Be careful who you talk to about the deeper things, personal matters, losses, that may be troubling you.
Some people are unsafe.*
Unsafe people are seldom intentionally unsafe or even aware they are.
People are unsafe as a product of their own unaddressed, unresolved, or unidentified traumas.
Your trauma, abandonment, your loss, whatever, ignites theirs. This is what makes them unsafe for things confidential. Your pain expressed rekindles theirs, rendering them less capable, not necessarily incapable, of hearing you.
Yes, it’s that simple.
The unsafe are so — not because they are fraudulent or deceptive— but because their lives feel, or are, unsafe. If you are observant, you’ll see their anxiety, you’ll experience their anxiety — which is probably not what you want at a time you are seeking understanding and perhaps comfort. Uncomfortable people cannot offer comfort. It’s not in them.
A person recently betrayed or abandoned or suffering loss is not better equipped as a result of the experience to listen to you when you face something similar. While said person remains angry or bitter or anxious or overwhelmed with grief they can be of little comfort or assistance to you.
This person will become safe(r) if and when he or she has achieved some objectivity about the experience and is able to see that his or her experience is as unique as yours is.
With “separation” from you and your experience will come greater safety.
It is at these points, points of progressive growth in objectivity, your unsafe person will be transformed into one who can handle your story, one who can identify and empathize without being drawn back into his or her “stuff” as painful as it surely has been.
While your sharing (divulging, unburdening, “downloading”) becomes about them and not you, you are in a less-safe environment.
Safe people listen.
Safe people listen without spilling (their lives into yours or your life into theirs). They are able, and this is crucial, to put themselves aside for the time it takes to listen to you.
Safe people don’t leak or cross-pollinate your information no matter how juicy or tempting it may be or how important it may make them feel to do so. Unsafe people feel rewarded or affirmed by knowing things others don’t know about you — while safe people seek no such affirmation.
Safe people don’t ask you questions simply to lead into what they really want to tell you about their own lives and their pain.
Safe people seldom have to tell you they are safe people. You already know who they are or you become aware of it soon after meeting them. Their non-anxious presence calms you.
Safe people keep it about you.
* I don’t necessarily mean unsafe people are dangerous. Talking with them about your life may not be helpful to you. That’s all.
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