We are meant to have connection and intimacy with God and with people and if we do not, we experience isolation. Interpersonal traits describe, “How we connect”. These traits are about how people operate in relationships, how they move close or pull away, and how they build up or destroy.
• Unsafe People avoid closeness instead of connecting. Only true sharing and intimacy create connection. People, who are not able to connect, often act out that isolation in addictions, affairs, two-faced betrayals, broken confidence and trusts.
• Unsafe People are only concerned about “I” instead of “We”. Unsafe people are self-centered. A safe person is relational and has concerns and empathy for others. Empathy involves letting go of your opinion and what you need in the relationship so that you can enter the world of the other person to attempt to understand how they feel, believe and think.
• Unsafe People resist freedom instead of encouraging it. In the “eyes” of unsafe people, you become bad for being separate from them. Separateness is the ability to maintain spiritual and emotional property lines, called boundaries, between you and others. The opposite of separateness is enmeshment: when one person is swallowed up into the needs of another.
• Unsafe People flatter us instead of confronting us. An unsafe person can make you feel very good and a safe person can make you feel bad. A safe relationship is not just about trust, support and sharing. They are also about truth, righteousness, and honesty. People who confront us help us to grow and protect us from our self-destruction. Strokers idealize us, and avoid truth by exclusively praising us. As long as you feel good, they’re happy.
• Unsafe People condemn instead of forgiving. A forgiving person is a safe person. They see our wrong, yet love us and accept us anyway. That relational love helps to heal us and transform us into the person God intended.
• Unsafe People stay in parent/child roles instead of relating as equals. Unsafe people resist our adult functioning. They don’t agree with our right to our opinion, they do not trust our judgments, and our decisions. Safe people love to see us grow, mature and do not withdrawal from our adultness.
• Unsafe People are unstable over time instead of being consistent.
• Unsafe People are a negative influence on us, rather than a positive one.
• Unsafe People gossip instead of respecting one’s privacy.
Which of these traits have you seen in your self and in your relationships?
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