Do you?

Emotional wellbeing is 2022’s golden ticket.

Broken down into its two key components —  Emotional Strength and Fitness  — it is the cornerstone of resilience.

It enables us to stand steady in the face of life’s curve (and wrecking) balls. It helps us step up and into life’s challenges, instead of backing away from them.

It helps us to deploy strategies to cope with stress when we need them. And it allows us to understand our hearts and minds and, therefore, to fully engage in the business of living.

Emotional wellbeing is a work in progress. I’m not sure it’s ever possible to lie back in the great deckchair of the human condition and say you have your emotional life “sorted”.

It’d be a risky claim — because we all have our not-so-proud moments, times when our equilibrium deserts us. When we — ahem — blow out. Lose it. Cry. Scream. Rage. Freak out. If not on the outside, then internally.

But still. Optimum emotional wellbeing is an aspirational aim.

Here’s how the best in the game do it.

Two Things the Emotionally Strongest Do Brilliantly

The psychological term for this is Distress Tolerance from Dr. Marsha Linehan’s Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), a branch of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). It was developed to help people struggling with overwhelming or out-of-control feelings in response to stress. These intense feelings are often reported by people who have a history of trauma.

In therapeutic circles, Distress Tolerance skills tend to focus on surviving emotional crises. But when you take it out of the therapy room and adapt the skills slightly for the world we live in now, it has benefits for all. When we get into emotionally challenging situations, our reactions can escalate the problem and/or make it worse. Distress tolerance skills enable us to be with, rather than react to, difficult emotions. They also help us to see and accept the reality of situations that can’t be changed.

Emotionally strong people can tolerate high levels of distress. It can seem as though they’re “just built that way” but it’s often been developed down in the trenches of their own lives. They’ve coped because they’ve had to — and they’ve seen that they can.

Emotionally strong people get shaken by stress like everyone. But they are not undone or shut down. In the clutch of intense or difficult feelings, they’re still able to think clearly and function well.

How to build your tolerance of distress
When we’re emotionally overwhelmed we often turn to familiar strategies we think will make us feel better but are (often) harmful. Think fingernail biting, skin picking, hair plucking, self-harm, substance/alcohol abuse, porn, binge or restrictive eating.

Everyone needs at least one healthy way of self-soothing or just making yourself feel better. Journaling. Making videos. Drawing. Crafting. Music. Warm baths. Games. Puzzles. A walk in nature. Gardening. Tinkering in the shed. Pets. Exercise (but not extreme). Most people can name one of these — but the challenge is remembering to do it when you need it. To identify one thing as your go-to. Then practice. Not to be perfect — just better.

In other words, they are the CEO of their company of one — themselves. They appoint their thoughts and feelings as their direct reports which means they manage them — not the other way around.

The ability to manage (or regulate) your emotions will make you feel more grounded, more steady, and more content with who you are. Bonus! It will help your relationships (hugely) — work, friendships, and intimate partnerships — and it will absolutely open the door to being more successful in life.

Emotional regulation is not about ruling your feelings with an iron fist, nor is it about stifling them; it’s about being open to experiencing many emotions, allowing yourself to feel them, and managing them with understanding and empathy.

While some people are good at this, NO-ONE is perfect. We all have a tendency when under pressure, to think and act in ways that make things worse, or we end up regretting. So being able to manage yourself is an important work-on. With time, it can be life-changing.

How to build your emotional regulation skills
When we don’t feel great we often just stay with the absolute basics. I feel bad. I’m miserable. I’m down/unhappy. I’m depressed. Then we let those feelings rule over us.

Building emotional regulation skills demands that we develop an understanding and a language for a range of feelings. To unpack what you are feeling by naming the emotion that best describes how you feel. Be precise. I’m bored. I’m lonely. I’m resentful. I’m envious. I’m scared. I’m lost. Not just negative emotions, either. Being able to identify positive emotions is just as important because they lift us (and keep us) up. I’m cheerful. I’m excited. I’m playful. I’m hopeful. Train yourself to name those too.

As you unpack and name your feelings you will gain a better understanding of yourself, you’ll being to see patterns and, best of all, those emotions will lose the power to hurt you.

Stop putting your dreams on ice.

So you have a dream. Maybe you want to start a business?
Climb a mountain. Write a novel. Create an app. Be a Tik Tok creator. Buy a food truck. Blog. Draw. Build. Study. Share your knowledge. Whatever.

You’ve been incubating this dream for a long time. You’ve researched it, endlessly. You’ve upskilled. You’ve taken courses. You’ve spent money. You’ve studied how others do it.

You’ve started, then got distracted. You’ve started again, then stopped. You’ve cleaned the house, done the laundry, and called your mother. You’ve blamed two-plus years of Covid and the state of the world.

Still, the dream won’t go away. And your lack of action really gets you down. How come, when you have the means, when you want something so bad, you just can’t do it?

What’s going on?

You’re Not Lazy, You’re Not Unmotivated, You’re This.

Traditional self-help advice encourages us to chase our dreams, live the lives we’re capable of, and make the most of ourselves.

Fine. But in 2022 we can be forgiven for looking at that advice with a wary eye. There’s a lot going on. We’re tired. We’re anxious. We’re watching the news for the next king hit. There’s a huge case for doing nothing right now, except surviving. For putting those dreams on ice.

The problem is when we continually fail to act we don’t feel good — it takes us in the opposite direction. It makes us slap negative (and unnecessary) labels on ourselves: Lazy. Unmotivated. Lacking willpower/discipline. A failure.

Which makes things worse.

So cut yourself a break. Let go of those labels. Stop judging yourself. Shift your mindset so you can go after your dreams in a practical, consistent way.

 Here’s how to do it.  Big dreams are good. A relentless focus on the outcome is not. When you focus too hard on the end game it makes your goal seem too big and too hard; it will overwhelm you, and make you anxious, every time you go near it.

When you fail to act on it, it will fill you with thoughts you’re not good enough. So write it down, seal it in an envelope and hide it deep in your undies drawer. Don’t peep. Just know it’s there. Then get to work.

When they were little my kids used to call my writing “yabahooey”. Trust me, it’s impossible to take yourself too seriously when you are “yabahooey-ing”. Give your project a fun name, something that reminds you that it’s at some level fun for you because, well, why else would you do it?

Every goal worth chasing is hard if you look at it all at once. When Sir Edmund Hillary set out to climb Mount Everest he didn’t camp at the base with Tenzing Norgay and chat for hours about how hard it was going to be.

They made all due preparations, began climbing, and “knocked it off” one day at a time. It’s the same with any goal of substance: Some obstacles you haven’t anticipated will rear up. Other things will be easier than you thought. You can’t plan for everything.

If you train your mind on how hard it is, guess what it will be? So don’t keep saying it’s “hard” or “huge”. Keep it neutral. “I’m climbing Mt Everest.” Then make a plan.

Shove your doubts right up on the highest shelf in your wardrobe where you can’t reach them. Shakespeare called doubts “traitors” primarily because they make us afraid to attempt, to try, things.

It’s true: They are premium fuel for the procrastination tank of life. They have the power to make us do nothing at all. Accept you have doubts — but know that everyone does. Don’t let them shut you down; proceed in spite of them.

We all know obsessions — goals if you like — need to be wrapped in inhabits. A habit anchors you: It keeps your butt in the chair, it keeps you going, and it builds momentum.

A simple trick at the outset is to make your habit pleasant. Create a nice space for yourself to work in, and line up a coffee and your favorite music. Make it something you look forward to so you’ll want to go there.

Remember, daily is best. Some people might be able to pursue their goals just once a week on Sundays, but I don’t have that kind of focus. If you act every day, you’ll see progress. And you’ll send yourself a psychological message: I can do this. Besides, if you have a bad day, it’s only one day lost.

One of my colleagues has a line he uses with sports teams when things go wrong: He gets them to throw their arms in the air and say “How fascinating!” It shifts the focus from WHAT happened to WHY it happened, which is much more useful.

So when your project all goes belly up, just say “How fascinating!” Even if you don’t figure out the why, it lightens the load.

Who would you go to lunch with?

I know, weird question, but I got asked it recently. There were rules: It was a Lavish Lunch. You didn’t have to pay for it. You couldn’t choose your partner or family. Nor someone dead.

To be honest, I was fine with that. Why would I select my family for a lavish, free meal when I could have toast with them in the kitchen? And a dead person would make for a pretty quiet lunch.

But it made me think about who I admire. Being a therapist teaches you to see people differently. You learn famous people are just people. You learn money doesn’t equal cool. You learn mental health is the great leveller. And some of the best people are those who have to fight just to get through the day.

So for lunch I’d just choose someone who had the traits I most admire.

Here’s my take on it.

Who Would You Go To Lunch With?

Firstly, they remember the lunch. When they arrive, they smile. They’re cool, not flustered or fitting you in between meetings and/or sharing content from those meetings that are not very interesting to you. Or not at all, actually. By showing up on time, they’re paying you respect. They’re showing you that having lunch with you matters to them.

They haven’t spent a fortune on an outfit for lunch. They haven’t spent days trying on outfits to get the right look for this special, lavish lunch (like you have). What they’re wearing seems to match their personality, rather than the dress code for the lunch venue. And it’s clean. Bonus if they smell nice.

It would be cool if they were naturally funny. But they don’t need to have a fledging stand-up comedy career. Loudly regaling the lunch table with “did you hear the one about…” would be weird. Unappealing. And probably quite boring. So, as long as they had a sense of humour and didn’t take themselves too seriously, it would be fine.

Their ability to ask good questions shows curiosity. It also proves they are listening, that they are interested in subjects — and people — beyond themselves. They’re open and at ease with a few topics and the conversation flows. They ask about you. They find out what matters to you. And they don’t enlist your advice for their current stressors and life dilemmas (particularly unappealing when you are a therapist and you wanted to leave mental health at the office for an hour).

They’re not checking their socials, or photographing the warmed bread rolls spread with faux caviar and flicking them up on Insta, or checking their phone to see what invites they might get for that evening. They’re not scrolling the news wires, providing minute-by-minute updates on the state of the world, COVID statistics and which country is poised to go back into lockdown. They’re fully present, in the moment, 100% focused on what’s right in front of them.

Because anything else is poor form. And horrible to be associated with.

They don’t gush or take you through the family photo reel on their phone. (Besides, their phone is in their bag, remember?) But when you ask, they speak of their people with love and pride. You just know they care.

They have opinions but they don’t force them on you. They don’t say mean stuff; they don’t criticise or condemn. They don’t bitch and moan about their partner or mother-in-law. They don’t tell you their daughter’s football coach is an asshole because he dropped her from the team. They don’t have a lash at the outfit of the woman at the next table who has clearly tried awfully hard to dress up for her lunch. They just have a “live and let live” vibe so you know, when lunch is over, they won’t knife you behind your back.

Something in their world — their work, their art, their sport, their side hustle, their family — makes them excited and when they talk about it, you see it. The way they speak lifts you up, too. You feel better about your own life.

You just met this person and you enjoyed spending time with them. So you suggest staying in touch. They agree. A couple of weeks later you’re back at lunch. This one is not special or free so you split the bill. Six years later you are still getting together. And it’s no longer lunch. It’s friendship.

The relationship that’s not quite a relationship

A woman who’d been dating for a few months wanted more.

It had been going well between them but she wasn’t sure of their status. “We have a ‘thing’ but I wouldn’t exactly call him my boyfriend.”

When I asked if they were dating exclusively, she shrugged. “That’s just it,” she said. “I really don’t know.”

Her friends had told her it was a “situationship” — and she wasn’t sure she liked the label. “It’s not what I signed on for — but I don’t know how to change it.”

What is a situationship?

A situationship is dating without definition or commitment. It’s more than a booty call, more than Friends with Benefits — but it hasn’t crossed over into the relationship zone. Not yet, anyway.

Many, if not most, relationships start out this way — in the grey zone, while you both figure out if you like each other enough to have the “what are we and where is this going” chat. But many also stay there, when one isn’t up for a commitment.

Keeping things casual, or open, can be freeing if you both like it that way — and if it’s meeting a need for you right now through sex, touch, affection and/or connection. But the problem with situationships is that emotions get involved — of course they do — and one party often ends up wanting more. And, in the end, a relationship without parameters just causes more uncertainty and angst in a world already riddled with it.

Trying to move on from a situationship can also be tricky because — technically — there’s nothing to break off. So it can leave unresolved feelings, frustration and resentment.

Here are the common signs you’re in a situationship:

Turning a Situationship Into a “Real Thing”

Many situationships do go the distance and turn into loving committed relationships. But it can also be an easy way out for someone who wants to keep their options open, who can’t help thinking there might be someone better out there in dating app land.

So if you find yourself in the drift zone — and you don’t want to be — it’s time for a chat. Here are some steps to take.

Ask yourself: Am I completely happy with the way things are? Am I okay with the uncertainty? Am I not getting my emotions in a tangle? (If yes to all three questions, close this post and go enjoy yourself.) If no, move to point 2.

Don’t feel respected? Hmmm. Respect shouldn’t just cover the period of time you’re together — anyone can put on an act in the short term, especially if it involves sex. Respect should cover all of their behaviour towards you. Make sure the way they are treating you consistently is what you want.

Having a voice — speaking up for your own needs — is crucial in any relationship. Tell the person you’re with how you’re feeling and what you’d like from the relationship. You can talk about marriage and kids if you like, but you should at least know what you want in the short term. Yes, this carries a risk if they don’t want the same thing. But, either way, it’s information you need to know. Be brave. This is about you and your happiness. It’s sad to cling on to someone who doesn’t really want you. Or only wants you when the lights are out and there’s no-one else around.

Are we exclusive? Closing down our dating profiles? How about we give it a month and reassess. It doesn’t matter what you decide on, as long as you both buy into it — and stick to it. Just aim to take the uncertainty and confusion out of your “situation”.

Okay, I’ll answer that. You’re worth a lot. If the person you’re with truly knows it, they’ll show it, in whatever ways work for you.

Pride has many flavors — they all make life unpleasant

Is your relationship in good shape? Or has it gotten a little saggy over the past year? Could it do with a little freshen up?

We all need to keep an eye on our relationships — especially after the sh*t-storm Covid has — and is — putting them through.

But, even if you’re aware your relationship needs a little work, it can be hard to know where to start. Slapping a date night on top of your struggles just might not cut it.

So here’s an easier pathway. Start by checking in to see if any negative habits are quietly (or loudly) eroding your potential happiness. It’ll give you some valuable intel on what might be holding you back.

And the great news is that habits can be changed IF you are aware of them and committed to doing things differently.

 Here are five of the top offenders — and some ways to control them. 

For a Happier, Healthier Relationship, Ditch These 5 Habits

Most of us are a little pessimistic at times but chronic — persistent/recurring — negativity takes it to new heights.

I’ve had a few clients struggle with this: It’s usually a product of their past environments and it becomes a habit to say no, or to be oppositional, before anything else. So it’s out of your mouth before you can stuff it back in. Chronic negativity is hard to live with because it spreads a gloomy vibe, makes those close to you reluctant to suggest things and voice their opinions — and can strip the joy from your interactions.

What to do: Listen to yourself. Be aware of what you’re doing, especially if you’re pouring negativity into the void. Create a habit of pausing before you speak. Then think before you do.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a real and significant psychological condition and I don’t want to minimise it. [For the record, Obsessive refers to the thinking and Compulsive to the related behaviour.]

But being OCD with your phone — obsessively checking and refreshing for messages, browsing your favourite sights, taking your phone to the bathroom, gauging whether others have been online (and seen your messages), jumping online without even thinking it through — is a LOT. It makes you jumpy, distracted and not that fun to be around. It’s not so great for your mental state, either.

What to do: Boundary your phone use. You don’t have to go No Contact with your phone but don’t spend every waking hour attached to it. Show it you are in charge. Put it in a drawer. If you can’t do that, delete the apps you’re addicted too — at least until you’ve broken the habit.

Life is busy and households function best when both/all adult parties share the load — even better when the kids chip in. Leaving your partner to do all the domestic hard yards is a relationship killer — it breeds resentment and fatigue — not to mention conflict — that will infect the mood and mental health of the household.

What to do: Sit down with your partner, do an inventory of your chores and admin, then divide them up fairly. Select those that fit with your skills and interests — because you’re most likely to follow through on them. If nothing does, sorry, you’re going to have to do some things you hate. Or risk losing your relationship (and any relationship thereafter). You choose.

If you’re having trouble with Heather-from-work that’s tough. But it’s important to know that no-one will care as much as you, not even your partner. It’s also important to note that these work stories are not magnetic to your partner in any way, especially when they’re retold every night. (Cue massive yawn here.) Your partner should be supportive but should not have to be a bottomless vessel for your work troubles. It will get them down. It will make them hate Heather when they don’t even know her. Is that fair?

What to do: Create a clear division between work and home. Or allow yourself a 20 minute “vent” when you finish work, then move on. Or move away from Heather. Or start looking for a new job. Any proactive step is a good one.

If you do that, I get to do this. I know, it’s a logical way of running things, but it’s no fun at all. It keeps you constantly counting, looking for ways to keep things even, to “take” what you can from the relationship, rather than think about what you can give. It contributes to a fixed, negative mindset towards your partner instead of an open, loving one.

What to do: Try to support the things your partner wants to do. Usually it will strike a chord and a decent person — who is invested in your happiness — will look to give back to you. But if you find yourself endlessly on the “giving” end, don’t be a martyr. Speak up for your own hopes and dreams — and even for a free hour at the weekend. A little “me time” is not too much to ask for.

If your relationship has the speed wobbles, don’t rush to fling it on the fire. Even solid relationships can get sticky. Talk first and see what you can do to change things up. Make an effort. Even a small change can spin you in a more positive direction.

Why play small when you can play big?

There are a million paths you can take in life.

It doesn’t matter which one you choose. Because it’s not the path you choose that makes the difference — it’s the way you travel it.

Living a life of courage is not about signing up for extreme sports, scaling the world’s toughest mountains or slashing through dense and scary jungles.

It’s about taking what you’ve got and making the most of it. It’s about getting to the end of your life with a smile on your face, knowing you got the best value from your ticket.

People often present at therapy saying they want to deal with their anxiety. Fair call. But, often, a better approach is to help them tap the courage to do whatever they’re afraid of doing, to make bolder choices.

True, life doesn’t make it easy…

There are many reasons why we don’t end up achieving our dreams: Life’s twists and turns, external forces, circumstances, the people (and distractions) we meet along the way.

That’s okay; many of those are beyond our control. And the dreams we once had may not be suited to the person we become.

Whatever path you take, the job is to shore up your internal resources — your approach, attitude and courage — and have them help you play the biggest game you have in you.

 If you want to live with courage, here are the steps to take. 

To Live a Life of Courage, Do These 6 Things

We all have fears and worries. You can choose to act in spite of them — or you can become a prisoner to them, shutting down your life in order to keep them at bay. The trouble is, shying away from fear doesn’t make it go away. It turns it into a lion.

When you deliberately choose to play in the big arena, you set yourself up for a more expansive life. It means every time you face a challenge or test, you already know you’re going to play big. It’s just a matter of deciding how.

Get specific with your fears — know exactly what they are.

Leaving a miserable relationship (or finding your voice within it), asking the boss for a raise, asking someone on a date, making a wedding speech, leaving a safe 9–5 gig, starting a new business or project.

When you cower away from your fears, or live in denial of them, they’ll become bigger in your mind. So identify them. Say them out loud. Write them down. In acknowledging your fears, and squaring up to them, you’ll take the sting out of them. And you’ll know precisely what you have to work on.

Courage is not about striding through life, brimming with confidence, knowing exactly where you’re going. It’s not about banishing fear from your mind, your heart and your language. It’s often about stepping forward on unsteady feet, about not knowing where you’re going and not being sure of the outcome — but understanding that only by letting go of certainty can you come fully alive.

We all have some low moments, we do things we’re not proud of. We all have times when we’d like to turn back the clock on our behaviour.

But don’t intentionally “go low” — don’t try to bring others down, don’t insult others, don’t play tit-for-tat when they criticise you. Try not to do things you know you will regret, especially if they involve hurting others. When you do, atone for them or apologise — as quickly as you can.

No matter what comes at you, try to walk the high road.

I’ve worked with many people who’ve shied away from the idea of being role models. I get it: it’s a hefty responsibility and we’re all scared of baring our flaws to the world (or the trolls). But we’re all role models, too. Particularly if you’re a parent, teacher, coach or manage/work with young people. They’re watching, even if they pretend they’re not.

Strive to be the kind of person you’d want to watch, and copy. You don’t have to be perfect but think about what you’re modelling and try to offer the best you’ve got — not the worst.

Living with courage means to speak up when you know something is wrong. It means making a stand for yourself and what you believe in. At the end of the day, there’s only one person who’ll cast judgment on who you were and how you lived. That’s the person who matters; the only person you can’t afford to disappoint. You know who that is, don’t you?

None of them is money.

 They just seem to be light of spirit. ​ They just seem to put a light, easy vibe out in to the world. They make you feel like you want to be around them.

How do they do it?

The Happiest People

What makes people happy has been analysed for centuries.

Almost any research-based list you come up with involves being grateful, living on the optimistic side of the line, being kind, staying hopeful, relishing in how lucky you are and playing your strengths.

Those things are valid but if you question people — if you dig down into what makes them happy — their answers are surprisingly simple.

Here are some of those answers from a survey I carried out with my clients: a bush walk, a coffee sitting in the sun, fun with the kids, a motorbike ride, being outside, dancing, laughing, hanging on the beach, brunch (lots of honourable food mentions but brunch was the favourite), a barbecue on a summer’s day, finishing a satisfying piece of work, catching up with old friends, achieving “stuff”, scoring runs (from a pro cricket player) catching a bad guy (from a police officer).

Everyone has their own “happy place” —but, if you dig even deeper, you’ll find it’s not about where they are when they’re feeling good. It’s about their engagement, their connections, the meaning of the activity to them.

Here’s my take on the three qualities the happiest people share.

3 Things the Happiest People Have in Common

It’s often said that the measure of despair lies in the gap between where you are and where you could be (or where you hoped you’d be). I’ve seen this in over and over again in the people I’ve worked with: If Only….I had more money/prestige, a better body, a nicer partner (or any partner), a more worthy job, a less-asshole boss…things would be okay.

That’s true; changes in our circumstances can make things better. But life doesn’t travel on an upward trajectory. There are dips and jags and low points and all sorts of unexpected twists and turns. The happiest people know their past helped create them but they don’t keep looking back, nor do they look too far forward. They have an enviable capacity to be right where they are. They take What Is and immerse themselves in enjoying it — or, if it’s challenging, finding the resilience to cope with it.

I’ve always thought it slightly bizarre that some people leap out of bed every morning infused with passion for what they do. Who are these people? And don’t they ever feel exhausted and overwhelmed? Don’t they need a lie-in sometimes?

Happiness is not rooted in having a passion — it’s about having a consistent purpose for what you do. Whether it is to build your business or work your land or do your craft or feed your family or raise your kids — it doesn’t matter. But having a reason for what you do, even if you’re not in love with it all day/every day, is helpful. It will keep you going, even on the days that stretch you to your limits.

A young woman who had never had a relationship broke down during one of our sessions and said this: “Everything you read says love is essential to happiness, that human connection is the most important human need. If that’s true, how can I ever be happy? What’s going to happen to me?”

I understood her fears. But she had interpreted what she had read as meaning she needed a partner to be happy. It caused her to double down on what she didn’t have — and that was feeding her worries. It also caused her to place “couple-type” relationships on a pedestal, to see them as the Answer to Everything.

Of course, they’re not. A healthy relationship is a fine thing (on a good day). But a toxic or miserable relationship can take you to whatever the opposite happiness is. Love comes in so many packages and can be felt, and expressed, in so many ways. The job of a lifetime is to stay open to it.

Is your partner the emotional anchor? Or is it you?

Have you ever been with a “rock solid” partner?

Someone who has a healthy view of themselves, others and the world, generally?
Or perhaps it’s you? Perhaps you’re the one providing your relationship with its “emotional anchor”?

When it comes to relationships, people who come from secure backgrounds, with their parents providing good modelling and emotional “teaching” have a head start.

But it doesn’t always spare them from trouble. Many people with a stable base have been rocked to the core by a toxic relationship; conversely, many people with an insecure history have created rock solid relationships.

Either way, it’s worth checking in on your partner’s emotional status, because it helps you understand them and how they roll. And it’s worth checking in on yourself too!

Here’s how the emotional “anchors” do it.

7 Signs of an Emotionally Secure Partner

Emotionally secure people don’t waste time beating up on themselves. They don’t pick. They’re aware they’re not perfect, and they work on getting better where they need to, but they go easy on themselves. They accept who they are. They show themselves kindness when they are struggling or have made a mistake. Then they do what they need to do: apologize, make amends, vow to do things differently in future — or let it go.

When you are down on yourself they’ll be there with the reassurance and kindness you need to help you get up again. When they have something to say to you, they’ll say it truthfully and with good intent — and when they have a criticism or feel hurt by you, they will target your behavior rather than your personality. Their words are never an attack on Who You Are; they’re about what you’ve done AND they come from a stable, loving base.

Emotionally secure people are better able to regulate their emotions, calm themselves down when heated or anxious or pick themselves up when they’ve been feeling down. They embrace their emotions — from sadness, fear and anger to joy, excitement and peace — because they know it’s healthy. They can acknowledge and express tough emotions but they don’t get gridlocked by them; they are able to move forward when the time is right.

As partners, they don’t let their feelings dictate their thoughts and actions. They don’t speak or behave impulsively in ways that undermine you or the relationship. Their emotional stability means they are able to assess situations (or conflict) accurately which helps you both to come up with a healthy solution.

Emotionally secure people fight fair. When you get into conflict, they don’t go to ground or dish out the silent treatment or storm out or leave you guessing as to what’s going on for them. This doesn’t mean they are always able to settle fights in the moment — they may need time to process what has happened. But they’ll talk to you about what they need. And when they surface, they’ll be fair and reasonable — and up for hearing what you have to say.

Emotionally secure partners are not “my way or the highway” people. They don’t always have to be right or have the last word. They can let you be right. They understand that people are different in so many ways, that there are many lenses through which we can see the world. This makes them good listeners and able to understand your perspective, even when they don’t agree with it.

Emotionally secure people tend to operate with an internal locus of control, meaning they are better equipped to take responsibility for the things in life they can control. When they succeed, they will attribute it to internal factors, such as hard work, ability or commitment, things they can own. This means they are less vulnerable when things go wrong because they won’t slip into a cycle of blame or self-pity. When circumstances are genuinely tough, they can accurately identify those things they couldn’t control and, therefore, not be brought to their knees by them.

Emotionally secure people are generous with their stability and strength. They are patient and supportive when you’re feeling low, upset, struggling (or just being a bit dumb). But they won’t allow a partner to dictate their moods and happiness. If your issues become too much for them, or unreasonable, they won’t just walk away — they will talk to you about it. And if you hear their views and continue to work on building your own emotional strength, you will gain their respect as well as their love.