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“The Opposite of Rape Culture Is Nurturance Culture,”
Conversely, securely functioning adults are also comfortable with their independence and personal autonomy. They may miss their partners when they’re not together, but inside they feel fundamentally alright with themselves when they’re alone. They also feel minimal fear of abandonment when temporarily separated from their partner. In other words, securely attached people experience relational object constancy, which is the ability to trust in and maintain an emotional bond with people even during physical or emotional separation.
earned secure attachment. Your attachment styles are survival adaptations to your environment and since they were learned, they can also be unlearned.
A person with a fearful-avoidant attachment style who has been engaging in healing work that is moving them towards more secure functioning may initially develop less external reactivity while still experiencing an inner “push/pull” dynamic. The process of resolving their trauma may have enabled them to now choose differently with how they externally respond.
To navigate our relationships from a place of health and wholeness, we need to learn how to manage these seemingly contradictory drives. We need to find ways to feel sovereign without losing our connection to others, and to be in communion with others without losing our sense of self.
In this dance, both partners are left frustrated and unable to get their needs met, often missing that this archetypal pattern has more to do with their inner self than their partner, who is just serving as a mirror reflecting back the parts of them that have been exiled and disowned.
Alexandra H. Solomon defines healthy boundaries as the balancing point where you are able to both connect to another as well as be separate from another, maintaining your own energy and sense of self while your partner maintains the energy that is theirs.
In both cases of porous boundaries, we may find ourselves feeling overly responsible for others, either absorbing or intruding in order to fix, accommodate, people please or overcompensate.
Our fundamental sense of self and sense of safety in the world can be painfully called into question when the ones we are dependent on either can’t keep us safe or are the ones we need protection from.
