Inward Security

When a sense of “we” has been developed in a nurturing and strong relationship, where encouragement sounds positive and there is an outside belief in the goodness of our heart and mind, we form a card catalogue (totally old school) of scripts that become our inner voice.
We see ourselves as worthy of love and our thoughts sound loving and encouraging to us.
We know that most problems have a solution, and that when we work hard, it is ok to share the joy of success with those around us.
We can freely and directly reach for others when needing help or comfort.
Making mistakes is experienced as safe and normal, that our character is not crushed when failure occurs or when our exploration goes awry.
Our emotions are fully experienced, and we don’t try to “get rid” of them. We can understand their nature, and while experiencing uncomfortable feelings, they are kept in perspective and acceptable to us.
When uncomfortable emotions exceed our tolerance threshold, we turn toward others to share and can receive the love and care others give us. Over time and experience, we then offer the same to others reciprocally to foster a card catalog of adaptive and helpful scripts within us both.

I am worthy of love and acceptance.

Upward Security

If we allow ourselves a spiritual connection with a Higher Power, perfect security is above, beside, below and all around us in the presence of this perfect relationship.
This is the one and only relationship that will offer perfect security while never be reciprocal, and we will always experience the advantage of being a child, not needing to be perfect and always getting to return to the Secure Base and Safe Haven.
In this relationship, the Higher Power’s strength supports our freedom to explore and the HP’s tenderness fully welcomes our return whether in joy or sorrow, confidence or confusion, anger or delight. While that seems simple, being eternal children requires limits and frameworks for truly enjoying the freedom of life for building our trust and our safety in the relationship. When we cross the line of limits, push boundaries or when we dismiss expectations, with justice our Higher Power allows us to feel the resulting pain, holds us accountable, and still welcomes our return.
Additionally, in our imperfect world in which bad things happen to good people, our world includes hurt and pain that is not a direct result of our departure from the limits. Yet, even then, the Safe Haven awaits us so that we can be met in the resulting agony of even the worst of human darkness, betrayal, and torture to find solace or comfort amidst the challenges. These are the times when it seems the Higher Power is gone or has rejected us. Yet, when we have Upward security, we experience a knowing trust that the Safe Haven remains. Sometimes we frame a Higher Power in the context of our human relationships which limits the Perfection of this relationship that is offered to us.
For the sake of transparency to honor our mission to build security in our relationship with you, Happy Seekers, our FILWH founding team recognizes a triune God as the Higher Power. However, our experience and the research informs us that a Higher Power, whether the same as ours or not, when experienced in security, is an extreme source of resilience. We wish to make FILWH a place where your Higher Power is the perfect Safe Haven and Secure Base needed, honoring your need for exploration and secure relationship building. As we engage with Upward connections, we refrain from defining this for you, invite you to share your experiences, and we will do the same. We will continue to foster security within the relationship just as in the relationships inward and outward.

A Perfect Secure Base & Safe Haven (Higher Power) will always provide strength and tenderness.

Relationship Security

Secure relationships serve as a catalyst to empowerment and healing — the first step for achieving a happy life of abundance.

Building perfectly imperfect relationships.

It is first learned in the “we” relationship with a nurturing and responsive caregiver who lends us their external head and heart to communicate to us through words, facial expressions, vocal tones, and body language an understanding that we are lovable, unconditionally accepted, worthy of being seen, heard, understood and that we are seen as “good.” This caregiver also supports us through holding appropriate limits and being strong enough to uphold those limits when our naturally curious and sometimes rebellious selves want to push the boundaries. This combination of tender (care and nurture) and strong (consistently upholding reasonable expectations and limits), provides a Secure Base and a Safe Haven we can trust. From this sense of “we,” in the caregiving relationship, security then arises within our relationship to ourselves where we understand that I am worthy of love and connection AND that others can be trusted when I turn to them in my struggles. From here we can develop strong character values that promote adaptive behaviors and actions as well as foster a set of eyes filled with gratitude and generosity. This breeds fertile ground for living a live of abundance, a life of meaning, a life of fulfillment as well as to reciprocate to others the security we have experienced.

Security is a foundational building block in which we experience a positive view of ourselves and a positive view of others.

Outward Security

Developed within the safety of a trusting relationship in which we can be seen, heard, and understood, we learn to turn toward and seek help, comfort, delight, and protection from the trusted other when we are outside our window of tolerance and feel a sense of threat, overwhelm, or extreme excitement.
We are accepted for who we are and not what we do; so, whether in success or failure, our trusted other communicates their unconditional positive regard for us in mirroring our experiences and offering assurance that we are welcomed. The trusted person listens to us, first seeking to understand and simply letting us be accepted in the presence of dysregulation and our joy.
The person tells us the good they see in us, encourages us through positive interaction and desires to spend time with us.
And even in our deepest, darkest hour of tribulation where we might even turn against ourselves (shame), this person seeks to understand first what this darkness is like for us. When that happens, we are primed for climbing out of the darkness with not too much and not too little help from the other person. In this way, we experience that others are trustworthy and dependable making life so much easier and enjoyable. We then develop the capacity to extend outward connection to others in the same way.

Others are trustworthy & dependable.

A happy, full, and meaningful life embodies an array of human emotion. What makes that emotion tolerable and manageable is having secure connection while experiencing it.