This kind of R&R can change your life

Rupture and Repair contributes to secure attachment.

What is rupture and repair?

The other day I was sharing a challenging situation with my friend and came out feeling a bit unsettled.

I sat with my “unsettled” and came to understand where it was coming from.

I realized I asked my friend for her perspective before I had a chance to figure out how I was feeling about it, which is something that I tend to do.

What usually happens is that I get even more confused.

If my friend has a perspective that doesn’t resonate with my inner knowing which I haven’t had a chance to connect with yet, I tend to see it as “something is wrong with me” instead of  “the other person is allowed to have their own opinion and it’s ok if it doesn’t fit mine”.

What I really needed was for my friend to hold a lot of space for me to figure out how I was feeling before telling me what she thought.

I know she only wants my best. I love her dearly but it felt like I needed a different kind of support.

Instead of skipping over it, I told her how much she means to me and how much I appreciate her thinking but that I would love it if we can both remember next time that it’s hard for me to find my knowing and that it would be awesome if she just listened to me to begin with.

She told me she thought about it too, and she’s not the right person to listen to me about this issue at the moment because she has her biases around it. She wants to examine her own biases before she can have a clean perspective. And without that, she can’t listen to me without getting triggered.

I told her I really appreciate her honesty and her willingness to put in some work in order to support me better. I was touched.

We agreed that I won’t talk to her about this until she feels ready.

The whole thing felt so great!

I was able to tell her what I needed without blaming her, knowing she wants my best and she took responsibility for her biases. I felt that I was being heard and my friend felt I’m respecting her honesty and boundaries.

We got even closer and it was all because we insisted on sticking by each other and repairing our rupture.