In order 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 through the lens of fear - we feel tense, urgent, panicked, and hopeless.

When you learn to somatically attune to your client’s experience of trauma and safety, you know exactly how to support them in a way that makes them feel safe. This is how trauma-informed transformation happens. Because trauma is stored in the body, knowing how to attune to your client's body is essential.

Experiencing intrusive thoughts during sex and intimacy can be extremely distressing. These are the moments when we expect to experience deep connection and pleasure, but instead, our thoughts get in the way. If you’ve experienced this, you are not alone. Having intrusive or anxious thoughts during sex and intimacy is far more common than you might think — and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It also doesn’t mean you’re connection with your partner is doomed (phew!).

The space that used to be filled with anxiety, rumination, and overthinking, now gets to be filled with LIFE. This is what can happen when you heal. This is what’s possible when anxiety isn’t running the show anymore. This is who you get to be when you aren’t stuck in your head all the time.

When you have resilience in your relationship, you no longer experience constantly intrusive thoughts about what your emotions “mean,” or wonder when the other shoe is going to drop… You no longer project unpleasant emotions and experiences onto your relationship or your partner. How do we get there though?

There’s nothing wrong with wanting your partner to anticipate your needs, especially if you’re in a long-term, committed partnership. But your partner is not a mind-reader, no matter how well they know you. When we expect our partners to just know what we need and when we need it, this can easily turn into things like nitpicking. Instead, learn and practice the skill of communicating about relationship needs openly and honestly.

As a somatic relationship coach at Healing Embodied, I know relationships are unique and complex. They can’t be written off as “right or wrong” by unhelpful and outdated advice. That’s why in this article, I’m taking a closer look at what it means to have different values in a relationship. I’ll talk about why differences aren’t necessarily bad and how being different from your partner (and learning to appreciate that fact) can actually make your relationship more fun, dynamic, and resilient.

Society has handed us a fantasy that once you are in a romantic relationship with the “right” person, you will never feel uncomfortable feelings again. You’ll never feel lonely, insecure, or bored. The “right” relationship will rescue you from the things that you experienced before being in a relationship.

When you meet resistance in your healing journey, see if you can slow down. Look at it. Feel it. Embody it. Ask it “what do you need from me right now?” Be open to receiving the nugget of information that the resistance might unlock for you.

What you are rejecting in your partner is a reflection of what you are rejecting in yourself. The energy of rejection that you are cultivating in yourself is what fuels the nitpicking of your partner.

There is a societal message that compatibility is the number one aspect of a great relationship, and “compatibility” often means “similar.” The more similar you are, the more compatible you are.

The reality of what makes a great relationship isn’t about having similarities, it’s about knowing how to navigate differences. It’s being able to see and respect differences.

Have you ever found yourself thinking “I know my partner is a great person and our relationship is healthy…but I just don’t FEEL in love…”? There are several reasons you might not be feeling the emotion of love that actually have nothing to do with your partner or your relationship. In this article, we’re exploring the possible reasons behind why you don’t feel connected to your partner (and why this doesn’t necessarily mean your relationship is doomed).