HOW TO BE THE LOVE YOU SEEK by Dr. Nicole LePera is a PHENONMENAL read! It dives into cycles and patterns, how to break them and how to shift to a healthier place to heal your relationships. 

My favorite excerpts from the book are below: 

You’re probably reading this book because there’s a relationship in your life that’s causing you stress. 

The core message is generally the same: we must change ourselves in some ways to better meet another’s needs and vice versa. 

Maybe I felt alone with Sara because, emotionally, I was alone. 

In order to emotionally connect with another person you have to be emotionally connected with yourself. And to be emotionally connected with yourself, you have to be able to authentically feel and express your emotions. Authentically expressing our emotions allows us to feel truly seen, known, and supported by others- core emotional needs we all share. 

How we relate to and experience ourselves as adults is directly impacted by how others related to and experienced us in our earliest relationships. Whenever our care was unpredictable, inconsistent, or neglectful when we were young, we formed the core belief that we were unworthy or being cared for or getting our needs met. Feeling intrinsically unworthy, we then began to modify how we expressed ourselves and related to others. Over time, we started to show others only our “acceptable” parts by playing certain roles- what I call conditioned selves in this book- to protect ourselves and fit into our earliest environments. As adults, we’re still driven by our deep-rooted fears of unworthiness and continue to repeat these habitual patterns within our relationships. 

If I’m constantly focused on how I measure up to others or to society’s standards, suppressing my authentic needs and desires in the process, how can anyone around me have the opportunity to connect with the real me? If I don’t know and love all of me, how can I expect myself to allow someone else to know and love all of me? 

Few of us feel worthy or lovable on our own, without receiving another’s validation or approval. As we did when we were children, we constantly look to others to make us feel safe and secure. 

The goal is not only to find love, but also to find and remove all the protective barriers that have been built against it. 

Your journey, and this book itself, is about healing your connection to and relationship with your own heart as much as it is about healing your connection to and relationship with the hearts of those around you. As you too will come to learn, it is not until we are connected to and in care of our own hearts that we can truly connect with and tend to the heart of another. 

Many of us “fall in love” with someone not because they’ve awakened our heart’s desire, but rather because that person satisfies unconscious needs we’re not even aware we have. And most of us unconsciously choose to surround ourselves with people who enable us to reenact familiar interpersonal habits and patterns from our earliest relationships.

Sharing worries and fears deepens the connection.

Psychoanalysis is a branch of psychology that examines the different ways our unconscious mind drives our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and relationship dynamics. 

Because I was so largely detached from my emotions, I couldn’t honor my emotions. I didn’t even know what my emotions were.

On the surface, my subconscious habits of ignoring my needs, suppressing my feelings, and putting others’ wants or needs before my own had led me to believe that I was a “good” and “selfless” person. But those habits weren’t making me or anyone else happy. In reality, because I hardly ever expressed my true feelings, many of which I didn’t even allow myself to have, I only increased my emotional distance from others. Putting others before myself wasn’t selfless; it was self-abandonment. 

I couldn’t see my own role in these repeated conflicts because my relationship habits had been ingrained in my subconscious since childhood; they were part of my instinctual way of relating to or interacting and connecting with others. I had developed and relied on those habits in my very first relationships: the ones I’d had with my family. 

The absence of obvious abuse doesn’t negate the possibility of emotional neglect and related attachment trauma.

We didn’t talk about our feelings, whether we were happy or sad, or directly confront one another if we felt hungry or angry. We were relatively happy after all, right? Why would we ever need to discuss or confront anything? 

Exposed to the consistent repetition of those patterns, i learned over time that my needs and feelings weren’t as important as the needs and feelings of those around me. While i KNEW my family loved me and cared dfor me, I never truly FELT that love or consideration in an emotional sense. I learned not to acknowledge having needs at all- or at least, I tried not to show my vulnerability in order to avoid the possibility of feeling disappointed if no one was there to support me. 

Our earliest attachments impact the habits we bring into adult relationships, especially our romantic ones. Although these habits rarely serve our best interests today, they feel familiar, comfortable, and therefore safe. Because these habits are stored in our subconscious mind and repeated automatically on a daily basis, they are often difficult for us to observe, and we often struggle to consciously see the active role we play in our relationships.

Ultimately, we will need to change the way we show up in our relationships if we want those relationships to change. I started to see how I only felt comfortable when I sacrificed my needs in order to avoid the discomfort I felt when disappointing others.

 I’d have to learn how to honor my own needs and desires by creating new boundaries with others and learning how to be patient and compassionate with myself along the way.

 When it comes to our relationships, we repeat what we experienced or learned. So if we grew up in a stressful or chaotic environment, didn’t witness healthy habits, or were emotionally neglected or ignored, we repeat the same dynamic as adults in our relationships with others. Even though we may not be aware of it, our past, especially our attachments with our parent figures, is wired into our mind and body, where it drives us to instinctively seek out and recreate the same kind of relationships as adults. These are our trauma bonds, our condition patterns of relating to others in a way that mirrors or reenacts are earliest attachments with parent figures.

When people think of the word trauma, they often think of suffering that someone might experience in the wake of a catastrophic or violent event, like a natural disaster, war, rape, incest, or abuse. Throw trauma is certainly caused by all these incidents, it also results from any stress that exceeds our ability to emotionally process the experience causing continued dysregulation to our bodies nervous system.

Most of our conditioning occurs when we’re young children and dependent on our relationships with our parent figures. From them, we learned how to (express or suppress) our emotions, how to feel about and treat our body, how to fit in or be socially accepted ( what behaviors were right and wrong),  and how to relate to and interact with others.

If our parent figures shamed or stifled their own emotions, we may have learned to do the same thing. If they criticize their bodies or the physical features of others, we may have learned to criticize or shame these aspects of ourselves. if they reacted to a stressful or upsetting situation by yelling and screaming, we may do the same. if they coped with stressful or upsetting experiences by shutting down and ignoring others, we may have learned to similarly emotionally detach.

To learn how to navigate our emotional world, we first need to feel safe and secure enough to express what we’re really thinking and feeling.

 The concept of attachment theory, from John Bowlby by in 1952, explains that Safety and Security of our relationships with our parent figures influences what kind of relationship we look for and create with others for the rest of our lives.

 Emotional self trust is built over time through our consistent, reliable, and predictable actions.

We may continue to abandon or betray ourselves,  over committing our time, energy, or emotional resources in an attempt to get another to care for us, or we may close ourselves off from the support of others entirely.

Unmet physical needs and childhood can include more subtle and adequacies, like not being physically touched or soothed because you were often left alone or raised by others who were uncomfortable themselves with physical contact. when our physical needs aren’t consistently met, our body activates a nervous system response that shifts us into survival mode, pushing our emotional needs to the back burner.

The deepest need we all have in all our relationships- whether as children or now as adults- is to feel safe and secure enough to be ourselves without losing the connection to and support of others.

Most of us didn’t grow up feeling the emotional safety or security we needed to be able to authentically express ourselves, causing us to feel deeply unworthy and emotionally alone. If our parents-figures  weren’t able to feel emotionally safe and secure themselves, they weren’t able to create the environment we needed to explore and express our authentic self. As a result, we ended up feeling emotionally abandoned or overwhelmed by them, left alone to figure out how to navigate our own stressful or upsetting emotions and experiences.

 A lack of emotional Safety and Security in childhood can look like being regularly ignored, criticized, or yelled at for expressing different emotions, instilling deep beliefs that you’re “too much”  and continued difficulty expressing yourself. or it can look like being discouraged or prevented from pursuing a passion or interest that now causes you to feel unsure about what you like as an adult.

Your parent figure’s didn’t or couldn’t pay attention to you on a consistent basis because they were distracted by their work, relationship issues, Financial demands, or unresolved trauma. In adulthood, you may self-isolate or be hyper independent, walling yourself off from any type of connection to or support from others.

Your parent figures often highlighted or bragged about your accomplishments to others yet mostly ignored you unless you were achieving something or receiving accolades for your performance. In adulthood, in the absence of external validation, you may feel unworthy, unlovable, or empty.

Other times, they may try to control your behavior to relieve their own hurt, anger, sadness, or disappointment by saying things like “ oh, please don’t say or do _____”, or I’ll get sad or “ do ____ or I’ll get sad”, or “Oh won’t you ____ for me so I don’t have to worry.”

 Fearful of losing my connection to my family, I regularly chose to honor their needs or desires over my own. Learning these codependent dynamics and feeling no separation between my emotions or perspective and other’s feelings or perspectives, I learned to take responsibility for their emotional experiences.

As I got older, I instinctually began to look for and maintain the same emotional distance in my adult relationships that I had experienced as a child. Largely disconnected from my own wants and needs, I focus more on how I showed up for others, avoiding issues and conflicts, constantly fearful of disconnection or abandonment. I carried all these dysfunctional habits into my adulthood.

Today, our nervous system is likely still wired as it was in childhood, possibly even stuck in a stress response even when there’s no active threat around us.

 When our nervous system gets wired for stress in certain ways as children, it drives us to feel instinctively attracted to certain people only to become trapped in reactivity cycles with them. Our dysregulated nervous system causes us to see or recreate situations with others that fire are predictable stress states, giving us a physiological feeling of safety and control when, in reality, neither exists. We either distract ourselves, wall ourselves off, or put others’ needs before our own.

Our brain is incredibly malleable. it can change over time, no matter how old we are or how much stress or trauma we experienced. The term neuroplasticity refers to our brain’s ability to form new neural connections throughout our lifetime.

The sooner we can release any illusions of perfection in ourselves or our relationships, the sooner we can begin to embrace the messy, vulnerable Journey we call love.

Our subconscious mind steers up to 95% of our habitual thoughts, emotions, and reactions.

An overachiever learns to perform to gain attention, connection, and love, believing that they are valued or loved by others only when they’re winning, succeeding, or otherwise meeting, or surpassing expectations.

 Instead of looking outward to others for answers, I realize I could look Inward and trust myself more than I could any external source.

It can feel physically tiring when we start to shift our brain into a conscious state of awareness.

 From a biological perspective, your soul, or authentic self, lives in your physical heart- and not just because the human heart is a spiritual or emotional center of the body, according to nearly every culture in the world. known as the body’s “ little brain”  and containing more than 40,000 neurons. Our heart is where our intuition and inner knowledge live.

You can begin to practice by noticing the times when you say “ yes”  or agree to things that aren’t true to or don’t interest you. the next time you’re asked to an event, and you know you don’t want to go, instead of immediately agreeing, pause before you answer, giving yourself a moment to consciously choose to respond in alignment with your authentic desires.

The relationships we seek out and create as adults, especially with our romantic partners, usually aren’t even the results of decisions we actively make with our conscious mind. Instead, Our nervous system is wired to seek out and recreate relational patterns that mirror our earliest relationships with our parent figures. These repeated Dynamics don’t serve our best interest today and often aren’t authentic connections but rather trauma bonds. 

Though he couldn’t physically run away from his mother because he was dependent on her for his survival, he fled by turning inward, as many children do, retreating to his inner world and distracting himself with his thoughts.

 Often feeling emotionally abandoned and alone as a child, Monique developed the subconscious belief that she wasn’t worthy of having a parent consistently show up to emotionally care for and support her.

 A fawn response is where we deal with perceived threats by monitoring others, whether externally or internally. We may micromanage others or our environment in order to anticipate and avoid the next perceived threat.Our neurobiology became wired for hypervigilance.

If we are over stressed and unable to return our body to peaceful balance, we can end up feeling irritable, with a limited tolerance for frustration, causing us to fly off the handle or overreact to events.

 Seeing most others as a possible threat we don’t feel safe enough to open ourselves to receive connection or support from another person.

 When our nervous system is dysregulated, we don’t have as much control over how stressful emotions impact us, so we’re often easily upset or reactive around others.

 Our subconscious is always scanning our surroundings for signs that we are safe or in danger; this is known as neuroception.

 Eruptor mode also known as fight response:  when they find something offensive, or the proverbial shoe hits the ground, they kick, scream, throw a tantrum, or explode on others. they’re often defensive, can’t see their own part in current circumstances, and don’t calm down easily, often holding a grudge or considering revenge. She always felt that she was being taken advantage of or that others were out to get her. She grew up in an emotionally explosive home, we’re yelling and screaming were daily occurrences.

 Distractor mode also known as flight response:  they run away from their perceived problems, they do so emotionally by pushing people away or physically by allowing themselves to be consumed by their work or other obligations. They may keep themselves busy or throw themselves so intently into their work, family obligations, to do lists, hobbies, or other pursuits. They don’t have the time or space to sit with themselves and feel their feelings. In general they’ll do anything to avoid confrontation, ghosting others or changing the subject if a stressful or uncomfortable conversation arises. remaining continuously busy allows her to avoid potentially stressful feelings or moments when she might have to look inward. The subconscious belief is that she must always do and achieve to be valued and loved.

Pleaser mode also known as the Fawn response: the nervous system of those in pleaser mode is hypervigilant. They learn to monitor their environment and relationships and continually ask if everything is okay. They learned to manage their internal overwhelm by controlling or monitoring the environment around them.

 Connector mode also known as safe and social:  they have a well regulated nervous system, their body can respond when a threat is present, they return easily and quickly to a state of grounded relaxation and calm. They are curious about and able to hold space for differences in perspectives and are able to negotiate and collaboratively resolve problems. They can set boundaries, give an except social support, build authentic relationships, and make responsive choices considering their own needs as well as the needs of the greater collective.

When our nervous system is activated, we often act like a trapped animal.

All the experiences we have in childhood, even when we’re too young to consciously recall them, are recorded as our implicit memories, those that exist inside us as instinctual thoughts and feelings.

 If we faced chronically stressful environments outside and inside our childhood home, our body produced more cortisol, which further impacted the functioning of our hippocampus. 

Either form  of abandonment; physical or emotional, results in adults who still believe that they’re not worthy or good enough to be loved and supported within a relationship.

 While some of us weren’t abandoned in childhood, we were wounded in other ways when we were shamed, criticized, ignored, or otherwise overwhelmed by our parent figures.

Regardless of what our individual childhood wounds were, those early hurts cause us to modify ourselves in order to feel safe and remain connected within our earliest relationships and environments. Those adaptations became our childhood coping strategies or ways of fitting in. Of course, these coping strategies don’t go away when we grow up; our past conditioning is stored in our nervous system where it continues to drive our instinctive reactions as adults. Because of our learned habits, most of us continue to play the same roles and our adult relationships, even though the condition parts of us are immature, reactive, and based in trauma.

These adaptations are what I call out conditioned selves, the consistent rules we’ve learned to play in our relationships based on the ways we learn to feel safest and most loved in childhood.

 As children, we all experienced moments or situations that cause us to feel insecure, scared, or hurt. If those moments or situations occurred often enough or were overwhelming enough, we eventually learned to suppress our natural Instincts and our playful, expressive, spontaneous side to keep ourselves safe. The more consistently we suppress our natural instincts, the more wounded our inner child became.

Few of us were modeled healthy emotional expression by our parent figures. If we grew up in a household where certain emotions weren’t tolerated- we were told to stop crying or were ignored whenever we were sad- we may have learned that only certain feelings are okay to express. If our parent figures suppressed or hid their own feelings, emotionally disassociating or disconnecting themselves from us, we may have developed similar habits.

Emotional invalidation can sound like” you just need to get over it or move on”.

Avoidance- the act of denying, ignoring, or sweeping issues under the rug. This can involve refusing to take ownership of one’s behaviors, Often by refusing to admit to or lying about one’s actions, leaving out certain details, refusing to talk about problems or issues, or ignoring the reality of the problems or issues entirely.

 I am now learning how to provide myself the mothering I always needed.

 When we deal with our emotions in immature, unreasonable, or irrational ways, it’s a sign that a hurt part of us is lashing out. If you can more objectively witness the times when you’re reactive, it will help you reconnect with your deeper emotional wounds.

Exploring why you feel activated can help you reconnect with your hurt inner child and witness how your old childhood wounds may be impacting your relationships today.

 I’ve identified seven condition selves that we often play in our adult relationships. These are caretaker, overachiever, underachiever, rescuer/ protector, life of the party, yes person, and hero worshiper. We can shift into different conditioned selves, depending on whom we’re with or the period of our lives.

Caretaker:  gains a sense of identity and self-worth through meeting others needs and relationships. Believes that the only way to receive love is to be needed by others or to care for them physically or emotionally, often while neglecting their own personal needs or desires. The caretakers nervous system is often hypervigilant and in pleaser mode, scanning the environment to assess the needs of others.

 Overachiever:  attempts to be the “perfect”  friend, child, partner, or spouse. regularly attempts to carry most of the responsibility in a relationship, often struggling to ask for or receive support.

Underachiever:  attempts to keep safe from evaluation and judgment by hiding any and all undesirable parts from others.

Rescuer/ Protector:  rescue, protect, or otherwise be of service to others whom they perceive as helpless,  incapable, or dependent. Making a sense of felt superiority and finds it difficult to ask for or receive support. Helps those they perceive as emotionally vulnerable. Their nervous system is often hypervigilant and in pleaser mode.

 Life of the party:  fears uncomfortable emotions and avoids conflict at all costs.

 Yes person:  often referred to as a people pleaser or pushover. regularly engages in codependent dynamics, neglecting their own needs to drop everything for others.

 Hero worshiper:  tends to look up to those there in a relationship with or put others on a pedestal.

 I was unfamiliar with how to connect with others when I was emotionally upset. I decided to take a weekend trip alone so that I could be more fully present with my emotions.

 The term body consciousness describes our ability to sense what’s happening within our body.

Emotions are our subconscious reactions to our physical sensations, and feelings are our conscious experience of our body sensations.

Most of the time, our emotions aren’t even reactions to what’s going on in the present moment.

If your mom didn’t feel safe inside her body, you probably didn’t feel safe inside her body when you were developing either.

 Likely you entered the world already dysregulated and feeling unsafe in your body. Research corroborates my experience, showing that elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol in a pregnant woman can cause larger amygdala volume and in a developing child, leading to a dysregulated stress response and anxious behaviors.

If you notice the urge to over identify with certain emotions or your emotional state in general by thinking or saying things like “ I’m scared, stressed, or angry”,  practice saying  a part of me feel scared, stressed, or angry.  Over time, this practice can help you hold space for the many different emotions we can and often do experience at once, which more accurately reflects the multi-dimensionality of our shared human emotional experience.

Foods to prioritize for nervous system regulation-  try supplementing with methylated B12 and folate. methylated b’s can be absorbed by people who have genetic variance of the MTHFR gene, a common condition that prevents some people from properly digesting B12 and or folate.

Our ego’s primary job is to protect our hurt inner child, and to do so, it spins stories about who we are to help us understand, justify, and compensate for the ways in which we didn’t feel safe or secure in the past.

We can also learn to be consciously present while around others. Notice your ego base thoughts in real time. Our ego is actually a critical part of our experience as a human, one that has kept us safe  in overwhelming environments or situations since we were children. Now that we’re adults, our ego’s presence lets us know when something from our emotional past may be coloring our current experience. Over time, we can use our egos’ presence to cue our conscious mind to bring ourselves back to safety and the present moment.

No amount of Praise ever takes away my deep rooted feelings of unworthiness:  that belief comes from me, not from others.

Instinctively believing that their satisfaction with the event is a reflection of whether they’re satisfied with me. My subconscious is primed to find clues that I’m never good enough or doing an adequate enough job, I can misinterpret their response as a sign that they dislike the experience and, by extension, think less of me. Feeling hurt for these imagined reasons, I’ll usually end up sulking in a corner or accusing my loved one of being ungrateful.

Other people may continue to behave in the same ways, but when we’re able to witness our ego, we’ll be able to spend less time in the groups of its fear-based reactivity. We can begin to question the automatic assumptions that continue to drive us to behave in conditioned ways when we develop what I call empowerment consciousness. With empowerment consciousness, we develop the ability to witness our egos’ instinctual thoughts, challenge the belief that we’re not worthy, and make new choices about how we want to act that will eventually help us to create a new, more empowering belief. Empowerment Consciousness helps us recognize the times when our ego story is causing us to have reactions that are based on our past experiences, not grounded in our present reality. When we’re able to realize that we’re experiencing these ego-driven thoughts and feelings, we can let them pass and choose to assign new meanings to what we’re currently experiencing.

Reparent your hurt inner child- your ego story was created by your subconscious to help you cope with the unmet needs that caused you to believe that you’re not worthy. Reparent your hurt inner child by telling yourself that you’re safe now and are worthy in every way. 

To reconnect with your innate inner guidance, you’ll need to learn how to tune into the deeper wisdom that resides in your heart. your heart isn’t just an organ that pumps blood throughout your body.  Your physical heart- the one beating inside your chest right now- is also where your intuition lives. it’s the most energetically powerful organ in the human body, emitting an electric field that extends well beyond your physical being. Your heart transmits the individual energy that makes each of you unique- what I call our soul or essence. If you want to make choices in your relationships that align with your soul or authentic self, you’ll need to be connected with your heart.

Our hearts signals are so strong, in fact, that other people and animals can feel our energy. if I were to place an electrode in a cup of water a few feet away from you, I would be able to observe your heartbeat in the gentle movement of the liquid.

 Heart coherence is the concept that has been studied for decades and used in medicine to help people transform their physical and emotional well-being. Scientific research has shown that heart coherence can help prevent or treat a number of physical conditions, including heart disorders, diabetes, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, high blood pressure, autoimmune disorders, and fibromyalgia. According to studies, Heart coherence can also help people better cope with or recover from anxiety, depression, ptsd, adhd, drug and alcohol addiction, anger issues, and eating disorders, in addition to helping them boost their memory and cognitive performance. Heart coherence occurs when our brain, heart, and emotions are aligned and our heart and brain are able to work efficiently together and energetic coordination. Said more simply, it’s a state of physical and emotional connection with our heart that allows us to act according to its messages. it’s a state of synchronicity and balance.

Heart actually has its own “ little brain”,  as scientists call it, which includes around 40,000 neurons. Like our brain, our heart can store both short and long-term memories, which explains why some heart transplant patients are able to recall memories of their donors lives and even take on their donors personality traits.

Our heart is the most energetically powerful organ in our body.

 It’s our heart, not our brain, that interprets the electromagnetic signals from others and the world around us, making it the seat of our intuition.

 Perhaps you’ve noticed that some people have a certain energy about them. Maybe they exude a lightness, warmth, or joy, or they always seem sad, heavy, or gloomy, or they may be anxious, agitated, or on edge. What you’re sensing is their heart’s electromagnetic field, which we can energetically feel within several feet of another person.

Our heart senses another type of intuition, known as non-local Intuition or intuition at a distance. This type of intuition can help us sense the state of people and events that are outside our immediate proximity or are even happening at the moment.  you may have experienced non-local intuition yourself if you have ever thought of someone and immediately received a text or call from that person. Other examples include parents who have sensed that something’s happened to their children who are not in their physical proximity. 

 We can only access this informational field when we’re in a safe and socially connected state of ventral vagal parasympathetic activation. Think about the open, light, or airy way your heart or chest might feel when you’re relaxed, calm, and peaceful. Compare this with the closed, heavy, or constricted sensations you may notice when you’re feeling scared, stressed, or worried. This is your intuition talking to you.

Overtime, we can all come to recognize those tugs on the back of our mind, moments of deep knowing, gut feelings, unexpected inner voices, images or visions, or flutters in our heart. When we’re open to feeling our heart and receiving its messages, we may notice our awareness open in other ways too. We may begin to notice those other moments of insight or clarity that occur when an idea or solution bursts into our consciousness.

 Creating this life and relationship changing state of heart coherence starts with dedicating small moments during the day to focus on embodying what researchers call core heart feelings, or positive emotions like appreciation, gratitude, compassion, care, and love.

 Truly knowing someone or attuning to them with both our heart and brain helps us feel from their emotional viewpoint; this is the basis of authentic, empathetic connection.

Driven by deep-rooted fear and prioritizing their own survival, they were unable to truly empathize with me or my emotional world. Without anyone to help me navigate what was happening inside and around me, I grew up feeling constantly unsafe. Regularly overwhelmed and dysregulated, I could rarely access the parasympathetic ventral vagal state that we need to feel grounded and peacefully connected to our body and within relationships. I became the living embodiment of our family’s intergenerationally and epigenetically passed on belief- that the world was scary and a lonely place- which came directly from my parents and now my own lived experiences.

I even turned off the alerts on my phone so I was less readily available to others or external obligations in general and more available to myself. As I continued to increase my tolerance of discomfort through the daily choices I was making, I made it a priority to begin to carve out moments to sit still and be alone. at first that stillness was hard to tolerate, as it may also be for you: when we’re in survival mode, we feel driven to keep moving as our bodies fight or flight response activates- and if we can’t move, we may freeze or shut down, detaching from our physical body so that we don’t feel anything at all. Connecting and stillness with our body sensations, though perhaps uncomfortable at first, trains our brain to sync with our heart. Certain choices and relationships made my heart feel open and expansive, while others caused it to feel closed and constricted. When I spent time with certain friends, I realized that my heart didn’t feel light and open, so I started to limit the time I put into sustaining those connections.

Instead of jumping in to fill a pause in a conversation, I practiced allowing myself the time to consider if there was something I really wanted to share, then taking the opportunity to speak from my heart and share deeper emotional experiences rather than entertaining distractions.

 I enter my flow state more easily, with the environment around me falling out of focus when I start to write, teach, or speak, inspired instead by the deepest sense of inner knowing.  I remind myself,  “I am grounded in peace and loving awareness. my soul is aligned with my intentions and daily choices. today, I choose to embody love”. 

It is only when we are connected to our own heart that we can authentically connect with another’s.

When Alejandra realized all the ways in which Lucas’s past trauma was driving his current behavior, she began to empathize with him rather than getting angry, upset, or hurt when he distracted or deflected during hard moments. it wasn’t that he didn’t care about her or their future together, as she had previously believed that his nervous system was activated, causing him to feel physically threatened and unsafe. he never learned how to navigate or tolerate tough emotions or difficult conversations. his reaction to her and such moments had little to do with her and more to do with how his nervous system was wired.

Most of us instead grew up without an emotionally attuned parent, and as a result, we never learned to feel truly safe or secure in our body or relationships. though many of us may have received a loving looks and occasional hugs for Mom or dad, if those looks and hugs went away when there was conflict or other overwhelming emotions in the home, we likely didn’t receive Comfort or support when we needed it most. that created fear, confusion, and emotional inconsistency or insecurity for us as children, and, as a result, we never learned how to regulate our own emotions.

Even the most well-meaning parent figures who desperately wanted to help us weren’t actually able to soothe us unless their bodies first felt safe to them.

When you’re around a pleaser, you may feel overwhelmed, emotionally suffocated, or resentful.

Physically and emotionally, I was taken back to the young girl who had been emotionally abandoned by her mother. Without the words to describe the memory, my body enacted my deep pain in uncomfortable embodied sensations and behavioral reactions.

 Every human being needs time and space and solitude away from others to recharge and replenish their individual energy stores.

To emotionally attune to others, we have to be able to climb out of our own body’s survival state so that we can see the experience from their perspective. We can do this only when our body feels safe enough to allow our mind to shift its attentional focus away from our own experiences.

The reality is we need to feel safe in our body and open to our heart before we can be open to receiving any type of love, no matter how we or others express it.

When we’re empowered, we no longer expect others to read our minds or intuitively know how we feel in order to meet our emotional needs for us. We recognize that it’s not anyone else’s responsibility to make us feel better or take away our sadness, loneliness, irritation, desperation, or any other painful emotions. Instead, we can communicate and directly ask for comfort or support in a way that feels safe and comfortable for everyone involved. We’re emotionally resilient and able to both self-regulate and co-regulate with others.

I glare when they tell me they’re going to tuck themselves away in a back bedroom for the day to enjoy some alone time. Now I can see that my feeling of annoyance indicates the discomfort I still feel when expressing my own needs, often feeling too uncomfortable to take the time or space I may need or too vulnerable to directly ask for the support or connection I may want. well I may think that I am upset with them, I am really upset with myself for my own acts of self betrayal and related neglected needs. Now, my reaction suggests to me that my resources may be running low and that I too may benefit from some self-care or supportive connection.

When we’re empowered, we don’t let others treat us anyway they choose. We feel safe and secure enough to leave the room or take the space we need without worrying about whether it will cause a break in our connection. We trust the security of our bond, knowing that the relationship can and will survive natural conflict. and if the relationship or conflict itself ever becomes threatening, We Trust our ability to remove ourselves and find our way to safety, even when it involves social services or law enforcement.

The next time a loved one calls or texts in need of emotional support and you’re going through something stressful or difficult yourself, remember to pause before immediately offering your support.

 It is only when we become present to our own needs that we can be present to the needs of our relationships.

 By taking a pause, you can then recognize the vulnerability it may have taken for your loved one to share the information while also recognizing the emotional impact it has on you. give yourself the time to process and figure out how you feel before responding. I am having something come up for me that I’ll need some time to process and would be grateful to have the opportunity to share it with you later, if you’re open to it. 

Some examples of language you can use to communicate your emotional needs more clearly and effectively:

•  I’ve had a rough day and need some support. Do you have the space and energy to listen to me now or sometime in the next few hours?

 

•  I’m having a hard time finding a solution for this work issue and would love to get your perspective. Can I share what’s going on with you and ask for your advice?

 

•  I’m feeling sad and need some support. Would you be willing to sit next to me for a few minutes?

 

•  I’m feeling overwhelmed  by caring for others and need some time by myself. Can you come over and sit with them for a few hours so I can take that space?
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•  I need to be able to vent sometimes without you trying to fix my issue. Can you work on listening without giving me advice or telling me what I should do? I feel supported this way.

Emotionally healthy couples repair their relationship after disagreements or disconnection instead of ignoring their issues or pretending the conflict didn’t happen.

 The Earth’s natural Schumann resonance is 7.8 Hertz, which is relaxing to the human body, whereas lower or higher levels can make us drowsy or send us into fight or flight.

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