8 challenges for the ones who struggle with emotional availability

From finding the root cause to exploring your own feelings, here are a few gentle challenges that can help with emotional unavailability.

Often in life, we struggle with being emotionally unavailable. It can stem out of a lot of past experiences and can have the undertone of a need that we are not able to verbally express. Sometimes being around people, and knowing that they are healthy for us, we still have a tough time shedding the walls that we have created around ourselves to keep people from coming inside. Addressing this, Psychotherapist Emily H Sanders wrote, “Knowing you are someone who struggles to be emotionally available to others is a huge first step. That awareness is a big deal; there are many for whom this doesn’t register as a personal issue, who don’t realize their own lack of availability. So, if you’re frustrated with yourself, take a grain of hope from that.”

Emily further suggested a few challenges that can help the ones who struggle with emotional availability:

Surround yourself with people: Recognise people who are in healthy relationships and surround yourself with such people. Watch how they treat you and others. This can be a lesson learnt in discretion.

Identify safe people: Identifying people who are safe for you can be the first step of sharing your emotions with them and letting it all out.

How you interact with others: How we interact with others, and how much we are ready to share with others should be observed. And further, we should work on it.

Notice feelings: Address the emotions and the feelings that you are facing. This will help in knowing about your emotional state and create more clarity.

Words to feelings: often people struggle to articulate their feelings into words. Instead, we should challenge ourselves to express the way we feel.

Get in touch with feelings: Spending time with oneself, surrounded by nature or having a hobby can help in connecting with oneself in a deeper level. This will help to address the feelings better.

Remind yourself: When the challenges start to get tiring, it is important to take a break and remind yourself that vulnerability is a long process and can take time. It is better to not rush.

Explore root issues: Emotional unavailability often steps from trauma or other past issues. It is important to explore the root cause of emotional unavailability.