BY DUNCAN PILE

My wife is a psychotherapist and often talks about the importance of a ‘secure base’. A secure base is a foundation of love which keeps a person safe, even in hard times. That foundation is laid in childhood, established by the security and unconditional care of a loving family, of any shape or size (nuclear families do not have a monopoly on love).

Here’s a working example of how a secure base (or the lack of it) can affect a child’s resilience: if a child comes last in a competition they care about, the security of their base will determine their ability to recover from that loss. Despite initial feelings of disappointment, the child who knows they are loved for who they are will bounce back, because their self-value is not rooted in success. The child who does not feel accepted and treasured for who they are will find other ways to validate themselves, such as through performance. For such a child, the loss of an important tournament leaves a much more devastating wound than for the child whose identity is built on a firm foundation of love. That child might become addicted to the endless pursuit of success, only feeling validated when they outperform everyone else, which is a lonely way to live, surrounded by people they subconsciously perceive as enemies.

Over the course of our lives, we are exposed to damage that can result in all kinds of false personas, depending on how we react – masks, if you like, to avoid vulnerability, especially when removing the mask would expose festering wounds. The damaged person learns to wear numerous masks, each of which is a defence against openness. Perhaps they validate themselves through financial success, or by seeing themselves as a disruptor, or through some form of dominance over others, or maybe by viewing themselves as exceptional or special. There is no end to the variety of false selves we can adopt but they all serve the same, defensive purpose, and the person with their guard up finds it hard to give and receive love.

https://www.patheos.com/articles/overcoming-ego---embracing-the-unvarnished-truth