The Inner Turtle 🐢

Published about 1 month ago • 2 min read

LIFE ON URTH - Episode 099

Some people can simply cry, allow themselves to be touched, and receive comfort. I find that impressive—because something in me immediately pulls back when others get too close. That’s why this week I’ve been asking myself why it can be so difficult to accept affection.

Affection sounds harmless at first. Warm. Human. Connected.

But maybe even this coin has two sides.

From the perspective of the receiver, affection can suddenly feel threatening. Not because it is ill-intended, but because it opens something that was previously kept safely closed. In those moments, being alone can feel less painful than the closeness that is meant to comfort.

Different learning experiences can lie behind this assumption. Often it’s about the feeling of having more control when alone—because others may not be stable enough to rely on, or because one has learned that other people’s emotions can be overwhelming, even engulfing.

Pain through affection sounds contradictory.

When I’m not doing well, I crave closeness the most. And yet it brings something that feels dangerous: the possibility of dissolving into it. Losing control. Losing myself.

If you’ve learned to make yourself small, to hide, to avoid friction at all costs, you often develop a second skill: keeping yourself under control. Regulating emotions, smoothing them out quickly, letting nothing spill too far outward.

On the surface, this shows up as difficulty allowing emotional contact—such as avoiding affection. Underneath, there is often the ability to retreat inward: a protective space you carry with you, like a turtle with its shell.

And when even that is not enough, there is one last option: creating distance in the outside world. Standing up, leaving, exiting the situation—and with it, the affection.

The more open and sensitive your basic disposition, the more exhausting this balance becomes—especially if your sense of self already feels somewhat unstable.

A simple dynamic emerges: disposition meets experience—and forms patterns.

But that’s also where the way out lies. New experiences can create new patterns. Sometimes, though, it first takes an environment that makes these experiences possible at all.

Journaling ✍️

What concrete new experience with affection would be small enough to still feel safe—and at the same time strong enough to slightly disrupt this pattern?

✒️ Quote of the Week: “Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.” -Matsuo Bashō

🍿 Video of the week: Scavengers

🎧 Song of the Week: Cinnamon Chasers - midnight texts

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All the best,

Adrian / Urth

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