Safe People: Signs Someone Has a Secure Attachment Style

​When you’re healing from childhood trauma, it’s not uncommon to find yourself involved in a pattern of toxic and dysfunctional relationships, largely due to the attachment style that you developed during childhood. While there’s plenty of resources out there on spotting potential red flags and signs someone is toxic, narcissistic, or abusive, it can be hard to find green flags-the signs that someone is a safe person who would be healthy relationship material. 
 
Whether the person is a friend, partner, family member, or colleague, it can be helpful to know how someone with a secure attachment style behaves so that you can begin to choose healthier and more fulfilling relationships. Knowing what the traits of a secure-attachment style are can help you to practice regularly emulating them. 
 
The more you practice acting as if you are securely attached, the more securely attached you become. All of us have a degree of secure attachment inside us-meaning all of us possess some traits that allow us to relate to ourselves and others in a healthy way. 
 
It’s just a matter of expanding those traits and learning new ones that allows you to develop what experts call “earned-secure attachment”. ​ Earned secure attachment is secure attachment that someone intentionally developed when they previously were insecurely attached earlier in life. 

Below are signs of safe people, so that you can identify secure people to enter into relationships with, and become more securely attached yourself.

They Live From a Set of Values

We all live life acting from a set of values and principles. These can be spiritual principles, like “thou shall not steal” or a learned set of values that were passed down to you, like working hard or treating others with kindness. 
 
When we grow up in dysfunctional families, sometimes the values we take on aren’t helpful and are to our own detriment-like “always put others first” or “don’t express anger, always be happy”. You’ll notice the dysfunctional values/principles often have absolutes attached to them, like “always” and “never”. 
 
Safe people life their lives from a set of principles and values, and they choose relationships where those values are shared.

For instance, they might value honesty and integrity. Living with integrity means they won’t lie to their spouse or steal money from their employer. This means they choose to enter into relationships with people who also value honesty and integrity, and won't want to act in ways that compromise those values.
 
When we live life from a set of values, we come to identify with those values and use them to form our self-concept.

If you value kindness and generosity, you’re likely to identify as someone who is kind and generous and be more likely to offer help to those in need as a result. When you make a mistake and fail to act in alignment with your values, you’re likely to feel remorse, regret, and experience a desire to make amends. 

They Have Communication Skills

A core trait of a securely attached person who is safe to enter into a relationship with is that they’re looking to put out fires and cultivate peaceful connection with the people closest to them.

They communicate with the purpose of creating a sense of consistency, stability, and clarity. They aren’t looking to breed insecurity and ambiguity in their relationships. 
 
Safe people know how to communicate in an honest and assertive way, and don’t feel the need to resort to passive-aggressive or aggressive communication to get their point across.

They don’t need to use the silent treatment, guilt trips, or raise their voice.

Assertive communication means they communicate directly and honestly, while remaining respectful of the person they’re talking to.

​They approach conversations and problem-solving with a mindset that involves linking arms with the people they’re communicating with to come to the best win-win solution they can find. 
 

They Practice Healthy Vulnerability

Being vulnerable doesn’t necessarily mean sharing your deepest, darkest thoughts, feelings, and past experiences with someone. Healthy vulnerability can look like sharing your true thoughts, feelings, needs, and preferences.
 
Safe people have the skill of identifying their emotions and also expressing them in appropriate ways. They're comfortable with telling their partner or children that they love them and matter to them. They're also comfortable with expressing and feeling anger, sadness, frustration, etc.

They're in tune with their needs-they know what they need from their relationships, and are comfortable with asking for what they need and exploring ways to provide themselves with their needs. 

They’re comfortable with taking up space in their relationships-they can share their preferences for where they’d like to go for dinner, their honest opinion on what they thought of a book or movie, or what they want to do over the weekend. 
 
Safe people will tell you upfront what they are and aren’t willing or able to do (in a respectful, compassionate way). They let you know when they need space.

They don’t expect others to read between the lines and anticipate what their needs or feelings are, and they don’t rely on subtle hints, manipulation, or guilt-trips to convey what they’re needing. 
 
Part of being vulnerable is the willingness to request what you need and want with openness and transparency, giving others the opportunity to genuinely decide how they want to respond to your request. You know that when a safe person speaks, they’re being forthright with you.  

They Know How to Access and Manage Their Emotions

We're all human and get overwhelmed from time to time, and sometimes act in ways we aren't proud of. Safe people have developed the skill of sitting with uncomfortable emotions rather than reacting from them.

​They’re comfortable with expressing and experiencing a wide array of emotions, and welcome feelings as a part of life’s experience. 
 
Safe people can tolerate discomfort and have developed the capacity to hold space for their own emotions. They don’t feel the need to stuff, numb, avoid, or placate their emotions. They also don’t become absorbed by their emotions and consumed by them. 
 
They realize that they have the power and responsibility for their life in their own hands, no matter how they’re currently feeling. They believe in their ability to cope with difficulties in life-and if an emotion or circumstance is beyond their capacity to cope with, they have the vulnerability to reach out and ask for the help they need without expecting themselves to manage life on their own. They have a willingness to learn and grow through hard times.
 
Because they have practiced this capacity to tolerate their own emotional discomfort and can hold space for a broad spectrum of feeling, they can hold space for other people’s discomfort without attempting to fix or solve them.

They’re comfortable with emotional expression, and can express feelings such as gratitude, joy, excitement, and love towards others. 
 
Safe people know that there are no “good” or “bad” emotions-there are just comfortable and uncomfortable emotions. A feeling can’t be right or wrong, it just is. It’s what we choose to do with our feelings that matters. 

They Hold The People They Care About to a Higher Standard

Safe people are capable of loving you where you’re at while still holding you to a higher standard. They believe in your ability to succeed in life, and they remind you of what you’re capable of. They won’t sit by while you go down the wrong road or enable you to stagnate in life. 
 
This is the friend who will encourage you to stop making excuses and go after your goals, or who directly confronts you when you’re on a destructive path. This is the partner who will hold you accountable for the changes you’re making in your life.
 
We need the people closest to us to love us enough to call us out on our behavior when we need it. If a safe person sees someone they love and care about changing for the worse rather than for the better, they’ll say something and express their concern.

​They’ll let you know when you need to check your behavior and make some changes to the way you’ve been living, and they’ll set loving and clear boundaries with you if necessary-even if that means they need to distance themselves from you or end the relationship. 
 
They won’t enable destructive or dysfunctional behavior or make excuses for you-because they genuinely believe that you can do better. 
 

They Can Celebrate Your Successes

​They see your potential and they can celebrate your successes. When you win, they feel like they’ve won. They believe that you earned your success and deserve it, and they would never want to diminish or demean your achievements. 
 
Even if they may feel some degree of jealousy, they want to see you succeed at the end of the day. They can put their own insecurities and shortcomings aside to encourage and celebrate your victories. They’re not so insecure within themselves that they feel the need to one-up your accomplishments or sabotage your endeavors to make themselves feel better. 
 
They’re supportive of your goals and accomplishments and will want to cheer you on. 
 
They’ll want to be there to celebrate you. They know how much effort and hard work you put into meeting your goal and they believe you truly earned it and want to celebrate you as a person. You can trust them to be truly happy for you on special occasions; on your wedding day, graduation day, birthdays, when you get promoted at work, finally get that book published, start your business, etc. 
 
They aren’t there looking for how they can gain something from your successes, and they don’t try and take the credit either. They simply are just happy for you and want to support you.

They Live Their Life With Purpose

​Safe people prioritize their well-being and growth. They set goals for themselves and actively look for ways they can improve, whether that be personally, physically, spiritually, financially, socially, etc. Just like they hold their loved ones to a higher standard, they also hold themselves to a higher standard, and believe that their life has purpose.
 
They value their time, energy and resources. They’re too busy pursuing their own growth, goals, and purpose to spend time tangled up in relationships and environments that hold them back. They avoid the things that deter them from their path and gravitate towards the things/people that align with their life purpose.
 
They approach life with an eagerness to learn, and don’t let life pass them by. They aren’t content to stagnate. They surround themselves with people who have achieved what they’re working towards themselves, and they like to enter into relationships with people who also have growth mindsets. 
 
We become like who we associate the most with, and safe people understand this on an intrinsic level. 
 
Because they believe in themselves and set goals, they also believe in you and your goals. They want to mutually succeed and create relationships where you help each other get there. 
 
While they aren’t afraid to dream big and invest time, energy, and resources into their own betterment, they also treat themselves as a human and give themselves grace and compassion when they experience setbacks and make mistakes. They don’t go into their personal development journeys with unobtainable perfectionistic standards, using pressure and anxiety to spur them forward. 
 
Instead, they approach their goals with a desire to learn, grow, and create the future reality that they envision. They’re propelled forward in their progress by genuine enjoyment of the learning process and a desire to love and care for themselves and those around them.

They Can Resolve Conflict

​You can tell this person how they feel without it turning into an argument. They view conflict as problem-solving, where it’s you and them working together to arrive at a solution that ideally works for both you and them. 
 
Since they’re in the habit of feeling and managing their emotions, they’re more easily able to respond rather than react. Knee-jerk reactions and impulsive decisions that further damage your relationship won’t be something they’re generally inclined to do. Instead, since the safe person lives their life from a strong values system, for the most part, they live in a way that reflects the values and principles that matter most to them. 
 
They’re willing to see the issue from your perspective and seek to understand your point of view rather than trying to “win” the argument. They can validate and step into your shoes, while still communicating what their experience of the situation is like in a respectful way. Safe people do what they can to preserve their relationships, as long as preserving the relationship isn’t to their detriment.

You Can Confide in Them

You can tell a safe person about an issue you’re dealing with, and they won’t make your issue about themselves. They won’t steamroll you with their own latest personal difficulties, and they won’t jump straight to advice-giving and platitudes that feel dismissive.

They’re capable of empathy and can put themselves in your shoes. While it might hurt them to see that you’re in pain, they won’t attempt to “fix” to resolve their own discomfort. 
 
You can trust that what you share with them in confidence won’t be shared with anyone else. They have respect for you and value your relationship with them enough to not want to break your trust. They also don't gossip to you about others' business or hardships.

​If they're telling you something that someone else told to them in confidence, it's safest to assume they'll in turn tell others about what you share with them in confidence.

You Can Trust Them to Be There For You

Safe people can be relied on to keep their word. They show up to plans on time because they respect their own time and yours. They’re thoughtful and considerate of other’s needs and feelings, while also considering their own needs and feelings. 
 
They know what’s important to you and they extend support in times of need. Since they know how to access and manage their own emotions, they can hold space in a conversation for you to express your emotions. 
 
They don’t overextend themselves or give from a place of resentment while expecting to receive in return, and they aren’t so wrapped up in what they can get out of others that they’re too self-absorbed to show support and generosity. They choose to give out of their own joy and gratitude, without strings attached.