I really like and relate to the idea(s) of “safe haven & secure basis” mentioned in Jessica Fern’s book Polysecure.
The “safe haven & secure basis” are the two main aspects of healthy attachment-based relationships.
When my European genderqueer lover/friend left to go back home to Europe a week ago, one of my most significant “safe havens” (& “secure bases”) disappeared abruptly. Despite it being “expected”, and thus I being “mentally prepared for it”, it still felt like it had been abruptly ripped away from me, which probably triggered some deep abandonment issues from my childhood/past with the ensuing anxiety and almost feelings of panic from being alone. Which I had expected and prepared for to the extent that I could. So the support from friends, their actual presence with me either in person or on the phone, was a huge help, maybe more significant and fundamental than they can imagine, as they were contributing to my being able to rebuild a sense of safety. They were (& still are) helping me rebuild a safe haven. Which in turn allows me to have, and feel, a secure basis from which I can grow further, explore, go on adventures — thrive as my authentic self.
Since my years in California it has become extremely, and sometimes painfully, clear to me that I really need both, the “safe haven” and the “secure basis” within my most important relationships: I need to have the space and time and liberty to be wild, adventurous, free; but I also need to feel that I’m coming home to somebody, that someone is expecting me, that someone is thinking of me and will be sad if I don’t come home. I don’t want to come back to an empty home (whether figuratively or literally). And I want to be able to provide the same “safe haven & secure basis” to my friends and partners, offering supportive, non-possessive love.
A week after the painful and triggering separation from my European genderqueer lover/friend I am setting off for my own, long-awaited vacation/adventure. A lot of the next week will be spent alone in the outdoors, all by myself in nature. I am a little scared but I’m also feeling eager and looking forward to it, in need of it. But I am also, and especially, very aware of the fact that I might not have reached enough peace, even physiologically within my nervous system, if it hadn’t been for my friends’ support over the past week.
They are my “safe haven & secure basis”, and for that I will never be able to thank them all enough.
The Little Prince and the Fox 