safe.
And they don’t unwind with insight alone.
They change through experience, through being met differently, and through choosing—again and again—not to run.
Learning to Receive: A Practice, Not a Shift
Letting in emotional safety isn’t a light switch.
It’s more like a slow re-entry into your own heart.
You don’t learn to receive by thinking about it.
You learn by staying in the moment just a little longer than your pattern wants you to.
Try this:
When someone affirms you, don’t deflect. Say, “Thank you. I’m letting that land.”
When someone listens fully, resist the urge to fill the silence or change the subject. Stay with the stillness.
When you feel numb during connection, don’t panic. Let the numbness be there without making it mean something’s wrong.
When your partner shows up calmly in conflict, and your body wants to escalate—pause. Let your nervous system register the shift.
These aren’t “techniques.”
They’re micro-practices of allowing.
And over time, they build capacity.
Your system learns: “It’s okay to soften here. It’s okay to stay.”
A Moment of My Own
Not long ago, I found myself sitting across from someone who was offering me the kind of care I wasn’t fully used to receiving.
They weren’t rushing to fix.
They weren’t overwhelmed by my truth.
They simply stayed—calm, steady, attuned.
And I noticed something.
My chest tightened.
My impulse was to crack a joke, change the subject, or retreat into something safer.
But instead, I said:
“This feels kind… and uncomfortable.”
That small moment—naming what was real without running from it—became a doorway.
I didn’t feel instant ease. I felt exposed.
But I also felt possible.
And that was enough to keep going.
Speaking to the Part That’s Still Not Sure
There’s likely a part of you that still waits for love to hurt.
That doesn’t fully believe calm can last.
That scans for the moment everything falls apart.
Don’t exile that part. Meet it.
Say things like:
“I know you learned this for a reason. You were trying to protect me.”
“You don’t have to disappear—I’m not abandoning you.”
“This is new, and it’s okay if it doesn’t feel comfortable yet.”
“We’re safe enough to try.”
That part doesn’t need to be convinced.
It needs to be accompanied.
This Is How Safety Becomes Familiar
This work is slow.
Not because you're failing, but because you’re untangling patterns that once kept you alive.
You may still reach for what’s familiar, even if it hurts.
You may flinch at softness, even while longing for it.
You may test people, pull away, come close, then brace again.
And yet, something in you is shifting—because you’re still here.
This isn’t just about healing your past.
It’s about learning how to stay in love, for real.
To receive care without deflecting.
To let someone’s presence be enough.
To stop bracing, just for a moment.
You’re not too much.
You’re not too late.
You’re learning how to feel safe enough to stay.
Let that be enough, for now.
Let it be a beginning.