​I was recently challenged with the task of naming the characteristics of emotionally safe (relationally healthy) people.  Why? Because I struggle with making excuses for others. 

He didn't mean it. She was having a bad day. And so forth.

To my own detriment.  

Yes, grace is a wonderful thing, but grace is not stupid.  At some point, grace says, "Hey, I'm not going to enable bad behavior.  I am not going to allow myself to be repeatedly used and hurt. Take some responsibility for yourself and the choices you make in life."

That's where I am now.  Purposefully choosing to set boundaries. Purposefully choosing to allow people to 'not mean it' or 'have bad days' and yet still face the consequences of their acting out.

Or, more accurately, I am purposefully choosing to distance myself from those who 'don't mean it' or 'have bad days' and don't use any coping skills, moral compass or common sense in dealing with it.

Perhaps more importantly, I am purposefully choosing to acknowledge my wounded parts that need others to be good or safe or present in spite of evidence to the contrary. 

I'm choosing to see what I don't always want to see.

I am choosing to face reality.

As such, I have created the following list.  I think this list might be fluid... changing as I continue to grow and heal.  But for now, my list is as follows. 

Emotionally safe people:

1. Have integrity.  They have a fully functioning moral compass and they use it. They are true to their word.
2. Have done their work. They value personal growth. They don’t want their old wounds or blind spots to weigh them down or to injure others.
3. Are respectful of self and others. They have boundaries and they expect others to have them as well.
4. Are present.  They are available to engage in a friendship or relationship.  They do not hide (emotionally distance themselves) behind substances, control, fear, or some other ineffective coping skill.
5. Are differentiated and comfortable in their own skin. They can be present for a friend who is struggling.  They don’t take other people’s stuff personally.  Other people are allowed to have opinions and emotions that are different than theirs. (They allow me to be me.)
6. Are supportive.  They celebrate a friend’s success.
7. Are authentic.  They know who they are and they appropriately share that with the world.
8. Tell the truth.  They aren’t fake and they don’t lie to themselves or others.
9. Push me out of my comfort zone.  They don’t treat me like a glass egg and they aren’t afraid that I will outgrow them. They genuinely want to see me grow and improve.
10. Know how to have difficult conversations.  They neither bully nor cower when it’s time to confront.
11. Have values, convictions and/or passion for something larger than themselves. They know their life’s purpose and pursue it. 
12. Are reliable and consistent.

Do you have a list?  Do you know what to look for and what to avoid?  Do you have wounded parts that desperately need someone to be a way that they are not?  I encourage you to create your own list if you do not have one, and to hold others to the light of your list.  It just may be time to let some people slip away.

Keep growing and healing, friends!  What a great journey we are on! - M

Know what I was told in college, way back in the 90's?  "You basically won't have a career.  You will just have to get in line in the cesspool at the bottom and wait it out."

Wait what out, you ask?  The world's supply of hairspray? Our incredible sense of fashion? 

No.... the dying off of the Baby Boomers. 

Yes, you read that right.  My generation was told we had to wait for our parents (or grandparents) to die before having any career success.  You see, it was expected that many then middle-aged boomers had achieved an impressive level of career success- and wouldn't be giving up their spots any time soon.

Add that to the influx of women into the workforce and the increasing life expectancy - and us Gen X'ers were, well "ass out" of any chance of a traditional climb up the proverbial corporate ladder. 

Yep.  My sociology and humanities instructors warned us to either get used to low and middle-management, at best, or enter the retirement home or funeral industries in preparation of the death boom.

Harsh but true.  And the world was expecting it.  We were expecting A LOT OF PEOPLE TO DIE in a relatively short amount of time.  I guess more than hair styles have changed since then.  

Ok, stop. It's Hammer Time.

In a non-emotional, statistical, biological way, it makes sense.  There was a "boom" of babies during the years 1946-1964.  The average human life span in America is 78 (in 2020).  In 2000, it was 76.  Split the difference and call it 77 years. That might not be the scientific method to calculate the life expectancy of boomers, but it will do for today's lesson.  That puts the boom of death roughly between 2023 - 2041.  (Reminder, it's now 2020.)

Now, factor in the American mid-life disease issue due to sedentary lifestyles and poor eating habits, and you have a potential for an earlier start of the death boom.  Earlier by three years?  Yeah.

Cause for mass hysteria? Only if you don't know history. Only if you forgot we were warned about this 20 and 30 years ago. Only if you don't know the average death rate in any given year.  Or math.

Conspiracy theory?!?!?!  Hmmm, maybe.  More likely, critical thinking. Pondering.  Researching.  And math.

Let's just say human life expectancy + a large portion of the population reaching natural end-of-life age + increasing rates of heart disease and other medical conditions + where did all the yearly flu cases go + media hype, equals something. 

But, what?

Think for yourselves, friends.- M

​Compare the recovery rate of suicide to the recovery rate of covid. (That was a trick question. There is no recovery rate for suicide.) What about the recovery for their survivors?

How about the rate of recovery from domestic violence, child abuse and other violent crime??? Let's compare the recovery rate of drug addiction or drug overdose to covid?

The recovery rate of losing something you’ve worked your whole life for? Recovery from anxiety, depression, family breakup???

All of theses things already have a lower recovery rate than recovery from covid— yet all have increased since the devastation of the great overreaction. We are quite literally sacrificing one group of vulnerable people for another (larger) group. 

It’s a backwards world when we claim to be “in this together” while completely ignoring the far greater negative impact of the so-called help. Time to discern. Not everything you see and hear out there is truth.

​Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves, my friends. - M
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