Emotional Availability
How present and reachable you are for the people closest to you. Can they find you when they need you? Can you show up without shutting down or getting overwhelmed?
Mercedes Hesselroth and Her Tata's Last Year
Emotional Availability captures how reachable a person is to those who need them. Mercedes Hesselroth had spent decades running a loop of negative self-talk — calling herself ugly, stupid, a cow — which effectively made her unavailable to the love her mother and family were directing at her. The dial shifted when Mercedes said 'I'm a cow' out loud, felt it sink in, and then heard her mother say 'Well, now you know how I feel' — moving Mercedes from a state of closed-off self-rejection to a position where she could begin receiving the same love she was desperately trying to give her Tata.