by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
You’ll Never Feel Unsafe Showing the Real Ones the Real Things About You
One of the deepest human cravings isn’t money, status, or recognition but to be ‘seen‘:
To be ‘seen’ means to be known in our wholeness and to be able to sit with someone and show them the raw, unpolished truth of who we are without fear of being judged, dismissed, or misunderstood.
The truth about human beings is that we’re tribal creatures at heart which means that we evolved in groups where intimacy, trust, and cooperation were essential for survival.
This also means that to be fully human we need to truly relate to others in a real way so that we can continue to grow and evolve into our realness in relationship instead of isolation.
Despite this natural need, in our modern and often empty age, many of us walk around with a hidden ache: the ache of not being fully ‘seen’ and living a life in the void.
The paradox is that although we long for intimacy and real connection, many of us are terrified of vulnerability when it counts:
We hold back the truth about ourselves; we bite our tongues when we could share what’s really going on; we water ourselves down to be acceptable, palatable, and ‘safe’ in the eyes of people that don’t even really know us.
But why?
The common assumption in our culture is that – if we can’t be ‘vulnerable’ like this – then there’s clearly something wrong with us and that our fear of opening up is a flaw.
We tell ourselves that if we were stronger, braver, or more self-assured, then we’d be able to share more openly but what if this assumption is completely off and the truth is often subtler and more nuanced:
What if, sometimes, our nervous system simply doesn’t feel safe in the presence of certain people?
Because if so that’s not weakness – it’s wisdom.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
Real Ones 101: What We’ll Cover in this Article
- You’ll Never Feel Unsafe Showing the Real Ones the Real Things About You
- When the Nervous System Speaks You Better Listen
- The Trigger Effect of Realness: How REALITY Always ‘Triggers’ the Unreal
- A Story From My Life
- Dysregulation and the Ego Shell
- The Hard Truth: Some People Can’t ‘See’ You Because They Can’t ‘See’ Themselves
- Creating Containers of Realness
- Practical Steps to Find the Real Ones and Build Your Real Tribe
- Real Ones 101: The Final Word
When the Nervous System Speaks You Better Listen
At a biological level, our nervous system is (literally) always scanning for cues of either ‘safety’ or ‘threat’ and if it senses a threat (in the form of ‘danger’) then it mobilises us into fight, flight, or freeze.
Often, the danger in question might be obvious – like a barking dog; other times, it might be more subtle, like a person whose energy is fragmented, inconsistent, or unpredictable and so something just feels…off.
At other times, it goes even deeper and we find that the nervous system is out-of-whack because of unresolved shame, guilt, or trauma (the Unholy Trinity):
In those moments, we see threats that aren’t really ‘there’ but, just as often, the nervous system is accurately picking up that the person we’re with isn’t a safe container for our realness.
We can boil all of this down by saying it like this:
If someone hasn’t done their own inner work – if they’re locked in the Shadow Dance between ego and the shadow self – then it actually makes perfect sense that our body doesn’t feel settled in their presence because their inner fragmentation signals danger and so our nervous system listens.
When this happens, your inability to be vulnerable isn’t a sign that there’s something ‘wrong’ with you -it’s just discernment of the unreal from the REAL.
The Trigger Effect of Realness: How REALITY Always ‘Triggers’ the Unreal
Here’s something important that you need to know:
When you are regulated, when you do have a vision for your life, and when you are walking the path of realness, your nervous system will feel generally calm because you’re living with a minimal amount of inner and outer friction.
In this state, you’ll feel a sense of flow…that is until you share something real with the ‘wrong’ crowd, and suddenly – bam! – you’re dismissed, laughed at, or subtly undermined.
“Why might this be?”, I hear you ask.
Because REAL always triggers UNREAL.
Unreal people – those still hiding behind their ego masks to continue resisting and avoiding their own shadow – will often respond defensively to whatever truth that you bring into their lives.
This isn’t because there’s something ‘wrong’ with you but because your presence shines a light on their unhealed parts and – instead of letting that light in – they deflect, dismiss, or attack.
A Story From My Life
For many years in my youth, I harboured the dream of writing a book – not just a vague fantasy, but a deep calling to express myself and my philosophy and bring it to life within the world.
When I shared this with some members of my family and friends, their reactions weren’t exactly supportive:
I was told I was being naïve; that writing books was unrealistic; that I should be more practical.
On the surface, they might even have seemed ‘right’ – after all, I’m just a regular guy by most standards so who did I even think I was to want to write anything at all?
Underneath it all, though, something deeper was going on:
Their dismissal wasn’t about me – it was about them and served as a projection of their own ‘stuff’.
What I slowly realised is that everybody who was doubting me had once held dreams of their own – dreams they’d long since abandoned and so seeing me pursue mine triggered their own buried disappointment. Rather than face that – and the unreal things that had caused them to give up in the first place – it was easier to project onto me so they could maintain the familiar status quo they’d created in their relationship with themselves.
The irony is that years down the line I’ve now written several books (because action is the best argument for what you ‘can’ or ‘can’t’ do): not because I was special, but because I kept showing up with discipline, focus, and consistency and what they said was “impossible” was simply a matter of putting in the work over time.
The real danger wasn’t in following my dream; the real danger would have been betraying it because I listened to an unreal world over what I knew could was real.
Dysregulation and the Ego Shell
A sad and unfortunate fact about life is that when people give up on their real path, their nervous system pays the price:
This is because the unexpressed parts of themselves – dreams, truths, shadows – don’t disappear but instead turn inward, becoming internal threats to the ego that cause guilt, shame, and fear rise up.
To cope, many people fight o protect their ego identities to keep those ‘threats’ at bay:
They cling to being “busy,” “successful,” or “fine” no matter what but this shell blocks genuine intimacy and becomes a mask through which no real communication can pass.
This means that when you bring your realness to them, their ego armour interprets it as an attack.
You’re not unsafe, though – they are. Within themselves.
The Hard Truth: Some People Can’t ‘See’ You Because They Can’t ‘See’ Themselves
Here’s a sobering truth that also has the potential to set you free if you truly grasp it:
People can only see in others as deeply as they’ve seen in themselves.
If someone hasn’t faced their own shadow, they don’t know their own realness and so they can’t honour yours.
If someone has abandoned their own real path, they’ll struggle to support yours.
If someone is terrified of their own vulnerability, they’ll dismiss yours as weakness or foolishness (when accepting our flaws etc. is always more ‘wise’ than foolish).
It’s not that they’re ‘bad’ people or anything like that – it’s just that they’re not equipped to handle life in a real way yet.
What this all means in practical terms is that you’ll never feel truly safe showing the real things about yourself to people who are disconnected from their own realness (and your nervous system will reflect this).
And that’s okay.
Because somewhere out there are your people – your real tribe. The REAL ONES who can see you and who won’t flinch at the truth because they’re trying to uncover it too in their own lives.
These are ones who will meet your vulnerability with presence, respect, and love (because you’ll be able to do the same in return).
Creating Containers of Realness
The invitation, then, is not to force unsafe people to try and ‘see’ you (which is basically impossible) – it’s to create and seek out relationships that can.
This is how tribes form:
Not through shared pretence, but through shared values
Not through performance, but through presence.
Not through ego, but through integration of realness.
When you find those people, your nervous system will tell you and you’ll feel calm, grounded, and energised in their presence.
You’ll feel ‘seen’ and when you show them your realness, you’ll never feel unsafe because they’ll be real enough to handle it.
(As an aside: if you keep trying to get an unreal person in your life to see you in a real way then ask yourself what UNREAL part of you is clinging to this illusion of needing this in the first place – normally, it will be shame, guilt, and/or trauma and those old patterns and conditioning).
My book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace will take you way deeper into your own realness and a sense of deep trust for yourself and life.
Practical Steps to Find the Real Ones and Build Your Real Tribe
So how do you actually live this out and make it practical?
Here are some steps you can take to align your nervous system, trust your discernment of the real vs. unreal, and connect with the real ones:
1. Regulate Yourself First
- Commit to daily practices that bring your nervous system into balance: breathwork, meditation, grounding exercises, yoga, journaling.
(I do a free yin yoga class for dissolution approximately every three weeks online – sign up here to dissolve yourself: Dissolution Hour (Free Online Yoga)). - Notice when you’re calm and when you’re triggered and pay attention to your body’s signals. A simple exercise is to do a body check a few times each day: simply pause and ask yourself what sensations and emotions you’re experiencing – over time, this makes it easier to stay grounded when that nervous system kicks in and sees a ‘threat’.
2. Develop Real Awareness
- Pay attention to how you feel in the presence of different people (train yourself to check in with yourself and pay attention in each interaction).
- If your body feels tense, guarded, or small around someone, don’t dismiss it as “just you” – consider it data about their own nervous system state and levels of realness or unreality.
3. Share Small Truths as Tests
- Before you spill your deepest truths with people, try small disclosures.
- Notice how people respond: Do they listen? Dismiss? Change the subject? Etc. Etc. Etc.
- The response tells you everything and you’re not obliged to share anything real with people who aren’t open to receiving it.
4. Look for Shared Values and Vision
- Seek people who are growing more real instead of shrinking behind the weight of their unreality – who are willing to be raw instead of polished.
- Build something with those who celebrate your ‘wins’ rather than compete with them (because they’re regulated so have an abundance mindset instead of being locked in the ego’s scarcity which is just fragmentation projected outwards).
5. Create Your Own Container
- Start conversations that matter and bring depth into your interactions by leading the way:
- Model the realness you want to receive because those who resonate will lean in and those who don’t will drift away naturally over time anyway.
6. Trust the Process
- Don’t panic if you don’t find your tribe overnight – it takes time but it’s a process like anything else.
- Trust that as you live in realness and the right people will appear to match your energy.
Real Ones 101: The Final Word
The truth is simple, but it’s not always easy to embrace:
You’ll never feel unsafe showing the real ones the real things about you.
Your nervous system knows the difference between containers that can hold your realness and those that can’t so honour it and trust its wisdom.
You’re not “too much” and you’re not broken for wanting to be ‘seen’ – you’re simply waiting for the people who are capable of seeing and – when you find them – when you find your tribe – intimacy won’t feel like a risk. It’ll feel like coming home.
Stay real out there,
P.S. If you’re ready to grow real and start living your real life then book a free coaching call with me and I’ll help you get moving right away.
Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.
It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.
This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).
Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness is a book designed to help you look at your life from the inside-out so that you can stop holding yourself back and go get what you really want.
It contains 166 practical ‘Revolutions’ for awareness and over 8,000 Self-Guidance Questions for you to uncover new insight about yourself, the world, and reality that you can translate into action and start building your real life on the realest possible foundation.
Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
The book explores how we can better manage our relationships with shame, guilt, and trauma in order to remove the Mask that the world has asked us to wear (and that we forgot we were wearing) so we can live an authentic life with less drama, chaos, or BS whilst we’re still around.
The Flow Builder Journal has everything you need to make the next 21-weeks of your life a turning point.
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