How to Make Home a Happy Place Where You Are Loved, Supported and Encouraged

I was drawn by a simple exercise this week, when asked “What did it feel like to be at home (in childhood) and what did it feel like to be around your siblings and parents growing up?” The output of this is our subconscious definition of love, of what feels normal for “home”.

In her article on Why Relationships Hurt, Teal Swan says “If you really think about it, I bet you could come up with a description of what your perfect relationship would feel like. The relationship you consciously want would be unconditionally loving and supportive, intimate and fun. But no matter what you do, you can’t find that relationship. It’s like you are cursed. You keep ending up with partners who make you feel, unloved, unsupported, undervalued, unseen and stressed”.

She makes the point that it’s our subconscious mind, the one that is in charge of our instant biochemical attraction to someone, which is much more primal and in charge of our emotions, which only allows us to become attracted to someone who fits its definition of love. “For many of us” she says “home was a mix of good feelings and bad feelings, but it’s the painful associations that we have with home that cause the problems in our love relationships”. 

I have had a plaque up on my bookcase for a few years that says “Home is our haven, a happy place where we are supported and encouraged, a place where we are loved and can love” so I always knew what my perfect relationship would look like. But certainly going through Teal’s exercise and then looking back at the past and present relationships where there was/is emotional attachment, specifically the negative qualities, the truth of Teal’s premise quickly revealed itself.

She says that becoming aware of our emotional drives is the first step towards becoming vigilant about the partners we choose, and it clears up the confusion we feel in our current relationships by allowing us to see the dynamics for what they are. The more awareness we have about something, the easier it is to make changes according to that expanded awareness.

Recently I have been mentally and emotionally tussling over a close friend who really struggles to express their feelings about anything or anyone, they are what could be termed emotionally unavailable.

It is unusual for me to have friends like this, more often my friend space is the one in which I’ve always taken my emotions to be untangled and brought into awareness, especially close friends. However, this friendship involves some of that biochemical attraction and thus has the potential to be rather entangled.

As I have learned more about healthy boundaries these last few years, one of the key things that sticks with me from Terri Cole’s teachings is her concept of the VIP (very important people) area at your metaphorical table. It’s about placing people “at your table” according to the levels of trust, intimacy and attention they have earned.

Now that was a new concept to me. Family members and those people I had developed love relationships with (based on our biochemical attraction) were historically granted automatic access to the VIP area without any thought to earning trust or healthy boundaries whatsoever.

So it has been an interesting experience to review all my past and present close relationships through a lens of more conscious awareness of the painful associations I have with “home” that cause the problems in my love life.

Specifically a pattern that creates a familiar ache to me is that of attracting emotionally unavailable people. This involves me on a quest to get that person to trust and love me enough that they feel safe to express their true feelings. And then, rather contradictorily, I want those people to see and nurture the real me rather than continue to treat me as a well they drain in order to fill themselves up.

Another friend of mine, who also has a history of over giving in relationships and then left feeling, unseen, undervalued and disrespected, was also likening our love relationships to wells that we try to fill with our love and knowing so that ultimately we can finally see the reflection of our self in those waters i.e. that we are seeking validation through giving to others.

Whereas, being attracted to those wells because of their potential rather than the reality is like sitting on the edges, shouting down encouraging instructions towards the switches that will surely fill their wells, but they simply just flap around in the bottom like a fish out of water, and we pour our love in anyway.

In our conscious knowing my friend and I agree this is unrealistic, unfair and unnecessary because, when we need no one to fill our cup, we stop going to the well. There is no need for someone to do x so I can feel y. That's the point we say "this isn't a compatible match" and move on rather than trying to keep flogging the same looking for a different response.

My friend and I, deep thinkers as we are, also took this into the arena of the degree to which someone is self contained versus dependant on others. But we agreed that, in general terms, the human experience is designed for interdependence, we see ourselves relationally through others and are wired for connection and security in those relationships for our survival.

Her view is that healthy may look something more like “Unless I can see that your well is full and plentiful, I ask nothing of you, because I realise how unfair of me it is to show up in all of my ability to know, and expect you to reach the same knowing as me, so that I can drink from your well”. We both also agree it’s important therefore to fill our own wells rather than expecting someone else to.

For me this has been a journey of self awareness and self respect. Using my knowing to fill up my own well with commitment to self care (which translates in my life as things like regular meditation, swims, beach walks, yoga, reading and so forth) and self respect (which has been about increasing self awareness, committing to self growth, defining and learning to hold boundaries, and learning to pick and choose where – and if – people sit at my table). 

Consciously moving people to different positions at my table has been a process of deciding how much of my personal thoughts and feelings I share with them, how often I interact with them and in what ways, and – in some cases – stopping any interaction at all. This hasn’t and isn’t always an easy process, but it is necessary and empowering, it is what strengthens my new found self respect and self love which – ultimately – attracts more of the kinds of people I consciously want in my life and the home I wish to create.

So who is sitting in the VIP area in your life right now? Are they people who are draining your well and causing you pain? Or are they the kind of people who enhance your feeling of wellness, who amplify all the best parts of you and your experience? And what can you do today to start shifting towards that more positive dynamic?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy When Life Sends You Love Go Follow Your Destiny, You Deserve Kindness, Should We Abandon Happiness as the Impossible Dream? What or Who Reminds You of How Good it Feels to Feel Good? and Surrender to Your Inner Self.  To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.