hinarladean

There's a thought that keeps so many relationships holding their shape long after the shape has stopped being true. The thought goes something like this: if I stop reaching, if I stop bridging the gap, if I stop being the one who softens and adjusts and holds the whole thing together, it will all fall apart. So you keep reaching. You play the role your partner needs someone to play. You become the regulated one, the flexible one, the one who understands, the one who doesn't ask for too much...

Before any of us had language for want or need, we had a body. And that body was already learning, long before we could name it, what was safe to reach for and what wasn't. So many of us grew up in homes where children were meant to be seen and not heard, where a want voiced too plainly got called greedy, or too much, and a need voiced too plainly got met with irritation, or silence, or something worse. As children we took what was offered, what was allowed, because that was the only version...

There's a myth we've been sold about safety, and most of us have been quietly organising our whole relational lives around it. The myth goes something like this, out there somewhere is a person who will finally make us feel safe. Once we find them, once we do the work, once we get the relationship right, the risk will stop. The world will soften. We'll finally be able to exhale. I want to gently take that myth apart, because I think it's costing people something. Not the desire for safety,...