RELATIONSHIPS
To love someone is to learn the song in their heart and sing it back to them when they have forgotten.
Turns out that love is less mysterious than we think. It is an ancient, wired-in survival code designed to keep us feeling close and connected.
~ Sue Johnson EFT
Successful connection with our partner has everything to do with our original attachment to our caregivers. Secure attachment is at the heart of feeling safe and if we do not feel secure in our attachments with our partners it can cause us and them to feel unsafe or in danger. When we feel this danger we often respond negatively due to the fight-or-flight response being triggered. When the connection with our partner feels threatened in some way and our brain feels we are not emotionally safe, we immediately start to become anxious and blaming, or withdrawn and shut down. Most criticism, blaming, and cut off responses are attempts to deal with and resolve attachment hurts and fears.
In order to create safety as an adult a few things have to happen. You have to be willing to look at everything that gets
in the way of feeling close. You want to identify all the ways you protect yourself when you’re triggered. When your partner has a sharp tone, do you withdraw? Do you yell? What happens inside of you when you can’t feel the connection of your person? Do you get scared? Maybe you get angry? It’s really important to understand how you’ve learned how to protect your tender heart, your vulnerability – whether it’s anxiety or anger, projections, shutting down or blaming the other; whether its over-investing or giving your power away. It could be that you stay in your head and not in your heart. These are adaptive strategies that once helped you to survive, and though these defenses may have once protected your emotional life, they now are keeping you hostage.
Feeling safe is the key!
When people come to see me they often present with a range of issues:
“My anxiety is too much for my partner.”
“My relationships don’t seem to last.”
“My doubt about my partner keeps me from having real connection.”
“I keep thinking about an old boyfriend. Does this mean I’m with the wrong person?”
When people come to see me they often present with a range of issues:
“My anxiety is too much for my partner.”
“My relationships don’t seem to last.”
“My doubt about my partner keeps me from having real connection.”
“I keep thinking about an old boyfriend. Does this mean I’m with the wrong person?”
I offer a practical map for love and loving. This map offers a connection inward – which of course has everything do with creating or maintaining a healthy and close relationship with another.
The healing map asks the following:
the curiosity and courage of looking within to identify your obstacles (the anxiety, fear, doubt, and anger) and the willingness to feel them
the intention to learn and be accountable (which means religiously tending to your own emotions)
the ability to develop and maintain a connection with your Spiritual Guidance
the commitment to take a loving action (toward yourself and others)
This map offers a connection inward – which of course has everything do with creating or maintaining a REALationship with another.
This work can empower you to begin looking at the root causes of your anxiety, depression, addictions, failed relationships, and whatever else gets in the way of your personal and spiritual growth.
This map shows us how to actually shape and create love to the point where we can take our relationship from going down in flames and turn it into a vibrant, close and loving bond.
Ready to work together?
This is the purpose of my work: to support emotional wellbeing, recognize the struggle of being human, and nurture dreams, compassion, and hope.