Signs of Emotional Unavailability: How to Identify It in Yourself and Others

What if I told you we're all emotionally unavailable? Okay, we're going. Okay. Three, two, one. Today on the Healing is Possible. Experience. Experience with me, your host, Rebecca Silence. Emotional healing and relationship coach, author and media personality. We are taking on emotional unavailability. Every week, I bring you on a journey of hope and healing in an effort to connect you to the best of who you are, to all of what's possible for you, so that you're not just imagining your dream life and you're living it. Emotional availability. Nobody is actually emotionally unavailable until we learn how to be safe and responsible for and able to regulate our human emotions. And if you're someone who's ever questioned, am I emotionally unavailable? Please know that this episode will give you a safe way to get in touch with your emotions so that you can become emotionally available. And if you know someone or are in relationship with people that you believe are emotionally unavailable, the goal is to be as empathetic, compassionate, and understanding as possible while having your boundaries, enforcing your boundaries, and knowing how to get your needs met regardless of how the other person is showing up. So. So this is a big episode today, and I'm honored to be talking about this topic that once again, it affects us all. Without further ado, here's what we will be talking about today. Be sure to stick around until the end of the episode. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, and please also be sure to share this episode that anyone you think would would benefit. So here's what we're going to be talking about today. What is emotional unavailability? What are the signs of emotional unavailability? And what do we do when we notice someone else or even ourselves are being emotionally unavailable in a moment? And finally, just tips, tricks and hacks to stay emotionally unavailable and open even in the most difficult times. So, so, to begin, what is emotional unavailability? I want to make this really, really, really simple. Emotional unavailability is just when we are in resistance to our emotions or to another person's emotions. Now let's take that deeper. Why is this a problem? Right? We're wanting love and connection. I don't care who you are. I don't care how heartbroken you are. We still want love and connection. And love and connection isn't just for when people are on best behavior and deserving it. When we feel like we're being worthy of love, we are always worthy of love and so are other people. That's the premise that I want to build this entire show off of today, we're all deserving of love, regardless of past mistakes, regardless of how we're showing up, regardless of how emotionally available or not we are in a moment or a season, we're all deserving of love. But we become emotionally unavailable and we become emotionally unavailable to love other people when we think, wait a minute, there's a threat. And often what threatens us, it's our emotions or another person's emotions we're literally emotionally unavailable for, for the emotions that confront or threaten us. And if you're new to the show, I only teach five emotions that matter. These are emotions we're born with. These are emotions that we can run from, hide from, but they're just not going anywhere, no matter how hard we resist them or try to escape them. So the cure is to be in a relationship with our emotions that have us comfortable with our own anger, with our own grief and sadness, with our own fear. And only when we're available for these darker emotions do we have access to joy and excitement. But again, anger, fear, grief, joy, excitement. That's it that I'm focused on when it comes to the practice of emotional healing. Because everything else is learned. And we call our experience of betrayal. I'm in an emotion of betrayal. We call guilt an emotion. We call shame an emotion. I could go on and on and on, but if it isn't anger, fear, grief, joy or excitement, it's learned. Therefore we can unlearn it, start again and have a new experience. And when we've mastered our ability to relate to ourselves, even in the face of these five emotions, only from there can we relate to another human having the same emotions. So what we resist persists, right? For many of us, this isn't a new concept, but when it comes to our emotions, it's especially true. And if I'm someone who is unavailable for my own anger, which for me that was true for so many years, I am a coach that has lived it and continues to live it. My journey to emotional wellness, emotional healing, having myself as emotionally intelligent as possible. It's really important to me because that is game changing in my relationships. Starting with my relationship with myself. And I'm not a coach. Again, if you're new, that has had it easy. I grew up in hell. Lots of abuse, neglect, trauma. I then later, after so much self harm and eating disorders and just the lowest possible self worth imaginable, I ended up in a domestic violence marriage. I got out with a 2 year old. I was a single mother going bankrupt, still not believing in myself. Later On I'm a cancer survivor with a 5% shot. That's all I had to make it. And I'm so grateful to be here. But let me tell you, healing through my own emotional unavailability, that was my ticket to freedom, to joy, and to a life that was beyond better than I could have ever imagined. So this topic, it's very, very near and dear to my heart because I've been in resistance to all of these emotions in myself, with other people. And just for an example, for the longest time, anger was my kryptonite. I didn't want to be with my own anger. I didn't trust anger. I associated anger with violence, so I wasn't available for it. Then I realized because I was so resistant to my own anger, I was comfortable with grief, I was comfortable with fear. I wasn't comfortable with anger, which made joy and excitement a real challenge. Because again, if you aren't comfortable with all of the dark emotions and it limits your availability to experience joy and excitement at the highest levels. But what I didn't realize is because I was so resistant to anger, I was attracting people that were very comfortable with it. This is how it works in relationships. We start out attracting what we need to heal. Attraction 101, your unhealed wounds, particularly your unhealed emotional wounds. So I'm so unavailable for anger that I'm attracting people that are comfortable with anger in an effort for life to help me heal through my own issues with my own anger. This is how it works. And then maybe my comfortability with grief was super triggering for someone who was very comfortable with anger, but not with sadness, not with grief, not with letting go anything but letting themselves cry. And then me, anything but owning my anger, tapping into my anger, knowing it's safe to be angry. It's healthy to be angry. It's okay to be angry. I had lessons to learn. So what is it? Write it down somewhere. What emotion or what emotions are you unable right now you to be available for in a healthy way where you don't lose you because of the emotion. From there, what emotions are confronting you in other people? Maybe you're comfortable with it with you, but not in relationships with another person. This is what emotional unavailability is. We throw this term around very loosely, but we does it actually mean it's quite literally you unavailable for certain emotions in yourself and with other people? Okay, what are the signs of being emotionally unavailable? And again, I want to focus on the signs that show up within you. Not necessarily signs we're looking for in other people because they're not causing you to shut down, you're choosing to. They're not causing you to feel unsafe. You are used to feeling unsafe. So if it wasn't this, it would be something else. If it wasn't them, it would be someone else. If you feel unsafe, it's because you don't feel safe being all the way you, volume turned all the way up. That's not because of another person. If you're not speaking your truth, if you're not grounded, if you're not neutral, comfortable just being curious and looking at the scenario in front of you and taking responsibility for what you're making it mean and how you feel, that can all change, and it does when we become emotionally available. But the signs I want us looking for, it's any place that you're betraying yourself, your truth. And that could look so many different ways. It's you wearing what you think would make someone else happy instead of what you would be comfortable in. It's, you know, only saying what you think would be acceptable or what you think would prevent or avoid conflict. It's any place that you're losing you in the name of love or peace or relationship or that's having you dumbing it down, dimming it down, fake, inauthentic, without meaning to be likely because you don't want to lose something or someone, but in the meantime, you're losing you. And what I love to say is, the only thing you have to lose is you. Don't you dare let that happen. And when you do, it's the result of some sort of emotional unavailability. So when you're trying to be who you're not, to please, to be accepted, to be loved, to have peace, you're actually emotionally unavailable and disconnected from the possibility of true intimacy, true connection, true, healed, authentic, profound relating to another person. It starts with you relating to you unapologetically. And the more you're able to relate to yourself comfortably and confidently, Even when any of these emotions are showing up that may be confronting, it's only from there that you could then relate to another person in a way where you're available for them and their humanity, all of it however it looks. And that's what we all want. We all want to be seen, we all want to be heard. We all want to be loved for who we are. And it's not possible until we love and see and hear all of our emotions and ourselves for who we are. It's just not possible. So I want to take the sting, the threat and the stigma out of this idea of emotional unavailability be because our emotions aren't the problem and other people aren't the problem. It's how we're choosing to show up. It's how we're choosing to cope and manage and survive instead of fully living into all of our truth, including the truth about our sensitivity, our emotions, what we need and want deep down at our core. It's to be accepted. All of our emotions and all. And one more time, it's only from there that we could accept another for all of themselves, all of who they are, including all of their emotions. Okay, so what the hell do we do when we're noticing we're shutting down, we're betraying ourselves, our guard is up. And again, I want us to have boundaries. Boundaries. It's us knowing how we're going to take care of ourselves regardless of how another person shows up. That's all a boundary is. So I want us to have boundaries, but I don't want us guarding and protecting our hearts because then the love can't get in first. Self love, our love for ourselves can't happen when we're guarded and protecting our hearts and operating in survival mode. But we also can't love another person or have them truly feel us in our essence and, and how much we care and how much we want to give when our heart is guarded. So when you're noticing that you're emotionally unavailable, the best thing you can do is hire a coach or a therapist, or work with a mentor to start to look at what are the wounds that run so deep that they would have you being someone you're not in the name of survival and self protection, what's going on that you're denying your emotions? Because I'm telling you right here, right now, they're there for a reason. They're not going anywhere until they're accepted, seen, heard and loved. Anger, fear, grief, joy, excitement. They're all welcome. And until they're welcome, they get louder. They have tantrums, just like a toddler, and they want our attention. So the best thing we can do is give our emotions our attention ourself. The same amount of love we want from outside in, we've got to give it to ourselves. Even in the face of an uncomfortable emotion or a trigger. Rejecting, denying, running, escaping from our emotions, it is only hurting you, making you toxic and preventing you from experiencing all the love, connection and intimacy you want and deserve, by the way. So if you find yourself Here, Find someone to work with to get to the root. Get my book coming back to life. I've got it right here. Anywhere books are sold, this is a master class. To getting back to the place where you accept yourself, emotions and all, and a few other ideas for you. Number one, take a deep breath and know, right here, right now, you're safe. My first mentor, Carol Reynolds, used to say, right here, right now, you're safe. Tell yourself, right here, right now, I'm safe. For me, that was game changing. Because as a trauma survivor, I've known horror, I've known terror, and I got way too comfortable there for way too long, letting people love me that felt more terrifying than me being abused further. If you can relate, please know you're not alone. Letting the love in, letting the good stuff in, letting myself be joyful without fear that the other shoe was about to drop or harm would come, or worse. Me just believing I didn't deserve that. No, it wasn't good enough for me, and it's not good enough for you. So take it. Take a deep breath and know, right here, right now, you're safe. Number two, know that you have the power of decision and choice available to you even in the face of a difficult emotion. So you wouldn't be guarding yourself if you didn't care a lot. Take that in for a minute. You care a lot. Let yourself get the outcome you want. So the second part is just asking yourself, what? What do I want? Do I want to end this relationship? Do I want to push this person away? Do I want to shut down and perpetuate patterns? Do I want to resolve uncomfortable feelings? Which, by the way, my current coach and I have been working on this recently. It is so different attempting to resolve an uncomfortable feeling versus clearing out and healing through a pattern that you no longer have use for. Do you hear the difference? So when it comes to being emotionally available, we're just trying to resolve an uncomfortable feeling versus clearing a pattern. So the third thing I want to say is be brave enough to explore and clear a pattern you're in. You're just doing what you know when. You're choosing emotional availability, but it's not getting you what you want. So give yourself permission to know you're safe and to know I can give myself permission to be honest about what I want. And I can do a different dance step here. Number three, I can begin the process of interrupting this pattern, knocking it in a new direction, and having a whole brand new experience. Now, if it's another person that you're noticing is being emotionally unavailable. You turn your emotional availability game on and turn it up and be even more emotionally available. Let them experience being loved, cared for, seen. I watched that show Love Trip. And the two women that fall in love and end up together, they do a good job of this, of recognizing what their patterns are and being someone who's standing strong and firm, open hearted in front of the other, letting them know, okay, no matter how you show up, like, I'm still here, I'm not going anywhere. Anywhere, right? So you being someone that says, I'm not going to take shit, but I am still here and I want this to work and I want to love you through this without over functioning, without making it again your job to fix them. Because we can. It's not our job to be the savior for another person. It's not our job to make them feel better or more secure. But I can be so secure within myself that I model that possibility. And I can be steadfast standing in I'm not going anywhere. And let's explore what's happening together. You're still lovable. No matter what happened, no matter what triggers you're up against, I still love you. I'm still here. I still want to connect. Try that again without taking shit. If it's volatile, if they're cruel, you can say, I'm going to press pause. We can start and stop this interaction, this conversation, as many times as we need to. But ultimately I'm here, I'm not going anywhere. And it's safe for both of us to be honest about our emotions, how we're feeling, what we need, what we want. And let's prioritize connection over safety and survival paradigms that would have us push each other away or shut down. Right now I'm just wanting to model for you some language. It's where we guard against love that we begin to create disease toxicity. And it's disappointing, it's upsetting, it feels like shit. And it doesn't have to be that way. Okay, two more big tips, tools, hacks to overcome emotional unavailability. The first is make it a daily practice to meditate on or journal about or at the very least reflect on. Who were you today that you're proud of. This might sound like it has nothing to do with emotional availability, but it so does. When you're proud of yourself, when you love yourself, when you are your own most favorite, favorite human, nothing can threaten you. Nothing can threaten your ability to stay connected to yourself, to your truth, to love fully and Fiercely to remember you're unshakably whole. So just simply by asking yourself, who was I today that I'm proud of? Or what did I do that I'm proud of? That's a start. And then let yourself. Part B of this hack is to let yourself sit with the emotions that come up. Maybe you need to grieve because you recognize how long it's been since you ever even asked yourself, who was I today that I'm proud of? Maybe it's fear. Do I get to let myself be proud of myself? Maybe it's anger because growing up, who was ever proud of me? Whoever showed me how to be proud of myself? Maybe it's joy, maybe it's excitement, but whatever it is, take full responsibility for being willing to be with the emotion that comes up after you've looked at and identified at least one thing you're proud of around who you've been, how you showed up, that you can take with you into all of your relationships and into your future and then be with the emotion number two, Attraction 102. Earlier in the episode we talked about Attraction 101. We attract what we haven't healed yet, right? Attraction 102. 201 is you being the person that you want. And this is where you can make a list of all the qualities, all the standards you have that you're looking for and then begin the process of becoming each of those things. So simple, so game changing, not easy, but possible. And when you've made your list of what you're looking for in other people and you start to look at, you know, grading yourself one to 10 in each of these areas. 10 being, I got it down. One being, I'm a hot fucking mess with this. Only from there can you start to connect to your emotions and shed and release and let go of the past so that it can be the past. We do our best with the tools we have from the level of awareness that we are in and so does everyone else. But you deserve emotional availability and your relationships deserve emotional availability. And you leading yourself into a life where you, you require and essentially demand emotional availability, it's going to give you the connection, the intimacy and the love that you seek platonically and romantically and professionally and all the way around. I'm so excited for you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for tuning in. This is a big topic. What I will leave you with is my promise that your emotions have never and can never and, and will never hurt you and other people's emotions. Have never, can never and will never hurt you. It's us being emotionally unavailable and resistant to our emotion that creates a negative ripple, does harm, and just drives a wedge between people and possibility. The emotions aren't the problem, it's the running however we can from emotions and that's the problem. And there is a better way. And hopefully this episode gave you some soul food to chew on, some ideas to try out. But you can be safe and loving yourself and others, even in the name of our humanity and our emotions that aren't going anywhere. As I've said on repeat today, thank you for tuning into the Healing as Possible experience again. I'm Rebecca Silence Visit Rebecca Silence where you can get quick courses, free masterclasses, my book, any support that you seek, including private practice, work with me. Whether or not you want to work on yourself or heal and transform your relationships, I'm here for you. Healing is possible no matter what. It's not promised, but it's possible for you, for me, and for all of us. I love you. I'll see you soon. Bye for now. Sa.