There’s a scientific reason why “calming down” isn’t always a choice. There is something else going on in your body when you’re dysregulated, and it helps explain why compassion, not pressure, is the key to regulating your nervous system.

You might not use the word safety when talking about your relationships. But you do know the feeling of walking on eggshells, shrinking yourself to avoid conflict, or bracing for the moment they pull away or you explode. You know what it’s like to love with your walls up, where you feel close but never quite secure. Does a part of you wonder if this is just how love is supposed to feel?

Understanding your patterns is often a great first step in healing, but insight alone isn’t going to transform the way you feel, relate, or show up in the world. May times, you need more than that…

Have you ever noticed that some days you just feel off? One moment you’re fine, and the next, you feel drained, anxious, or unmotivated for no apparent reason. It’s as if something invisible is out of sync, throwing your emotions off balance. It could be your brain’s neurotransmitters—chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin—that are in need of a little support.

Opening up to others might seem intimidating, but it’s one of the most transformative things you can do to deepen your connections. When you let down your guard and share what’s really going on inside, you invite others to see the real you—flaws and all. This kind of honesty sparks genuine understanding and closeness, turning surface-level relationships into something truly meaningful.

Do you ever feel like you’re endlessly repeating the same painful patterns no matter how hard you try to change? Even when you feel like you’ve made some progress in your life, sometimes these difficult patterns keep resurfacing and we might wonder, “What am I doing wrong?” 

Yes, talk therapy helps in many ways. Discussing our problems with safe people is how we begin to heal. Most people who come to therapy want to discuss their problems, and ultimately they are looking for solutions. They want to “fix” themselves or get advice on how to stop feeling their pain.

Avoidant Attachment Style often gets a bad rap because of how they avoid or withdraw from intimacy. However, when you begin to understand this insecure attachment style more, you build more compassion and understanding of their patterns and behaviors. 

Whether you have an anxious or avoidant attachment style, finding and sustaining a healthy relationship can be challenging. If you’re anxiously attached, your need for validation paired with your ability to attach quickly leaves you insecure in the beginning stages of your relationships. If you’re avoidantly attached, your need for space and time for processing, paired with an extreme desire for independence, can lead you to ghost potential romantic partners accidentally. So how do you put your best foot forward in the dating world when you want to find a true, committed partner?

Chances are, if you were in a relationship trapped in cycles of emotional highs and lows that kept you miserable, you might have experienced the anxious-avoidant dance, or perhaps you’re recovering from a relationship so fraught with insecurity that narcissistic protections showed up.

In our digital age, connecting with others has never been easier. The online space offers endless opportunities for interaction and intimate communication. But despite these possibilities, setting healthy boundaries with others can become really confusing as to how to create the space your body needs to feel safe when communicating with others.

There are times in our lives when we find ourselves needing real space from a person. Sometimes, we, or a person we’ve been connected with (think romantic partners, friendships, working relationships, etc.), might have an impulsive desire to fight, communicate, or just be in constant contact. There are even moments when just the sight of someone is too painful, causing you to need to take a break from the distress and reminder of having their energy in your world. 

Many of us, thanks to society, have a skewed idea of what love should look and feel like. We’ve seen Disney movies where the prince comes to save the day, and they live happily ever after. For people with an anxious attachment, this possibility of a fantasy-like relationship can often lead us down the road of building a relationship off of limerence instead of love. You cling to the idea that someone is coming to save you so you never have to be alone again.

Oh, the anxious-avoidant dance. This relationship often seems doomed to fail, but that isn’t always the case (although, sometimes, it is, and that’s okay too). While we know that no relationship is perfect (because no one is perfect), the anxious-avoidant partnership is a little more complicated.

The best starting point for someone new to attachment styles is understanding whether they have a secure or insecure attachment. From there, if you have an insecure attachment, you can fall into anxious, avoidant, or fearful attachment styles. Depending on how you show up in your relationships will give you a pretty clear picture of which attachment style is most fitting.

Attachment Theory, developed by John Bowlby and expanded upon by Mary Ainsworth, has given so many of us the tools to understand how we form emotional bonds and attachments in our relationships. From our earliest days, we are seeking connection, safety, love, and to have our physical needs met. Depending on how those needs were received by our primary caregivers leads to how we formed attachments.

Have you watched the Netflix series “Love Is Blind” yet? You get to watch single individuals go on dates in “pods” where they can hear the other person but not see them. Through multiple interactions, they attempt to find a match.

You can change your thoughts. You can come up with new mantras, You can do the cognitive work until the cows come home. But you’re likely still going to be left realizing that non of it is really helping.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you felt misunderstood or like your partner was projecting or pushing their own feelings onto you? Projection in relationships can be a common source of conflict and can lead to misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and bring an end to relationships.

Do you wish you had a crystal ball sometimes? I can’t be the only one who has felt this way. When you’re going through a hard season of life or trying to make an important decision, it’s normal to wish that you could see the future. It’s a natural way to cope with the unknown.