Gentle Teaching
Companionship
Feeling safe
Feeling safe is the first pillar of companionship. It’s important to realize that being safe is not necessary the same as feeling safe. There can be many reasons why a person doesn’t feel safe with us, even if we mean so well. The fear may be caused by personal vulnerabilities, like autism, mental disability, a mental illness, or dementia. It can also be caused by life experiences, like being punished, beaten, yelled at, neglected, etc. A dramatic experience might have caused a trauma, but also repeatedly being punished, neglected, or even mildly corrected, may have caused a trauma within the mind of the special friend.
Teaching a person, who is basically afraid of others, to feel safe with us, is a very delicate process. We have to be very aware of how we are interacting with the person and how the person perceives us and the way we are talking to him, the way we are looking into his eyes and the way we are touching him.