The work of dating after divorce doesn’t end when you meet your person
Nurturing intimacy and commitment takes conscious intentionality
Yesterday, I worked with a client who was being seriously triggered by the differences in hers and her new partner’s parenting styles
It brought all of her childhood stuff up and was now threatening the success of a loving relationship
Having an unhealthy childhood or being in an unhealthy relationship (or both!) required you to learn the steps to the unhealthy dance that kept it together
The dance of cold, transactional relationships
The dance of abandonment and letting your needs go neglected
The dance of overgiving and over functioning
The dance of mind-reading, hiding and people-pleasing
The dance of minimizing, rationalization, justification and settling for mismatched partners
Sinking into the safety of a healthy, loving relationship requires you to unlearn the old and learn the steps of a brand new dance
It’s a whole new world and you need to practice the steps
Otherwise you trip and fall and smash your new partner’s toes
The new is unfamiliar and will feel wrong - in fact your brain will likely interpret it as WRONG
You’ll be tempted to stay hypervigilant for the other shoe to drop
Leaning into real love is going to feel uncomfortable
The dance steps look weird, but they feel AMAZING
You expand your ability to let the good feelings in, to receive the love that is present
You learn to relax, to sink into being nurtured and loved
To feel secure that this person wants to be around you and intends to commit to you
Coaching prepares you to hold and process the uncomfortable feelings that come with real love
You learn to feel secure within yourself so you don’t need your new partner to respond to every up and down that your emotions go through
You become less and less activated by fears that your old life will happen again
You learn to tune in to your body and your emotions
You become aware of discomfort and distress
You turn your attention inward to become curious about what is happening with you - instead of projecting it on the other person
Tuning into yourself helps you see and know yourself
Comfort and reassure yourself
Making each trigger an opportunity to tend to whatever old wound shows up, see it, heal it and and reinforce the trust that you are now safe
And a new, healthier version of you emerges from that moment
And with each cycle of trigger→tuning in→comfort→healing you’ll see more of the real you emerge
Dancing the new dance with ease
Building, negotiating, asserting and playing together
Loving and being loved
And letting the love in
Nurturing real love is the real work
Let’s do it together. Get started with a consultation call.