Being Secure in Suffering
Prominent marriage and family therapist, Julie Menanno, writes in her book, Secure Love, that humans have more access to themselves the more secure they are in their relationships. At times, the idea of security in a relationship could be too lofty to imagine. For most, people in their relationships fight their whole life to arrive at this feeling that seems fleeting.
According to the National Library of Medicine, attachment security has been positively linked to a greater confidence in their own sense of self (NIH, 2017).
Let’s define the secure-base phenomenon.
A secure base refers to the child’s enhanced ability to explore the surrounding environment when doing so from the base of a secure attachment relationship with a caregiver (Bowlby, 1988). Even in today’s modern world, attachment research continues to emphasize how positively impactful a secure relationship could be for those in adult relationships (Levine/Heller, 2010).
------------------------------------------------------------
Why is feeling secure so important when we are suffering?
We have, we are, and we will suffer; therefore, we need secure attachments to continue hoping in God and loving our neighbors.
Only when our greatest love is God, a love that we cannot lose even in death, can we face all things with peace. Grief was not to be eliminated but seasoned and buoyed up with love and hope; this seasons our sorrow (Keller, 2013).
It doesn’t take long to understand the world we live in will continue to break our hearts. In the last 6 weeks we’ve mourned over heavy and hurried floods that manufactured liquid graveyards, ruthless and vengeful shootings in the city, dreadful fires in west, and closer stories of friends being abused by the faith-based organizations they work for.
Suffering is the persistence of pain, an ongoing emotional and/or physical painful discomfort (Thompson, 2023). Timothy Keller, in his book, Walking with God in Pain & Suffering, noted that a secular view of suffering is never being able to see suffering as a meaningful part of life but only as an interruption. He asserted the meaning of life in the United States is the pursuit of pleasure and personal freedom, therefore, suffering is very traumatic for Americans (Keller, 2013).
What are we to do?
------------------------------------------------------------
Facilitate a reorientation of our view of suffering
Someone can facilitate in three ways:
1. Ask a friend to listen, engage, & ask questions about the suffering you’re enduring
a. This provides relationship and vulnerability that deepens the relationship
2. Make meaning of harsh experiences
a. When ready, appropriate, and after being validated by self or others, begin to ask how this pain occurred
i. Were you a passive receiver?
ii. Were you an active participant?
iii. What was your contribution, if any?
3. Take time to spend with God & others in suffering
a. When pain occurs, be cautious of your desire to indulge in social media, YouTube videos, and reels of any kind.
b. Instead
i. Lean into physical friendships and ask for prayer
ii. Lean into physical friendships and ask for feedback
iii. Lean into physical friendships and ask for what you need
I stress physical friendship because the suffering we experience is a physical sensation, when we navigate a physical sensation with a digital non-physical experience, we stunt the potential of feeling and believe we are secure in our relationships.
To create a secure base for people, we only need one example and secure attachment in our lives. God provides security for humanity in giving up His son to bring people back to Himself, Christianity has this resource. Since all those in faith can partake of heavenly attributes, we can resemble and remind those of a secure attachment by being securely attached ourselves. Furthermore, we show up as a secure base to those closest to us.
Over the past four articles, we have engaged with the 4 S’s and hurting relationships:
Being Seen.
Being Soothed.
Being Safe.
Being Secure.
Dr. Dan Sielge and Dr. Bryson, in their book, The Power of Showing Up, provides a framework for showing up in the lives of children. These articles have sought to thoughtfully engaged these tools to understand how we can relationally show up amid suffering to those we love and care for.
------------------------------------------------------------
Suffering can be found anywhere in any place, we live in a broken world, you don’t have to look far. When you witness or even experience suffering yourself, we tend to isolate ourselves, so people won’t see us struggle.
However –
What if they are silently struggling as well?
What if in speaking up and speaking out, you encourage others to not walk alone?
What if by walking with people in suffering provides the security that reminds you of the God that never leaves?
-j
