Every human being has a rich, multi-dimensional inner life — what Dr. Daniel Siegel refers to as the “sea” inside of us – our thoughts and feelings, our memories and reflections, our hopes and wishes, our hurts and disappointments, and the nuanced ways these things shift and emerge throughout our day and our life.
This is our essence. The truth of who we are. And yet, as avoidants, we often have difficulty sharing it. We prefer to keep things inside. Why?
Being Deeply Known Creates Security
As children, we experience emotional safety and security when our caregivers consistently see and appreciate our inner world – when they see the “sea” that lives within us and somehow delight in it and welcome it.
To know that we are known and seen at this level – and still loved. To know our inner world exists within the inner world of our closest others. That is safety. That is belonging.
When our turmoil and distress, our pain and confusion, our anger and resentment, our longing and desires are met with love and encouragement and attunement and care, we are soothed and comforted at the deepest level of our being. Our body relaxes.
And we come to believe and know that close relationships are safe, soothing and important.
When Caregivers Don’t Sea
But when our caregivers are unable to see our sea, when they are too distracted or self-absorbed or narcissistic or preoccupied with their own needs, a profound loneliness sets in.
Since our inner world is invisible to our close others, we learn to stop sharing it. We begin to doubt the value and importance of our own thoughts and feelings. We begin to prioritize listening to and attuning to the inner world of others.
We learn to keep our own counsel, to keep our inner world close to the vest.
We thus come to expect that our close others can’t be counted on for support. That intimate relationships are generally unsupportive; that they are not places where we can be fully ourselves and deeply seen and felt and known.
As adults, then, we prioritize self-sufficiency, independence and emotional detachment. We minimize our need for intimacy, emotional attunement, connection and belonging.
In other words, we become avoidant.
Avoidants Have Learned That Sharing Is Unsafe
As avoidants, we have grown accustomed to withdrawing into our own “sea inside” for solace, refuge and comfort. It is the place we retreated to in our early years. It is where we feel most at home.
In response to stress or distress, especially relationship distress, we take refuge in our minds, our thoughts, our creative imagination, our work, or other compulsive distractions and habits.
We don’t go a great job of sharing our inner world with others or reaching out to others for help with our feelings – because experience has taught us that sharing ourselves is unsafe and unfulfilling.
By not sharing ourselves, we reenact the originating conditions of our avoidance.
We recreate a world where no one sees and no one knows the essence of who we are. We prefer to be alone.
That’s because our internalized expectation – developed for very good reasons based on early relationships – is that doing so is unsafe or pointless.
Our expectation is that others will not particularly understand or take interest or care, or that whatever we share will be argued with, debated, dismissed or used against us, or misunderstood or twisted.
We expect – and often this expectation is so ingrained as to be virtually unconsciously – that sharing ourselves will be met with disinterest or debate or shame or will result in unwanted advice or judgment, criticism or invalidation. And that we’ll end up feeling even more alone in the process.
This expectation is so hardwired, we hardly even recognize that we have learned to live inside a bubble of interiority and aloneness. Our default state is to be alone.
Cultivating The Art and Practice Of Self-Disclosure
Our attachment needs as adults are as powerful and primal as they are for children.
Human beings are hardwired by evolution to belong, to feel safe with our most intimate partners. We need these close others to know us, see us, understand us, appreciate us and validate us.
And the way we experience that is by sharing our inner world with close others — and having it received and reflected back to us.
To undo our avoidance and experience emotional safety and intimacy in our relationships, we must begin to act contrary to our learned tendencies.
We must update our beliefs to acknowledge the truth: that our inner world is important, that sharing ourselves is how we experience love and intimacy, and that we deserve to have all of ourselves seen and known and loved.
When others attune to the inner world that we are sharing, we feel known, seen and safe. We grow in emotional bondedness. We experience intimacy and well-being.
Our beliefs and expectations are challenged and updated. And we begin to see relationships as a source of comfort, security and fulfillment.
Key Insights
- As avoidants, we learned that sharing our inner world with others is unsafe and unfulfilling.
- Healing avoidance involves growing comfortable with self-disclosure to our close others: sharing our thoughts, feelings, creative musings, preferences, hopes, fears, regrets, and everything in between, on a moment to moment basis.
- Emotional safety and intimacy emerge when our sharing is met with validation, concern, care and interest.
- Our partner may not do this all the time – they too are human and imperfect — but working through this together is part of how we create secure and fulfilling love.
Reflection Exercise
- Try to note how often you hold back from sharing what you are thinking and feeling.
- Can you begin sharing yourself more fully in your key relationships? Can you share what your day was like? What your ideas for the future? What you like about your hobbies? Why something bothers you or excites you?