Practice Emotional Security: Skill 4: Engage in regular and consistent activities that support emotional security

Each MCD Relationship Competency identifies 6 Skills, along with specific practices for learning each. For more context about MCD Relationship Competency 11: Emotional Security, see Skill 1: Using specific neutral observations, share with significant others what emotional security and responsiveness looks like for you, Skill 2: Internally access positive memories and the thought of supportive others in a moment of difficulty, and Skill 3: Seek care and comfort from supportive others when faced with difficulty.

Skill 4: Engage in regular and consistent activities that support emotional security

The activities listed below are largely taken from research on adult attachment. For more, you can read Attachment in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change by Mario Mikulincer, PhD and Phillip R Shaver, PhD.

1. Receive attunement and empathy from others.

2. Cultivate at least one or two relationships in which your needs for stability and predictability are met.

3. Cultivate at least one relationship in which the other person explicitly wants to cultivate and offer presence and responsiveness.

4. Broaden & Build: 

   • Seek out and build secure relationships with supportive others in a variety of contexts.

5. Consistently engage in 3 regulatory behaviors:  

   • Acknowledge and communicate distress with specific observations of present moment experiences and requests for help.

   • Seek  intimacy, closeness, and support.

   • Engage in effective problem-solving and relationship repair.

6. Integrate & Heal: 

   • The integration of experiences which you have avoided thinking about or processing occurs in a safe relationship. When such disowned experiences are shared, felt, and attuned to at somatic, emotional, and mental levels, integration occurs. Receiving empathy is a primary strategy for integration.

7. Identify, articulate, and celebrate a new internal model of what it means to connect with others and enjoy a sense of emotional security.

Practice

Take time to contemplate each item above. For each item, identify a specific example of an experience of that in your life. Remember that no example is too small to name and celebrate.