Why Don’t I Feel Safe in My Healthy Relationship?
Read the title of this blog again.
“Why can’t I feel safe in my healthy relationship?”
If you are in an unsafe or unhealthy relationship, meaning there is a genuine risk to your emotional or physical safety present, then this blog is not for you. I would strongly encourage you to seek support near you.
But, if you are in an overall safe, loving, healthy relationship, meaning one with mutual respect, where you can be yourself and there is no risk to your safety… AND yet you still feel your body responding from a place of fear often, keep reading.
To see your partner for who they are instead of who fear makes them out to be, you must learn to feel safe in your nervous system when it comes to love and relationships.
When we see ourselves and our partners through the lens of love, we feel spacious, open, curious, and playful. When we see them through the lens of fear - we feel tense, urgent, panicked, and hopeless.
Your partner’s flaws are amplified.
Disagreements feel like the end.
Connection is rare.
Cycles of shame and blame ensue.
It’s so hard to see reality clearly when you see through the lens of fear. Your behavior then reflects how you see your partner, which might lead your partner to react defensively as they sense judgment and fear in you. And this continues to reinforce the impulse that you do indeed need to be afraid. It's a cycle and a self-fulfilling prophecy.
How do you make the shift from fear to love?
How can you start seeing your partner for who they are instead of who fear makes them out to be?
The answer: Learn to feel safe in your nervous system when it comes to relationships. When your nervous system still believes that relationships might lead to pain, you will always scan your partner for “threats.”
Teaching your nervous system that relationships are safe is the foundation from which love can emerge and grow. If your body can learn how to feel safe, how to let the walls down, you will begin to see yourself and your partner in a new light.
Instead of instantly jumping to judgments and conclusions, you will be able to approach your relationship with more curiosity. Instead of seeing differences as a threat, you will be able to have openness and even appreciation toward them.
This is a shift that must happen from the inside out. Your partner could say and do all the “right” things, and it will never be enough if you are seeing through the lens of fear.
This is exactly what we teach you to do in our live group program, Trust in Love.
After a group session the other day, one of our Trust in Love clients said
I know what it feels like to be safe in my body so I now have a reference point of something to come home too. It's easier to detect when I am out of alignment, or using an old pattern to cope with something. I have more love and understanding for myself.
THIS is how we create change. THIS is how we begin to feel safe in love.
If you are interested in learning more about this incredible group program, check it out HERE!