What Happens if You DON'T Deal with Your Relationship Anxiety
What happens if you leave your anxiety unchecked, unhealed, unacknowledged? Well, I'm going to be really honest with you here. It's going to push your partner away. It distances you and disconnects you from the relationship. And this can lead to the relationship ending...which is what the anxiety feared in the first place. Not dealing with your relationship anxiety leads to a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. And here's how: When you have anxiety about your relationship that says, for example, what if my partner leaves me, your body reacts with a fear response. Maybe for you, the fear response in your body is to reach out and cling to your partner. Not trusting them to go out with friends. Not trusting that they want to be with you so you constantly ask for reassurance over and over. You try to control your partner. You try to ENSURE that your fears don't come true. But this behavior that is driven by the fear actually ends up pushing your partner away. Maybe they feel smothered. Maybe they feel that you don't really trust them, and that hurts them. Maybe they feel like they can't really connect with you because all they're sensing is your fear. This cycle is so common in relationship anxiety. The fear leading to behaviors that actually hurt the relationship. When you operate out of fear, rather than trust, it triggers a fear response in your partner's nervous system. Our bodies are always picking up on non-verbal, energetic signals. Our nervous systems are scanning and reading other people's nervous systems (known as Neuroception). So when you're constantly operating from a place of fear, that becomes the environment and the culture of the relationship. And you know that when you are operating out of your fear, your behavior is not how you would like it to be. Maybe your fear response to the anxious thoughts is to pull away and avoid. Maybe you fear that the relationship is just going to end anyway, so why put your heart out there. You close off emotionally from your partner. Your partner then doesn't even feel loved by you. Maybe they feel like they did something wrong but they don't know what or how to fix it. So they pull away, too. Or they get frustrated. And you can only last in that environment of fear for so long before you shut down. That's what happens in your body when you have been in fight/flight for too long. Your nervous system numbs itself. You shut down.
And I want you to know that it is POSSIBLE to change this pattern of fear.
You can be free of the anxiety and step into your relationship with confidence and allow yourself to receive your partner's love.
But, you have to own your anxiety.
Rather than reacting out of it or blaming or trying to control your partner. When you take ownership of your anxiety, you begin to recognize it for what it really is. You can identify it when it comes up in your body. And when you know and understand what is happening, then you have more choice and more power and control. But until you deal with it and heal from it, it controls you. In order to gain back the control over the relationship anxiety, you have to do the deep work. You have to understand why the relationship anxiety is there, what it's really trying to do, and what are the unhealed wounds that are underneath it. And this work is the most empowering thing you can do that will pave the way for your most loving and intimate relationship ever. If you experience relationship anxiety that is seriously sabotaging your relationship, then I invite you to apply for a free 30 minute Relationship Assessment. We'll map out the exact steps it would take for you to be free from this relationship anxiety so that you can have the healthy, loving, connected relationship that you know you want and deserve.