How to Find Someone Emotionally Available.

You’re tired of dating people to find out later that they were never in a place emotionally to give you what you needed, to give you back what you give to others, to be there for you like you have been for them. The thing is that the blame isn’t all theirs and that is what you will eventually come to understand. But the real question is even if they were, would the person you are now at the level of healing and with your current relationship with your emotions be ready for that? Because the things that we attract, want, and value in others should show us a lot about ourselves allowing us to look inward asking ourselves why those are things that matter and gravitate towards us. What and why they resonate with us in some aspect.

Being aware that sometimes we attract the people that we think we deserve especially when we haven't learned how to fully love ourselves and everything that makes us who we are, past and present. How much we love ourselves, value ourselves, and see ourselves is often displayed in the people we surround ourselves with and date and how we allow them to treat us along with the things we do whether we chose to acknowledge that or not.

Being honest with ourselves before we can ever expect or ask that of others.

"I can see now that the purpose of self-progress is not to pursue perfection, but to move closer to the truth of who we really are, to untangle our deepest fears and doubts, and arrive in that tender, blissful place where we are free to be our purest boundless selves."

-Beau Taplin

Until we learn that we tend to attract people who protect the parts of ourselves that we are afraid of, feeding our egos along with our insecurities until we learn how to love ourselves and shift our persectives in looking for growth instead of comfort. Seeking what we actually need to grow and not just what we think we want to be happy. Until we face the reality that parts of ourselves attract people who aren't good for us because of something they offer us in terms of allowing us to stay the way we are in how we are, how we think, and how we know how to exist not wanting anyone who may change the status quo of that.

The things that you say that you seek and that you want are not the things that you look for and that are actually important to you when it comes to meeting new people, talking to new people. You wonder why you make the same mistakes over and over again with people who are damaged beyond what they are even aware of and who haven’t taken the time to heal themselves but it’s easy to be blind to when you are learning about them all on the outside, caring about what their imagine in a sense looks like instead of what their heart looks like. What their souls looks like.

You have this whole list of things that are important to you and you aren’t wrong for that. Things that you think would make your perfect person and everyone you meet you are seeing if they check off those boxes. Yet, none of those boxes are the kind that you unbox allowing the other person to show you what is inside. Only that they fit the box, look like that box applies to them. Standards are good but writing off alot of other people because they don’t check image, income, and other checkboxes similar to those means that you are missing out on alot of other people that may even be better that those who you think are “perfect” and “worthy” of you.

"You make lists in your head about what you want in a love, like brown hair and a sweet voice. A sharp mind and a soft heart, a sense of humor that actually makes you laugh like you mean it. This and that. And it's all bullshit. Because people aren't lists. And I've always wanted to be the person who made someone realize that. I want to come across someone with a list in their head that is nothing like the person I am, and I want to show them what they didn't even know they were looking for. People who think they know what they want are fooling themselves. Nobody really knows what they want. Not until it's right in front of them."

-Anonymous

The truth is that sometimes the people that we would never expect to be perfect for us are the ones who we never would have chosen because they aren’t our idea of perfect. They don’t check all the boxes that we want but they do check all the boxes that we need. The ones we are aware of, in denial of, and didn’t know that we needed. They will be the ones that are healthy for us, who challenge us, and push us to grow in ways we never would have by ourselves, ways that we may have never been open to or thought of before. To become better versions of ourselves, to grow, to heal, and to be happier. The people that we often convince ourselves that we want are not always the people that are best for us. They’re usually not the ones that we need. They’re the ones that will allow us to be comfortable either with our lifestyles, social image, unhealthy habits, insecurities, and all the other parts of ourselves that are resistant to change and inviting those who challenge us and don’t just agree or concede.

"We all have scars, find someone who makes yours beautiful."

-Atticus

Until we learn and become aware of the unhealthy parts of ourselves, the pain that we carry, and our own short comings we will continue to bring people into our lives who allow those parts to continue and manifest rather than resolve. Toxic and unhealthy people we allow into our lives because they fill some sort of void or comfort level within ourselves that we are not ready to recognize and heal for whatever reason it may be. This isn’t always something that happens on a conscious level but once we start realizing that there are patterns in the people we attract and ask ourselves why and what part of ourselves wants them is when the process towards allowing healthier people to gravitate toward you begins.

It’s when maybe you start to question why everything you thought you wanted and needed in someone and all the people who checked those boxes were not good matches for you, good fits for you ended up being quite the opposite.

Our idea of the most perfect person in our minds will never be the person that will be right for us because that person isn’t the kind that will make us happy in the ways that internally we all want. And the most aware we become of ourselves, our insecurities, our projected traumas, and our unhealthy habits the more we are able to recognize that. The ideas we create in our minds are rarely ever perfect other than in our minds. Because along with awareness comes realizing that we often need the very things in other people that oppose those things in ourselves and things that challenge us in ways that our perfect person would allow us to stay comfortably in. Until we learn this, we will continue to attract people who don’t force us outside of our comfort zones, don’t challenge our thinking, and don’t make us feel uncomfortable allowing us to stay in a bubble of stagnation instead of growth.

Attracting the superficial parts in others that provide us a sense of temporary happiness but not a real sense of permanent happiness. Feeding our need for our egos to be satisfied but leaving our heart and soul hungry.

And somewhere along the line you will finally have enough and that is when you will question why you attract people that never satisfy you internally intellectually, and emotionally. Why everything thing you thought you were supposed to look for and want in a partner has led you astray and didn’t bring you happiness like you had associated with people of those characteristics and qualities. All you life you thought that if you found someone you had the things that you had associated with happiness that they would bring you happiness, that you would feel satisfied and content. What people don’t tell you is that looking for surface level things to sustain and satisfy a relationship meant to be intimate will always leave you hurt and with a sense of emptiness because the people who are perfect on paper are rarely person without that paper. And often those are the people who work so hard to look perfect because they are unable to be perfect or feel perfect in other ways. And those are the ways that you want.

Those who place their value in how they look, what they accomplish, how much money they make, and other exterior things will always have a fleeting sense of happiness and inner sense of conflict because they compensate in external things that they can feel in control of to avoid looking within. These are the things that are easy to talk about. The things that are easy to show and tell anyone. The things that you are easy to learn. You should want to learn the parts of someone that they don’t offer up to everyone else, the parts that they don’t necessarily want others to know about them. Because that is where you will find the real version of themselves. And if they refuse to show that to you and treat you like everyone else well then you know not to waste your time and to treat them like everyone else. Someone who is emotionally open isn’t ever someone you should perceive as weak, it actually shows incredible strength and growth to be able to get to that point and to feel comfortable with the things that come with talking about our feelings and emotions.

Someone who is emotionally mature will not feel invaded, offended, or defensive about you wanting to know the things that they feel and the things that surround those things. The lessons they have learned and their stories. The will want to share them and learn about yours as well. It's conversations like those that healthy people will welcome.

Just remember it is better to spend a few days talking about someone’s darkness than months, years talking about someone's light. If you want to see someone’s true colors, you need to look at their pain and their past and how is has affected them and their current relationship with it.

"Maybe we shouldn't fall in love with each other if we're not willing to be ourselves. If we are not willing to be open and vulnerable. Because isn't that the beauty of it all? To be naked with the one you love. And I don't mean physically but mentally, emotionally, spiritually. To be completely honest no matter how troublesome it gets. Don't you see, that's what it's all about. This whole love thing. It's about honesty. It's about trust. Nothing more. Nothing less."

-r.m. Drake

The real version of someone underneath it all, the emotions that allow a connection stronger than physical, material, or societal means could ever satisfy. And that is what you will never find in someone who is only concerned about how good and perfect their resume looks. Because those who are capable of offering you the level of connection and intimacy that you seek are not going to be concerned about looking good on paper because they know at the end of the day that doesn’t matter. Emotionally available because that is the part about themselves that they value the most usually because they have learned how to heal, how to love, and how to be healthy in all aspects allowing them to be open with their heart freely. This doesn’t mean that they are perfect or all healed by any means but means that they have the tools and emotional intelligence to grow and to heal from their past, present, and future. And that they aren’t hiding or ignoring the things that have hurt them or changed them. It means that they will be able to communicate with you in a way that someone who’s afraid of their emotions and unavailable never will be able to, a healthy way.

The truth is:

You seek stability. You want stability but the things you value and look for in others, the things that you think are most important and are the boxes you want others to check aren’t ever going to lead to the kind of stability that will lead to your long term happiness and give you a sense of internal stability.

What you really want is internal stability. Emotional stability yet all you seek and prioritize in others, in qualifying others are things showing their external stability. And that might not even be something that until now you realized that you’ve done or valued by the things you’ve looked for and wanted in others. As you’re learning now I’m sure is that there is more to life and you need more in others than the tangible things that most people have to offer.

External:

Their resume in a sense. Their societal standing. Their presence. Their education. Their job, income. Their appearance. Their achievements.

And sometimes it’s hard to see where someone is at especially if they work hard to make other aspects of themselves look good that people overlook the emotional aspect and don’t focus on it. And others have told you not to get too personal or not to dig too deep. To protect yourself by not opening up too soon. But, the thing is that if you have made peace with yourself, your past, and have a firm sense of self then you won’t feel like that’s a bad thing. There is really nothing to lose but so much to gain by allowing your hear to be open, your emotions to flow, and talking about your pain/past. There is no shame, no guilt, and no sense of loss by sharing the things that have helped make you into the person you currently are. Those things come from fear and not making peace from those parts of ourselves showing a lack of learning and opportunity for growth and healing still waiting to be recognized and capitalized on.

The first step to becoming truly emotionally available and the best version of yourself is becoming self aware and being able to learn and make peace with your past. And so many people do not do that and bring unhealthiness and emotions towards things of their past into relationships where the emotions end up hurting something that they had nothing to do with simply because they were never faced and resolved but carried.

Anyone who gets scared away or defensive because you asked about their past is someone that your mind show throw up a flag about. Especially if you let them know that it is to learn and get closer to them not to use it against them or hurt them.

Anyone who tries to hide, put off, or tries to avoid talking about their past is uneasy and has not made peace with their past and the feelings and emotions that they feel towards it. And it isn’t your responsibility to make them feel more comfortable because that a part of themselves they need to resolve by themselves before bringing that into a new relationship. There is a different between healing and working through things and being able to talk about it and being terrified and being completely closed off to sharing that part of you with someone else. If you are truly trying to connect with someone else, there is no better way to connect than over the things we hold closest to our hearts that have made us feel the most. I do not mean to try to force anyone to talk about anything they aren’t ready to or don’t want to but my point is that people who truly wish to connect with others in a intimate way understand that the best way to be vulnerable. Because the reality of life is that people connect to your brokenness. Whether they are parts still broken or parts put back together.

“We are made of all of those who have built us and broken us.”

-Atticus

If anyone isn’t able to talk about their past or their emotions from the start, that should be a red flag. Not because anything is wrong with them but that that isn’t someone emotionally that is ready for you to be with them. To be able to be truly emotionally available and healthy we first have to be able to be emotionally honest with ourselves. And if they can’t talk about those things then that means that something is still hurting or that they aren’t facing what happened and have not healed from whatever they don’t want to talk about and that isn’t fair to you to try to involved yourself with someone who haven’t resolved, made peace, and grown from their past. Because whether they want it to or not, their unresolved pain and past will affect the relationship and you by things projected or put on you that aren’t yours creating problems where there shouldn’t be any.

People who have made peace, learned, or are in the process of healing will be able to talk about those things and think that it is important to talk about them. You will feel that space to communicate openly and vulnerably between you two never feeling forced if it is meant to be there and both people are emotionally available, emotionally mature.

"Inner peace doesn't necessarily mean that we are free of hollow spaces or that life is always pleasant, but that no matter what happens, we trust in ourselves to persevere. That we have total confidence in our capability to confront life's difficulties, and ultimately overcome them."

-Beau Taplin

If they can’t talk about those things and you both cannot be completely honest with each other and ask each other anything from the beginning then what do you even know about them. That is a foreshadowing of them hiding parts of themselves from others and from themselves, the most important parts. Because not having that transparency and open communication where you feel free to talk and ask anything doesn’t cultivate healthy communication in the future. It means that they will probably just also keep other things from you as well, the things that would tell you and show you more about them then they could ever verbally try to tell you about themselves in the present. It isn’t about when they are ready to talk to you or feel comfortable sharing or about moving too fast, it’s about when they are ready to even feel it themselves and to acknowledge that part of themselves and their past. To see this part that they kept hidden for so long. Vital parts of who they are that have been ignored and run from that have most likely caused deeper damage then they even know and are naive to refused to even acknowledge that it happened by never talking about it, with others and with themselves.

It isn’t a fear in the actuality of sharing it with you, it’s about being forced to see it themselves.

How is someone supposed to share something with you that they won’t even allow themselves to feel and open the door to see.

People carry around so much of their pain whether they want to admit it or not and what we have to realize is that it isn’t our responsibly to be the result of that carried pain or to try to fix it for them because we will never be successful even it happens for a second, it won’t stay. The kind of change, the kind of healing that has to occur is the kind that has to come from within the person who has felt it all and holds it all. Because they want it. Because they’re ready. Because they are ready to learn and grow from it. And because they want to make peace with it.

One of the most important questions I think to ask someone to see where they are with themselves emotionally without explicitly asking an emotional question:

What has changed you the most?

The response whether emotional or non-emotional will show you a lot about a person and teach you more than you would’ve known by asking other questions. What they value. In a way that isn’t invasive and allowing them the option to answer how they want but still shows you a lot without them telling you those other pieces of themselves but still showing you by their response. You can learn a lot about asking about someone’s past and by people’s responses and what they choose to share. Allowing them the space to choose but at the same time showing them that you are giving them safe space to share vulnerabilities. Just as if you felt more comfortable and asked them what has hurt you the most or what has been the darkest moment in your life. Reminding them that it is to understand them better and how they need to be loved.

"She wasn't afraid of my demons and I did not fear her madness. we saw beyond those things that life does to a person. And underneath it all there's a beautiful soul that just wants to be loved."

-JmStorm

You’re hesitant to ask the important questions yet those are the things that your heart truly desires and those are the things that you deserve to know in someone who a potential relationship with you. Those are the things that the deepest parts of yourself you have been unable to satisfy in the people you thought were right for you. Those are the things you crave to know but have to be willing to ask. People aren't usually as afraid to answer as they are to ask.

"Find a partner that is equally committed to supporting you through the good times and through the tough moments of growth and healing. Coming together as imperfect people can be hard. Imperfection can sometimes cause unintentional conflict, especially when one is going through a moment of inner turbulence. It is patience, calm communication, and selfless listening that gets couples through the storm. Conflict decreases when both turn inward and focus on building their self-awareness."

-Yung Pueblo

You shouldn’t be timid to ask the important questions you should be scared not to. Because that is how you spend your time, efforts, care, and love with people who if only you had asked you would have seen that internally they are not someone that you want to be with. And you wouldn’t catch yourself looking back after things seem to go up in flames asking yourself why because they wouldn’t have begun if you asked the questions you truly wanted to without fear and could clearly see where they were at in their growth, maturity, and heart.

The kind of person that you seek will be the person who will appreciate you for asking questions like that and even challenge you to dig deeper, within them and within yourself.

Not someone who quivers when someone tries to connect with them below the surface. Not someone who gets defensive. Not someone who diverts and avoids. Not someone who pushes you off thinking you don't deserve to know. Closing that door to that part of them. You deserve someone who lets you into all the rooms in their heart, the pretty ones and the ugly ones. Never forget that.

You'll never miss out on getting to know someone with potential to be something with you who has a welcoming soul and spirit. Because they will place their value in connecting in the way that you have always wanted and it will feel right and natural never forced.

Anyone who has made peace or is healing from their pain and past will be able to talk about it without a negative response even if it makes them feel pain and hurt. Because they won’t be scared of it or ashamed of it anymore. They’ll know it’s a part of who they are becoming and their past and be able to acknowledge what they learned. Understanding it doesn’t make them weak but strong. They won’t shy awake or be scare to talk about the their pain. They will be able to talk about their darkness as much as their lightness. Having a better relationship with themselves and in turn allowing them to have a better relationship with the people they choose to be with. A more wholesome view on life, peace, and happiness. And always trusting in themselves that whatever happens or they face that they will be okay and will be able to heal and can save themselves. Not needing to unhealthily cope by filling the void, avoiding the pain, or projecting onto others their own fears. Being able to take responsibility for the things that are theirs and separating themselves from the things that aren’t.

"You don't mature with time, you mature through lessons. You mature when you make mistakes and learn where you went wrong. You mature the moment you can admit that you are wrong and accept that people will always have differing opinions on you and that is okay. You mature when you look within yourself before you look to others, it is the moment you decide to hold your tongue instead of engaging in an unnecessary dispute. You mature when you choose kindness over arrogance, and choose to forgive over holding grudges. You don't mature through time that passes. You mature through the lessons you seek and understand."

-naaveesa

Finding someone who is emotionally available means being aware of yourself first. Asking yourself why you look for or feel the need for that person to have the things you currently want. Why you think you attracted the people you have in the past that did have those things. Asking questions that cut below the surface and not being afraid to, understanding that if someone gets scared because of that you didn’t want them anyhow. Placing conscious value and effort into seeking internal stability and emotional connection in the conversations when “qualifying” people and not writing people off right away who don’t fit external expectations or wants.

You wouldn't want someone to choose you just because you qualified in their eyes and checked enough boxes on their list so don't hold other people to that or else you will probably attract other people who place value in the wrong things over and over again.

Looking more at people’s emotional resume’s instead of their professional ones. Because at the end of the day, you don’t want them to work for you, you want them to work with you. And that only happens if there is a emotional connection and bond. Occurring only you find that by seeking to find value in that part of them more than the other parts. Not limiting people to lists. Not qualifying them to see if they are "good enough." It's not about the things they can write down, it's about the things that they can't. People have a lot more to offer than what you can see by the way they present themselves and show on their exterior. Allow them to do that.

Be ready and be open to the idea that the right person who have been looking for all this time might look a little different and realize that is not a bad thing.

Understand that the connection you want is not the same as the attraction you have been chasing.

"Until weh have seen someone's darkness, we don't really know who they are. Until we have forgiven someone's darkness, we don't really know what love is."

-Marianne Williamson

Allowing them the chance to show you their heart and with that you will see the things you need to see everything that you truly should care to see. The moment you are able to value this more and care most about satisfying the deeper parts of yourself will be when you start to find the kind of people who will find you because that is when you'll be ready for them, open for them. Letting someone see you as you see them. Sharing all the pieces that make you who you are showing them they have a safe place to trust you with theirs. Understanding someone's "darkness" is so important for you to know. Anyone who doesn't understand that doesn't really want to love you they just want to like who they see you as on the outside.

"Let someone love you the way you are - as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as unaccomplished as you may think you are. To believe that you must hide all the parts of you that are broken, out of fear that someone else is incapable of loving what is less than perfect, is to believe that sunlight is incapable of entering a broken window and illuminating a dark room."

-Mack Hack

Ready for someone like that. To love and to be loved by them. Because that in it's entirety is a different kind of love. A more wholesome love rooted in the emotional connection that you share and in the love that you have learned to have for yourself allowing you to love others better.

"Don't look for the right person become the right person and the right person will find you."

Atticus