5 Characteristics Of Environments That Make Us Feel Good
There are places where we feel comfortable and others where we don’t. Something similar happens to us with people; with some we feel instantly comfortable and with others we don’t. We often don’t know why this is so.
Somehow we need the way of being in the world that is familiar to us to be present in our physical and personal environment. It is the usual, the known; Therefore, it gives us the certainty, the tranquility, that we are in a place that is not excessively threatening and we can continue with our lives.
For example, if we are accustomed to an environment loaded with emotionality and continuous sounds (music, voices, various sounds) we will experience as something threatening an environment where conversations are very intellectually based and where sounds are specifically silenced as much as possible.
On the other hand, sometimes we find ourselves in a vital moment in which what has been habitual for us no longer feels like ours and we need to experience a different way of being in the world. In those times we usually look for new environments Travel to new places, go out to unknown places, meet people. However, we have to approach these new environments taking into account that they are not familiar to us, even if we like them, and we will feel threatened.
Another example is if I am used to having conversations in which my feelings and thoughts are questioned. When, usually after a period of crisis, I dare to meet new people, if these people listen to me and I do not feel questioned, my feeling of strangeness may be such that it makes me never meet those people again.
We need time to get used to environments different from our familiar ones, to environments in which dimensions of ourselves until then little explored have the possibility of expanding and developing. Therefore, there are no environments that generally do well for everyone.
At the same time, there are physical and personal spaces that create ideal conditions so that we can explore many of our facets in a safe way.
Five characteristics of these physical and personal environments are:
1. Security
This It is the foundation without which everything else is precariously created This dimension includes that the spaces in which we live feel that they will protect our physical integrity. For example, that the apartment where we live has thermal conditions that allow us to live without extreme temperatures.
Personally, we refer, for example, to human groups where we feel that we are not going to be attacked and that what we express in them will remain within that human nucleus. The feeling of security is linked to feeling that privacy will be preserved.
2. Acceptance
Physical environments that admit modifications according to the nature of those who inhabit them help those people. For example, a very active girl will develop better in a space where she can move freely and safely. A person with mobility difficulties will be able to develop their life more fully in spaces adapted to their reality.
Something similar happens among humans. Fathers and mothers who listen to and accept their children’s temperament will provide better opportunities for their children’s happiness, for example.
3. Motivation
And every environment has limitations. There are some insurmountable ones, for example, if you don’t know how to swim and you go into the sea you are likely to drown. Other limitations, however, are what people need to find our own way when these limits do not exceed us
For example, for someone who needs to create their own environment, having a house in which they can make the changes they want is an opportunity for growth.
From the human dimension, by this we mean when we need to do something differently than it is done in our group. When our role models encourage us to take our own path, and stay close in case we need them they strengthen us in believing and betting on our way of understanding life.
4. Recognition
This happens when we do something and we feel that the physical environment has done well, even if we cannot communicate it with words. When that home feels beautiful when you enter the house, when that landscape has been respected and cared for and looks beautiful on our walk.
Among humans there is a certain joy, a certain yes that they give us with or without words, when people who love us well recognize the path we have followed
5. Autonomy
There are places that allow us to be and allow us to leave, even if we establish what is necessary so that they continue to be cared for. They allow us to enrich ourselves with new spaces
In a similar way, there are people who allow us to be with them as long as necessary for them and for us and, later, each one continues on their own path until the next meeting.
This possibility of being together for what suits both parties and then separating increases both the bond with those places and people and their presence within us when we separate.
Well, these are five of the characteristics of the environments that make us grow.
And you, in what environment do you feel comfortable and what does this say about you?
