Part 2: Evaluating Safe Relationships - Tactics
In my previous article on evaluating your relationships, I outlined how to evaluate all of your relationships. As a follow-up, I wanted to dig more into ways to evaluate your relationships to ensure someone is “safe”.
The key is to evaluate if this relationship is serving your higher good. Relationships are to bring the best out in us, not the worst. If you’re feeling exhausted, unheard, continually frustrated, this relationship is not meeting your needs and it’s time to really evaluate what’s going on.
Are you truly, unapologetically LOVING YOU?
When we’re not unapologetically, full-heartedly loving ourselves, we will continue to attract the wrong types of people – the self-absorbed & emotionally stunted. The users and abusers.
When we aim to please others above ourselves, 1 of 2 things will happen:
- We will attract the users and abusers who will take advantage of our time, gifts, money, etc. in ways that will deeply injure our souls
- We will repel healthy people because they can sense you’re not being authentic & a true connection is not possible
When you give too much, you’re not loving yourself.
When you don’t trust your gut, you’re not loving yourself.
When you say yes when you really mean no, you’re not loving yourself.
Ways to get past this are:
- Watch your inner dialogue of negative self-talk and reframe with positive affirmations
- Forgive yourself daily – give yourself the compassion you give to others
- Remind yourself that you’re doing your best
- Get really comfortable with uncomfortable feelings (they’re just feelings and will fade)
- Affirm yourself that people’s opinions of you have nothing to do with you and everything to do with their perceptions
- Explore what you really want in life and unapologetically go for it
Are you truly being heard & understood?
With unsafe people, the conversation will always go back them. Whether it’s their needs or simply their story, they struggle to consistently mirror you and be curious enough to be in your shows. You’ll see a lack of multi-faceted questions.
Here’s an exercise you can do:
1) Bring up a topic that is vulnerable or difficult for you to discuss with them.
Note: you may want to ask “is now is a good time?” to be sure you have agreement. Also, it’s suggested this is a topic you’ve emotionally worked through already in order to stay present to test this out.
2) As you’re discussing, ask yourself – are they asking me questions to truly understand my experience? Are they inserting their own story or advice without fully knowing my story?
3) If you’re noticing a shift in the conversation to them or away from your topic, be bold and let them know you’re not feeling fully heard right now. Watch how they respond and take a mental note to write down in your journal afterwards.
4) After the conversation, write down as much as you remember about the conversation and your feelings. Give yourself time and space to really feel and think through the situation and the person.
5) If you’ve found time and time again, the conversation always leads back to them, you never feel fully heard or understood, or you’re constantly given advice or an attempt to “fix” your feelings, please know you’re dealing with an emotionally immature at best or a manipulator and perhaps narcissist at worst.
Ultimately, the choice is yours in how you decide to move forward. I will caution that individuals who continually display self-absorbed communication often takes years to growth and development to be a fully functioning, emotionally mature adult. I would advise if you believe the person you’re dealing narcissistic, do more research (check out my blog post on the 5 Core Traits of A Narcissist) and even get some help to discuss and understand your situation. Narcissists are master manipulators and liars and it’s best to exit the relationship as soon as you can to protect your health.
Be you and all will fall into place – You’ve got this!
<3, Jess