James Cordova

And can I manage this on my own?

And maybe I'm just being like irrational.

And it was it was wholly irrational.

Like there was no there was nothing logical about it.

And the key to intimate safety and the way that this played out in my relationship is that I knew it didn't have to be rational.

I didn't have to justify what I was experiencing emotionally.

I could still just take it to my partner and say,

I can't defend this.

I don't know where this is coming from, but I'm just feeling like really hurt and maybe just a little bit, you know, I don't know, maybe it's abandoned in this spot.

And I just need you to like know that and like care.

And of course, you know, my partner met that with warmth and kindness and compassion and understanding.

And for me, that really is the epitome

of the experience of intimate safety.

That something as vulnerable as this, indefensible emotion that I'm having, it's still real and I don't have to hide it from her.

Such a beautiful story.

And I love how she is, she's actually demonstrating that thing that we were talking about earlier about eating the blame, right?

As she was able to reflect on their relationship and see, at least partly, I was pushing pretty hard.

And like we were talking about before, he may have been resisting pretty hard.

And that stuckness was,

They were unable to resolve while they were pouring so much energy into the stuckness, taking that step back.