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.