Reaching For Another: Exploring Complications in Connection | Guest Blog

Written by

Anna Christine Seiple, MA, LCMHC

“If you want to improve the world, start by making people feel safer.” -Stephen Porges

Soon after moving to Scotland a year ago, I gained a reputation in my neighborhood for being a cat lover. I regularly stopped to say hello to cats on sidewalks and fences, and this Spring, I even started to have fluffy visitors come to my back door most mornings.

One of these neighborhood friends would purr loudly, rubbing her chin and face against the corners of our patio furniture, coming straight toward me, seeming to indicate she wanted to be pet. I gladly reached out my hand to respond to her signals, only to have her bat her paw at my hand with an immediate ferociousness.

This same dance played out for several mornings, leaving me confused. I grew up with cats and have even been called a cat whisperer before. With this feline though, something in our dynamic was off. Even though I couldn’t figure out why, despite her indications that she was reaching out to me for attention and affection, she clearly didn’t feel safe with me reaching back toward her.

Now, whether or not you’re a cat person, I wonder if you can resonate to this kind of dynamic—a dynamic in which you want to reach out for connection with another, but when the possibility arises, you bat them away with sarcasm or shame, shrink back in fear, or go numb, nearly frozen. Or maybe you know the other side of this equation, confused by a loved one who seems to be sending you mixed signals, leaving you frustrated, disappointed, or exhausted. Even though we are wired for connection, finding and embracing the connection we long for isn’t always easy. And in the paragraphs that follow, I’d love to share two lenses that have helped me make sense of stuck spaces—not just with a neighborhood cat, but with family, loved ones, and friends too…!

Throughout my training in Emotionally Focused Therapy, something that Sue Johnson (the woman who developed this approach) would often say is, “If I reach for you, will you be there for me?” She passionately changed the landscape of couples counseling, helping us see how secure attachment is not only significant in our childhood relationships with caregivers, but also our adult relationships with our partners and loved ones. And to foster secure attachment, we need to know that the other will be there for us when we reach for them. This doesn’t mean the other has to have a perfect track record, none of us are perfect. Instead, it means we encounter an embodied reality that the other person–within the limitations of being human–can and will be there for us when we reach for them, again and again. We can count on them. They are predictable. They are safe.

So, what happens when the foundations for this kind of safety, which we need to securely reach for another, have been shaken or squashed? This is where the work of another extraordinary woman can help us. Therapist Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen looks at five early developmental movements that we all navigate in our infancy, movements that we continue to navigate across our lifetime. And depending on the foundations of safety we start with in these movements, our reaching for others may or may not feel secure.

The first of these movements is yield, which is most simply our ability to be in the world. To picture this, you can think of a sweet infant who is yielding the entire weight of their body into the arms of a caregiver, someone they know will not drop them or let them go. They can yield into gravity in the most blissful of ways. If they don’t feel secure or safe enough to fully yield in their arms, they’ll likely hold a tension in their bodies, unable to fully rest or simply be.

The second of these movements is push, which is most simply us moving our bodies in agency, away from what we don’t want near, and toward what we want near. To picture this, you can think of a small child pushing against the floor to crawl or pushing away a hand that’s blowing their nose. This is a movement of agency and autonomy, something caregivers can view as an inconvenience or a problem, something caregivers might even discourage. From their position of securely yielding their weight into gravity, an infant can securely push away and toward, as they so choose. Without a secure foundation of safety and embodied yielding, and/or without permission to push away, navigating the world becomes more confusing and complex.

The third of these movements is reach, and this is the one that always cues Sue Johnson’s voice in my mind, saying, “If I reach for you, will you be there for me?” To picture this, you can imagine a small child reaching out their hand to a family pet. This is a movement of curiosity, one that can grow from a secure position of yielding, and a secure movement of pushing, eventually moving into reaching for someone or something. And this movement is risky, we open ourselves to rejection, disappointment, and even shame, depending on how others respond, or don’t respond, to our reach. Without safety and security to yield and push, we’re unlikely to reach from a secure place or an embodied sense of safety. Our reaching might become frantic or restricted, or without foundational building blocks, we might not even explore reaching, leaving us to feel an ache of longing.

The last two movements in this model go together–hold and pull. To picture this, you can think of a small child having reached out to a beloved stuffed animal, holding on tight, and pulling the stuffed animal close for a snuggly embrace. This movement is even riskier than reaching, bringing a longing near. These movements all build on each other, forming a cycle of sorts. When we start from a secure place of yielding and pushing, we can securely reach, and hold and pull close. And just as we see in the relational dynamics with a cat, even if we start from a place of secure yielding and pushing, that doesn't mean our reaching will result in being able to hold and pull another close. We can be batted away, rejected, or simply experience being out of sync with another.

And even if our loved ones don’t have paws to bat us away with, we can experience being batted away with shame, contempt, bitterness, indifference, apathy, disinterest, sarcasm, or misattunement. Or maybe we’re the ones batting the other away. And while we all have freedom and agency to push others away if we don’t want to be reached for–and it is a good and healthy thing to communicate what kind of connection we do and don’t want–sometimes we respond to a reach for connection in ways that don’t actually reflect what we most long for, leaving ourselves–and loved ones–confused.

If safety was not foundationally developed in our life, embodied deep down at a gut level, or if our foundations of safety have been shaken by trauma or loss, we sometimes don’t have the secure starting point we need to navigate relationships with others in the ways we most long to.

And I say all of this to say, sometimes what we need most in our relationships isn’t a “fix” for the “on the surface” problem–say a problem of batting another away in response to a reach for connection. Instead, sometimes what we most need is to slow down, create space for curiosity, and explore what’s shaping the ways we’re getting stuck–pointing us toward what we might need in order to cultivate safety and security so that we can create new relational dynamics, dynamics that foster the closeness we most long for.

Now, I want to so clearly say, this is not fast or easy work. I also want to so clearly honor that this is deeply risky, vulnerable, and sacred work. When we slow down and consider the safety we might need to take risks toward the connection that we long for, we often find disconnects, places where safety in and of itself might not yet feel safe. It’s not always comfortable to explore the ways that yielding in and of itself is uncomfortable. It doesn’t always feel good to tune in with the ways we don’t feel permission to push away, and what has shaped this muscle memory inside. And like the many both-ands we encounter in life, at the same time, starting at square one can help us build and restore the secure foundations we need to cultivate the connection we most long for with others, reaching for and being reached for in ways that safely bring us toward each other. It is both risky work to tend to the security of safety within, and a most beautiful kind of work to tend to the security of safety within.

Reflections:

What are the ways you most long for connection with others? How do you reach for this

connection? What seems to complicate you finding this connection?

How does your mind envision the movements of yield-push-reach-hold-and-pull? How do you imagine this flowing with a secure foundation of safety? How is the picture different without this foundation, or if the foundation has been harmed?

In what ways do you imagine safety might need to be fostered or restored for you to experience reaching for connection, or being reached for in connection, differently? What is one way you can tend to fostering or restoring this sense of safety?

Further Exploration:

To further explore Emotionally Focused Therapy and The Satisfaction Cycle, see the works of

Sue Johnson, Hold Me Tight and Love Sense, along with this article by Arielle Schwartz, which

summarizes Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s concept of the Satisfaction Cycle. For an integration of these themes, along with other therapeutic concepts, see The Sacred Art of Slowing Down, written by the author of this article.

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A. C. Seiple

Anna Christine is a licensed counselor, retreat leader, and author of The Sacred Art of Slowing Down. She loves cultivating healing spaces that honor the entirety of our embodied beings. She holds two master’s degrees, one in clinical mental health counseling and a second in biblical studies, and is currently working on a PhD at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Her writing, along with free integrative resources, can be found on acseiple.com.

If you and your spouse need marriage counseling to support the both of you in learning how to reach for one another in a way that builds comfort, safety and trust, feel free to contact Elizabeth Hester, MA, LPC at Plumeria Counseling PLLC. I would love to walk alongside the both of you in your healing journey!