Anxious or Avoidant? Heal Your Attachment Style + Find Secure Love | EP 81

If you feel that the relationship might not be right for you, be the kind of partner that is a match for the relationship that you want to co-create. Your partner will either rise to the occasion or they will make it starkly obvious that this relationship is not a match.
We have this idea, especially in our culture, that in order to be successful in relationship, the relationship has to look a certain way. And there's this perfectionism where we don't allow ourselves to actually have hard moments.

The reality is when we are seeking perfection in ourselves, we aren't allowing ourselves to really fall apart, to come back together. And when a breakup feels overwhelming to the point where you just want to jump out of your own skin, chances are that's because it's unearthing past traumas or unfinished business.
Letting go with grace really does require open-palmed surrender to understand that it's an opportunity for you to know yourself on a deeper level, to clear what needs to clear in order for you to create the life that you really want. We can do all of the inner work to prepare our hearts for love, but we don't get to control the way that our life and our love looks.
We only get to control how we show up in it. Welcome back to the Healing and Human Potential podcast, where today we're talking about one of my favorite topics, relationships.
We're going to be specifically talking about how our past wounds influence love, as well as what is the role with nervous system regulation work? How do we use it for greater self-regulation and connection? And then also how does the power of self-awareness really shape conscious relationships? Joining us today is Shalena from Rising Women, where we explore transformative insights around how do you know if you should go or stay in the relationship? How do you heal heartbreak with more grace? And how do you create a love that lasts? It is a good one. Let's dive in.
So when I was getting my internship and getting licensed to become a marriage and family therapist, I studied Imago psychotherapy, which I know you love. And for those that don't know, Imago, literally the word Imago means image in Latin.
So this is the theory that we attract somebody who mirrors the parent or caregiver that we had a hard time with growing up so that we can heal. But I know that Shay, you love this work as well.
I would love to hear you explain it just to help everybody get on the same page. Like, why do we attract who we attract? Let's give a little bit of like context for our conversation.
When I first started learning about this, it was not even through the training. It was through transpersonal therapy.
And then I sort of graduated into doing the couples therapy training. And what I found was that in my own personal life, my ex-partner, who was my ex-husband, was the perfect projection of my mother wound.
So when I went through that catastrophic divorce, which really hurt so bad because it was unearthing all of my past wounds, what I came to realize through that was that most of our conflicts, the ways that I rejected him, the ways that I was repulsed by him, all of the anger and even the grief on the other side of it that I was feeling was all really related to my early childhood wounds and that unfinished business. And so when I really started doing the mock-up of the template of that relationship and of that partner, and then I started to look at what I call core emotional themes, which are like the themes of how you feel in every single relationship.
I realized that I had been carrying forth these core beliefs that stem from my own childhood wounds into every relationship. So we tend to unconsciously call in a partner who's going to mirror back some of the most challenging aspects of our caretakers and in an attempt for our psyche to complete right to heal now the challenge always is is that they're also doing that and in as it would go we tend to attract somebody who has a really hard time giving us that thing that we want the most.
And in fact, the very thing that

they do as their main coping mechanism tends to be the exact thing that triggers our deepest wound and ours to them. And so it's crazy making.
You're like, what? We're supposed to mate. We all deeply want to be seen, heard, and understood.
And yet we attract these partners where it just hurts so much and it's so overwhelming.

And so when we can understand that there is a spiritual purpose to relationship and it's not just about feeling good and having all of our needs met, it's actually about our own soul's evolution and growth. Then we are able to sit in our own wholeness and come to the table as co-creators to be allies in each other's healing to say okay I can see how you are encouraging me to grow and to stretch by mirroring back my deepest wounds and I'm doing the same for you and so if we're each able to take full accountability and responsibility, then that's when we're able to heal.
And what happens so often is that we get caught in these wounded projections and we aren't able to see the lesson. We're not able to see the soul lesson and we're not able to see that on some level we're choosing this as an attempt to grow.
And so we become enemies with our partners really quickly, right? So it's just that little shift. It's that perspective shift.
And of course, as you know, very well, you have to have two people who are willing to dive in. But in my experience, that pattern of attracting somebody who is like a caretaker, it follows us all the way through to the end of life.
And so the template is the template,

but how the template expresses can shift based on the energy you bring to it. I love this because then people can hear this and they don't think that having issues or challenges in relationship is bad.
It's like, oh, your partner is mirroring to you those score themes that are looking to be healed within you. So I find that there's two schools of thought.
There's like the, I'm 100% responsible for my needs.

And then there's the, if it was triggered in a relationship, it should be healed in a relationship. And I feel like we went from codependence to hyper independence, like it almost pendulum swung.
They're both trauma responses and it's innocent, like they're protective mechanisms. I'm like a yes.
And so I find that having the tools to learn how to heal it at the root inside of me is helpful because like you're saying, we're puzzle pieces. So if my partner's triggered, I might be triggered at the very same time and it'd be really hard for us to overcome and meet each other's needs in that moment.
If somebody has the maturity, the willingness, the ability to do that, you can heal in relationship. But like you're saying, it's going to be really hard.
So to ground it for me, my husband, who I have permission to share this, one of his core wounds and triggers is that he didn't feel important growing up because his dad was really busy. So he used to unconsciously try to find that core wound through me.
And then when that would happen, because I felt overly responsible for my mom's needs growing up and I would get abandoned, it would trigger me because I felt needed. And so that was the puzzle piece of how that was playing out.
And if I just went to tend to his needs, I overrode mine, I would have been re-traumatizing myself the way I used to as a kid. And so learning to meet those triggers show us what needs tending to inside of us so we can be with it.
And then if we have a partner who is willing and available to really heal and support each other's healing, like what a gift. Absolutely.
And it's so complex because we're really fed this narrative, especially on social media now. It's all about like choosing a partner who, you know, makes you feel a certain way.
And while I do agree, there's definitely something too that we want to be able to choose partners who can support us in our growth, who can love us, who can help us feel safe. There's definitely going to be moments where they don't do any of that and where they're actually your nightmare for being, right? I'm not talking about abuse or anything like that, but just in general, relationships are triggering.
They unearth all of our deepest fears and insecurities and wounds, and it's difficult. And so we really do want to sort of shift the perspective that in every given moment, this person is there to help you feel a certain way and instead understand that, especially when you're both triggered, that is not the time to feel safe in them.
This is a time to feel safe in yourself and to take the space that you both need in order to then come back together and recreate that safety to repair. Because in those moments, if you're desperately seeking for them to help you feel safe and to fix this problem, which is really just this uncomfortable feeling and sensation that you're in, in the moment, it's not going to go well because they don't have the capacity either.
As soon as our nervous systems are activated, we don't have the capacity anymore to do repair work. So this idea that it needs to happen instantly, it's just not, it's not realistic.
What are some practical ways that you found when you are in a relationship where somebody is available? Because for me, it was a non-negotiable to have a partner that would heal and grow with me. Now that may not be true for everybody else, but what do you find are some practical things that people can do in relationship if they are both willing and available to help each other heal? Yeah, well, I think one of the key pieces that is often missed is the nervous system work.
Truly, in all of my programs through Rising Woman, I don't have any offers where I don't have somatic experiencing practitioners working with these people.

Because the nervous system is a core foundational piece. You can have all of the knowledge, you can take all of the workshops, you can know all of the tantric practices, you can do all of the meditations, and you can understand your patterns.
But if your nervous system is patterned to go into fight or flight or freeze anytime a core wound is activated, then there's nothing else that's going to take precedent. Your nervous system is going to lead the way.
And so I really encourage people to bridge the spiritual understanding of relationship with these tantric tools with the nervous system foundation. So understanding how your nervous system responds when you are triggered, when you are scared, when you are anxious, what happens for you and what happens for your partner so that you can start to bring empathy and compassion to them in those moments, right? When my husband and I can see each other going into a nervous system pattern that is a coping mechanism, because we understand each other's core wounds so deeply, we can make sense of it.
We understand what's happening. Doesn't necessarily make it easy, but there's that understanding.
And so having that piece and knowing how to be with yourself in those moments. So one of the pieces of somatic work that I weave in with everybody is can I be with you while I be with me? Can I widen my capacity to hold this big emotion or sensation so that I don't need to offload it onto you so that I don't need to try to eject from my experience.
The more we can be with ourselves in those hard moments, the more we can be with the other as well. So widening the

capacity, that's taking a moment to pause instead of reacting, or instead of saying something,

or instead of even pursuing for repair in that moment, can you take a pause? That's a tool.

And then of course we have things like doing the clearings and all of that, but you want to

Thank you. for repair in that moment.
Can you take a pause? That's a tool. And then of course we have things like doing the clearings and all of that, but you want to time it right.
If you try to sit down and do a clearing while you are both at the peak of your triggers, it's just going to escalate into a fight. Yeah.
And it sounds like it would be an avoidance strategy rather than breathing into the sensation that's being activated to really self-soothe and insource a sense of safety like you were speaking to.

So knowing where it's coming from.

And I also find that you talked about personal responsibility. I think that's huge because otherwise that blame can create defense and you're not connected.

In addition to just understanding like, oh, these are my patterns and I would play them

out whether I'm with you or somebody else. Then I'm not blaming.
I'm not like, oh, you're the problem. It's like, oh, this is coming up so I can tend to it inside of myself.
But I love that you bring in nervous system regulation work because I think it's foundational. I think it's all of it's helpful, emotional mindset, nervous system, unconscious reprogramming.
And I know that there's a conversation online that says you need to be completely healed

to find love. I don't believe that.
That wasn't my experience. And I was in relationships for

three years at a time. I noticed I just got itchy when I was with my husband three years in.
I was

like, there's no problem. This is just a pattern.
I was able to see that and breathe through it.

Because I was in relationships for so long, I was like, let me just do my work around healing my mother wound, anything that came up with my mom. And I didn't even work it out with her.
I worked it out inside of me. It was my projections of her that I worked out.
And I ended up attracting a partner that I didn't recognize because he wasn't the template of what I'd known before. I do want people to know that you can heal outside of relationship.
I mean, I used my best friend. We were both reading gang Katie Hendricks, Conscious Loving, and we knew our own wounds.
We were speaking microscopic truths. For people that don't know, it's like sharing your inner experience and just you don't even have to have a.
It's just like, when you say that, I just notice I get butterflies. So you're creating more intimacy and personal responsibility.
And so we use our friendship to help each other heal, knowing that if we did the core work now, we would play less of that out with a partner when and if they did come. But I wouldn't also settle for anything less than I was offering myself.
And so I would love to hear if there's work that you find singles can do in support of them calling in their ideal partner, if they want to do that work. Of course.
And I always say, it's just different work, right? It's just different work when you're on your own. It's almost in many ways, it's easier.
It's just a, not as a hot of a fire, right? Because you're just working through your own karmic soul lessons. As soon as you enter into a relationship, now you've taken on their soul lessons too.
And you've sort of made this commitment to wade through each other's muck together. My book, Becoming the One, is that foundational piece.
It's all about understanding your own patterns. What's in the way? What are your beliefs about love? What do you actually value?

What does relationship really mean to you? It's sort of a re-patterning. And I wrote that book because I come from a history of intense childhood trauma, of abuse, addiction, betrayal, abandonment, you name it.
So my relationship patterns have been chaotic to say the least. and it's not been an easy time for me.

The fact that I'm even in a relationship, in a marriage, and I've been in it for 10 years, and I have a family, I'm often just starting to really give myself credit for that. Because I'm like, wow, it is actually incredible that I'm here and that I'm doing that on my hardest days.
Like hardest days, like, you know what, you're just, you're doing it. You're here.
And for those of us who come from backgrounds where we didn't have that divine protection and love that we all expect when we are infants and children, it's harder. It is.
And so the inner work is always with us. When we're on our own, you don't have to be perfectly healed or complete in your journey because you're never complete in order to attract a partner.
However, I will say if you find that you are out of your center, if you feel desperate for connection, if you feel like you need a partner because you just can't handle being with yourself, chances are you will attract a partner who is not an energetic match for your true essence. And you will probably attract a partner who will not be for your highest good if you attract a partner from that energy.
So no, you don't have to be perfectly healed. And there is certainly a level in which I would say to somebody, you know what, perhaps it's time to take a break from dating for now and focus on your relationship to self.
And then what happens when we have that secure foundation within ourselves, when we trust ourselves and we know what our yes and no feels like in our body, when we're really in our bodies and we're no longer looking for approval or seeking for somebody to choose us, but we're actually consciously choosing to be in relationship with people that feel good for us, then we know we're ready to be in a relationship. And then that's when the next level of work starts, because now both of your patterns are in the space and whatever work you thought you had done is going to come up in a new way.
It's like every milestone that we hit, a new layer unfolds. So for my husband and I, you know, we got together.
I think it was a, we got engaged. It was around the three year mark.
And I'm sure you can relate. All of our attachment stuff started to come up.
It was a really hard year. This happens to a lot of couples get married.
Everything's good. And then we hit this really easy place for a few years.
And, you know, we're at our seven year and everything is blissful. We don't fight anymore.
Our communication is so amazing. You know, our intimacy is great.
We're actually kind of bored, not with each other, but just with how easy life is. And we think, well, this is the perfect time.
Let's have a family because we're so strong and ready. And then we have a family and everything feels like it's falling apart.
And here we are now at ground zero, having to work through all of these layers that we didn't even know were there because we didn't have that activating force. So it's just like that.
I love that you say there's new levels of it. And even if we do, like in my stance, I don't think we can ever be with the wrong one.
I think that somebody will like mirror to us what we're tolerating or what, like why we would allow ourselves to be in a certain situation. Yes, of course, anybody that's physically abusive is not like move on.
And I would say, try to get the lesson and heal whatever the pattern is, because if you don't figure it out now, it'll be played out with a coworker, a lover, a parent, or somebody else. And so my stance is I'll tend to look at what's in this for me so that I can resolve it and then not prolong and project that moving forward onto whatever other relationship.
And yes, there's deeper levels of intimacy and love, and that can be vulnerable. And I think kids are such an initiation for deeper levels of love for sure.
These patterns are so covert. So, you know, my mother, she had me when she was really young.
She came from a horrifically abusive background. And so she was essentially, you know, cognitively 10 years old.
So her ability to care for me in any sort of consistent or stable way was just not there. And so my upbringing was really unstable, really chaotic.
And so I really carried the role of the caretaker and the savior for her throughout our relationship. I was bringing her toothpaste and toothbrush on a cookie sheet when I was three years old while she was passed out in the bathroom.
So I spent a lot of time alone very young. By the time I was 14 years old, I was helping to pay for her life while I was working multiple jobs already.
So bringing that pattern into romantic relationship is one thing. And then once I thought I had healed it in romantic relationship, it covertly found its way into female friendships.
And I was like, oh, this freaking pattern, it's just so covert. And it will just find its way to manifest in our lives.
And to be quite honest with you, I'm 37. I still find that pattern trying to emerge.
I have to be really, really mindful because I am just a magnet for people who could use a mother. It's part of my pattern.
And so I have to be really mindful to have those boundaries, to hold people in their highest, to remind them of their own power, to not save people or rescue them. And I find sometimes I have this urge to just make it easy for them.
And I have to not do that. And it's uncomfortable.
And I think that that's going to be something that I probably have to be mindful of for the rest of my life. And when we have something like that, we want to be careful that we don't pendulum swing to the other side, because easily for me, I could just become so cutthroat, which I've had to be at times be like, no, I'm not doing this pattern anymore.
And so therefore I'm just not even going to engage with this person, you know, and, but that doesn't work when we want to have community and connection and love. And so it really is just this lifelong learning and knowing ourselves and seeing the pattern for what it is as just an energetic force in our lives and understanding that we can work with it.
Yeah. And it's interesting because I, you talking about it being covert, I don't play it out in my marriage anymore, but I'm starting to see this over-responsible one that is abandoning my own needs for my team so that it just transferred over to team.
And I was like, oh, I'm being schooled and initiated with leadership in this way now. So I'm just such a fan.
I think both of us are just like rooting for doing the work. And the more aware we are and the more tools we have, the easier it gets, but the work continues.
And for people that are listening, whatever you found are some of the most common blocks or patterns that prevent people from having more conscious relationships? Are there some themes that you've discovered to help people build more awareness? Yeah, I mean, one of the core themes really is that piece that we just kind of covered, which is that projection of the parent and the caretaker without really realizing it, without really choosing to be responsible for what's coming up. There's a bit of a denial or an avoidance there.
And so for most of us, it is that unfinished business with our parent that prevents us from really being total in relationship, from really being ourselves. Also, there's this really trendy talk around the anxious avoidant dynamic, which is something I work in a lot.
I work with a lot of women who would self-identify with anxious attachment. But when we really dig into the pattern, what we'll find is that most of these women are also afraid of commitment.
And when I say, how would it be if today the man of your dreams walked in the door and was 100% in and ready to fully commit to you? And a lot of them say, well, that would freak me out. Right.
And so it's also about this shadow work piece. Can I look at how am I allowing this pattern to keep me shielded from my own inner work or my own inner growth? Or how is this protecting me from having to show up fully or be seen? A lot of us have a fear of being seen because we don't want to be hurt.
So there's this ability to see ourselves and this surrender that has to happen to the fact that love and grief are inseparable that allows us to just go fully into the experience, to choose to have the experience, even if that does mean that it hurts. And there's also a perfection seeking, which of course is a whole other.
No, I want to hear. I think this is a bit, especially big for women.
Yeah. Well, we have this idea, especially in our culture that in order to be successful in relationship, the relationship has to look a certain way.
It has to last forever. And there's this perfectionism where we don't allow ourselves to actually have hard moments.
I even find myself in this, especially, you know, I have a platform of millions of women, you know, they have this idea of what my life and relationship looks like. So if I have a hard day or if I'm having a hard year, you know, I think, oh my gosh, well, I'm not, I'm not doing it right.
But the reality is, is that life is messy and relationships are hard and we go through cycles and seasons. And so when we are seeking perfection in ourselves, we aren't allowing ourselves to really fall apart, to come back together.
So we're not allowing the alchemy to happen as long as we're

seeking perfection. So there is this letting go of that and understanding that when you enter into a conscious relationship, it's not the Instagram picture perfect couple.
It's the day-to-day being companions, being friends, just having love for each other and being able to appreciate and admire one another. That really is the essence of conscious relationship.
It isn't this picture perfect, beautiful, passionate, romantic Hollywood scene that so many of us imagine it to be every day. It's actually quite mundane.
So allowing ourselves also to drop into peace in relationship instead of seeking those highs and lows and knowing that when you get to a moment of peace, it doesn't translate to boring, which again, we're looping back to the nervous system. Does your nervous system have the capacity to be peaceful? Or is it just totally wired for those highs and lows, the roller coaster? And that would make sense if somebody had a traumatic past, then they would think that trauma is safety unconsciously because that's what they've known.
And so creating space for peace and allowing that to be the new set point, I think just bite sizing that would be really helpful. I love the invitation for somebody to say, like, if my perfect person came in, how does my body respond? And can I let myself breathe into that and do some of the work so that I can stabilize and allow this to feel like the new norm and the new set point, the safety.
What's your relationship to commitment? It's a good question that I like to ask people. And a lot of times they're surprised by their answer, but it's so important to assess what is your relationship to commitment? Because so often when we're coming into this space, we have this story that everyone around us doesn't want to commit and that we're just so tired of that pattern.
But we're actually projecting it. We're projecting that onto these people that we're meeting that aren't showing up fully, that are emotionally unavailable.
And sure, they are that. But what about you? Where are you at in this journey? Are you actually ready? Do you actually want commitment on a deep nervous system level? Or is this an idea? Can you embody it? And what are you committed to already? What are you demonstrating to the universe that you're committed to? It might sound simple, but I honestly am like, go and clean up your house.
Organize your finances. Take care of those other pillars of your life.
Make sure that you are demonstrating commitment to yourself if you want to have commitment from a partner. Beautiful.
And it's also cleaning up house, like you're just energetically closing those leaks. And so for people that are with patterns of either chasing or avoiding, right, both being scared, what would be like another practical thing that they can do? Maybe there's a different practice for the different types of what they lean away or lean towards.
So in my book, I talk about fire and water, the elements really relating back to anger and sadness. And these are our growth edges.
If you're more in your fire, if you tend to be more walled up, more boundaried, more defensive, then your growth edge is to lean into your softness and your vulnerability and to practice being seen. Your growth edge is to practice receiving.
If you are a water being, chances are you might be quick to tears, you might be more comfortable with sadness, but you might have a negative relationship to anger. You might be afraid of it.
You might think it's really negative. You might never want to be seen as angry.
And therefore you might be a people pleaser, caretaker who struggles to set boundaries in their own life and puts everyone ahead of them. So then your growth edge is to lean into your fire and to begin to set some boundaries and to just put yourself first, choose yourself in these little moments where you could be worrying about what everybody else thinks, but you're going to live life for you.
Not at the expense of, you know, everyone around you all the time. We have to be interdependent in our relationships, but water beings tend to be over givers.
And so I really encourage people to look at that pattern to kind of understand where are we leaning. So if we are more on the avoidant end of the spectrum versus the anxious avoidance of the spectrum, the avoidance, obviously your practice is to lean in and move toward the uncomfortable feeling when it's arising, to be able to hold yourself and them, but also to tune more into what is actually happening for you.
Because the avoidant tends to just deny their own experience to the point where they're not even in tune with what they're experiencing. They don't even know what they're feeling.
They just know that they're tired, that they don't want to deal with this or that it's too overwhelming or it's whatever the label is. Like avoiding their own experience, not just others, it sounds like.
Well, the avoidant is primarily avoiding their own experience. That's why they avoid because what they're saying is, I don't want to feel this.
And you just mirroring this emotion to me, showing me this experience, it's causing me to feel something that I don't want to feel.

I'm going to remove myself. So the anxious person's making it all about them, but actually it's not.
We're each in our own trigger. We're both anxious, but we're dealing with it very

differently. The avoidant is even less connected to their own experience.
They really need to

practice, which is exactly what the anxious person needs to do with a different framework,

being in their body and actually feeling themselves and not take that other person. Like whatever we repress, our partner will express.
And so it's good to then learn what I'm hearing you say is to learn from, from your person, whether you're dating or in relationships so that you can develop more of your range. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah.
And for that anxious person, they're tending to want to eject from their experience and to have their partner fix it for them. Right.
Energetically, unconsciously, it's a save me energy. Save me from this uncomfortable feeling.
I don't want to feel this. This is your fault.
Fix me. And so of course, even just on a polarity level, if you just look at the energetics of that, even if a person isn't extremely avoidant, that type of behavior is going to push somebody away because when you're coming towards somebody, they either have to move away to create space for themselves, right? Or completely merge with you.
So a lot of times we're sort of building a self-fulfilling prophecy by chasing and pursuing. And so that anxious person, when they're feeling uncomfortable, they really need to learn how to pause and be with those sensations.
Like I said in the beginning, we're widening our capacity to be with our big emotions and our sensations. So if we can both hold those, then we can come together and support each other without enmeshing into each other.
Can I be with you while I be with me? Can I feel myself and also witness you in your experience without rejecting you or being repulsed by you or feeling like I have to save you? Can I honor my internal experience and still feel what I'm feeling? And can I also give you space if that's what you really need, right? If you're an internal processor and you can't handle this external expression right away and you need time and space that doesn't necessarily make you an avoidant what makes somebody more avoidant is when they just shut down stonewall disappear refuse to engage don't reassure don't make a commitment for a future conversation they take days to repair or they just ghost like these are unhealthy semi-emotionally abusive. Saying, hey, I need a half an hour or I need to take two hours.
I need to go to the gym and work out and then we can have a conversation. I need to regulate.
That's fair. And I think that's beautiful because if you are saying that to somebody that's anxious, that's going to help calm them to be like, they're not just going to leave.
They will come back. They're learning to regulate themselves.
And if you're both dysregulated, it's not going to be a productive conversation. And so what I'm hearing you say is take a pause and really ask yourself.
And maybe if you're in a relationship that is both conscious and a bit more mature, you might say, like, maybe put your hand on your heart and your belly and just breathe. It's just questioning, like, can I be with this energy? Not a story, but just a sensation.
Can I be with this? And you can both do it together or you can do it on your own rather than just texting or responding right away and creating more of those habits. But to really, what you're saying is self-regulate, create that safety.
Or if you need to come back, just speak it so that that other person knows that their abandonment trigger is not going to be activated as well. Absolutely.
And my husband and I made agreements like that. We don't have this particular pattern now, but when we were two years in, it was quite inflamed and we were pretty surprised by how much this pattern was arising.
But when we really dug into our own childhood wounds, it made perfect sense why it was happening. And we both had to do our own inner work in order for the pattern to heal.
And a lot of it was honestly done individually because the pattern was so strong. So I had to really find a way to remove myself in those moments and go and work with my inner child and start to heal that deep fear of abandonment and that terror that was coming up in my nervous system.
I have a lot of these meditations and different visualizations in my book because it really did help me start to widen my capacity to the point where now we just don't have those patterns emerge. Our nervous system patterns are not of chase and avoid because we've worked through it and we understand it.
I think it's helpful for people to hear that because no matter what your past was, it does not define what you're capable of and that you can heal and you can have a secure attachment within yourself and with a partner. And I really want to double click on that because your story is such a testament to the work and how it does work.
Yeah. And I'm sure yours too.
And it is possible. It's just the road to get there is hard.
And I, you know, I've been in my partnership now for 10 years, almost, you know, coming up in a couple of months here. And to be honest, like we're going through another inner winter right now.
You know, it was the new moon last night. We just had a really beautiful conversation about commitments we're making to each other.
And when life changes, when you alter your reality or you change the way that the structure of your marriage looks like by adding another person or, you know, somebody passes away or you move or whatever, there's going to be new things that come up. And so you have to be ready for cycles and seasons in the relationship.

You know, you can go through many deaths and rebirths together, and it's not always going to be easy. And once you get to what we call true partnership, we've gone through the shadow together.
You can find that you cycle back into old patterns or even new stuff is going to emerge over the years. And I think that's a good thing because it means that you're both awake together and that you're growing.
But this idea that there's like a destination you're going to arrive to where all of a sudden for the rest of time together, it's going to be just easeful. It's not super realistic.
Yeah. And I do think it's harder to not do the work.
Yes, it's hard to do the work, but it's harder to avoid it and to keep playing it out with different people in the same pattern and different faces. It takes courage and it takes commitment, but it is so worth it.
And it can feel super empowering and you can experience deeper levels of intimacy and depth. That that's what I'm here for.
And I know the people that are listening, the work pays off. And yes, it may not ever be perfect.
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But are there any guiding principles that you find that people can lean on to find their own truth and answer? Yeah. So often people want to know, should I stay? Should I go? Is the relationship right? And of course, nobody can tell you that for you.
However, if you feel that the relationship might not be right for you, the only way to really know is to go all in on the inner work and to show up fully embodied in the way that you want to experience partnership. Be the kind of partner that is a match for the relationship that you want to co-create.
Your partner will either rise to the occasion or they will make it starkly obvious that this relationship is not a match. But the only way to know is to show up fully so that when it comes time for you to make that decision, it's very clear.
Like I showed up fully embodied. I did my very best.
I took full responsibility for my mind, for my emotions, for my nervous system, and they chose not to show up. And that's how we tell.
And so it really does come down to embodying and also being responsible for our own role. because we don't often realize how much we impact the relationship, especially I find as women, we really are leading the energetics of the relationship more than we realize.
Like I've seen over the years, how much of an impact I have energetically on my marriage, just with the energy and the mood that I'm in and like the energy that I bring into my family home. You know, I can see it in my husband and my daughter.
It's like, I'm really being intentional with that. Sometimes we can change a lot of the pattern just by shifting our own frequency.
And sometimes we will do that and we will feel so clear that it's not a match, but other times it will shift the whole dance. And so I really suggest that piece.
And of course, you have to have two willing people, right? If your partner doesn't think there's anything wrong with the relationship and they're not interested and you don't have a shared relationship vision, then you can't grow in the same direction. You don't have to have the same spiritual practices or the same beliefs, but you do have to have a shared vision for where you want to go together.
Otherwise, you can't co-create it.

I 100% agree. I tend to tell people because our blocks and patterns will filter what decision we're going to make.
And so do the work to heal whatever you can, as long as there's not abuse, to heal so that you can clearly see. And then from that place, yes, it's just about choosing somebody that has similar values and lifestyle goals, or there's non-negotiables, but those are like a handful of things.
Otherwise you can find really beautiful love and happiness within yourself and in partnership, and you can practice outside of a partnership and or with one. So that I think is helpful.
But I wonder if there's a,

do you see a pattern that really destroys relationships very quickly if people aren't aware of them? There's a few. One, of course, is negativity, being in a negative state all of the time.
My husband and I were even talking about this last night. When we get caught in patterns of negativity.
We assume the worst of each other instead of the best. So when you start to assume the worst of your partner and assume that their intentions are not good, then you have a real problem because you're no longer seeing them for who they really are.
There's also this idea of assuming that we know our partner and everything that there is to know about them instead of being open and curious. You never know your partner fully if they're evolving and growing and changing and their perspective is broadening and they're deepening as a human being and they're maturing.
Who my husband and I were 10 years ago to now, we're different people. In a lot of ways, there's still similarities, but of course, there's differences.
Seeing your partner with fresh eyes, being curious about their inner world. Don't assume you know.
Get curious, ask questions, continue to be interested in them.

and then open communication and really clearing your resentments when you're holding on to

resentment when you're building resentment instead of clearing up what hurt you or being vulnerable in the moment, or at least sitting down at the end of the week and saying, hey, this thing's in the way of me feeling connected to you. The longer you let that go on, the more calcified the relationship becomes.
You have to do the work to clear resentments and to be in new energy and to be able to forgive and to let go with each other. Because if you insist on holding on to every little thing that they've done wrong, then you're just going to be building evidence that they don't love you.
And that's a self-fulfilling prophecy in itself. So you both have to be committed.
I love all of that. And I just find, you know, one thing I just want to add to it is unpacking one pattern at a time rather than trying to throw five things in at once, which is kind of an ego trap.
But the resentment piece is really important. So just one at a time.
And sometimes we have to be angry. And so if somebody doesn't have a good relationship with anger, maybe they attract a partner that's very angry so that they can learn to have a healthy relationship.
And once the anger is allowed, then the forgiveness can come. And there's a healthy way to express anger and there's an unhealthy way.
And so having the tools, the community, the support, therapist, coach, whoever it is to help you clear your heart, I think it's like don't push it under the rug. Take the time to have those challenging conversations because they are what create intimacy and connection.
Thank you for that. Those are beautiful.
Yeah. I want to just add to that if that's okay, because that piece around, let's say you're really in rejection of anger.
Yeah, you might find somebody who's really comfortable with their anger, fire, and water beings tend to attract one another. But another pattern that I see is that these people will be really attracted to very stoic, quiet, inward people who are not expressive at all.
But then that becomes safe. Yeah, exactly.
But then they're too nice. They don't have any boundaries of their own.
And then that becomes another pattern where now you're either mothering this person or you don't feel connected or there's conflict avoidance, which is, you know, couples who express themselves frequently to each other. a lot of people looking on the outside will think well they're they have a problem because they're really expressive and the way that they battle out their conflicts, it's a little bit intense, right? But those couples tend to do okay as long as they have good repair techniques.
Those couples do tend to get divorced sooner because they're more total, right? So they get there faster. But the people who avoid conflict, they just get divorced later.
It just takes them longer to get there, but they still end up divorced. They've just dragged it out because they never bring their concerns.
They don't bring their resentments. They're too afraid to air it out.
And so both of those are just really hard patterns to be with as well.

So there is this piece around understanding that expression and moving energy is a very important thing. And you don't necessarily need to sit down and talk about everything all the time.
You don't need to be living in process land, but you do need to find a way to move the energy and to be connected. Yeah.
And there is a time to do some deep shadow work and then a time to live in the light and celebration and love and balance it. Because I think sometimes people can wallow and other times people can avoid.
It's like there are seasons like you're talking about. And also as a couples therapist, I fired one couple who was just coming in to check off that they had gone to therapy before divorce.
And I was like, I'm not willing to participate in this. You're either here and you're all in and you're really here or I'm not going to be part of your checkoff game.
And so just really show up if you want to go for it. It's possible, but really show up and close the door on doubt for a period of time and give yourself a real chance.
Yeah. It was just admirable for you to have done that and to see that.
And I don't know what happened to them, but maybe they'll get a fire under their butt. I think it did.
I hope it did. It was my one couple that I fired and I did it out of love.
And for people, when there's a breakup or somebody goes, I just want to share this because it's always, as a former therapist, I don't do that work anymore, but it was so clear to me. It was like, oh, you guys weren't matched to each other's wounds.
It wasn't necessarily personal. It was just programming.
So if somebody is like, oh, they're not, it's like you attracted somebody that would ghost if that's a pattern of yours so that you don't ghost that part of you that's looking to be tended to. It's not personal, but they're giving you an opportunity to see that.
So you choose you and that part of you that feels abandoned. And as you choose that part of you, you will start attracting people naturally that don't abandon you and you won't put up with anything less.
And so for people that are going through heartbreak right now, what do you say are some of the biggest misconceptions about heartbreak? And is there any guiding principles that they can navigate heartbreak with more grace? You know, one of the misconceptions is that a breakup is just something to get on with, to get over. And I think that a breakup is actually a really important milestone in your life.
And it's an initiation to deeper spiritual awareness. And so grief is that portal for you to know yourself deeper.
and when a breakup feels really intense and it feels overwhelming to the point where you just

want to jump out of your own skin chances are that's because it's unearthing past traumas or unfinished business.

Even with, you know, your parents, yes, but ex-lovers, have you really let yourself grieve?

And so this piece around letting go with grace, it really does require open-palmed surrender to understand that this is happening for a reason. It's an opportunity for you to know yourself on a deeper level, to clear what needs to clear in order for you to create the life that you really want.
And that it's going to take time. There's no timeline on grief.
You can't mark a date on your calendar and decide that that's when you're going to be over it. There are soul lessons that we come here with.
And sometimes we need a crisis or we need a deep rupture to break us open so that we're ready, ready to really do whatever it takes to not feel this immense pain anymore, which is why so many people find themselves coming to the inner work when they are in crisis. So seeing it as an opportunity to grow and also bringing care to the process so that you give yourself the opportunity to complete whatever needs to be completed and know that you don't need that other person to do anything, say anything, or change in order for you to heal.
Whether they're willing to participate with you or not in this closing, you can get complete on your own. There's so much more, but I would say that those are the foundational pieces.
I love that. And I love that you speak to grief as inseparable from love and that it's like the other side of the coin and this relationship to move towards it rather than be away from it.
My brother, whom I love dearly, is like, rather than a bucket list, like a reverse bucket list, he's like, if you were to live this human experience, here are the top five things I want you to have. And one of them was having your heart broken.
And I just thought that was so beautiful because I know it's like, and there's this quote, it's like, when your heart breaks, just keep it open. It's like, there's a tenderness in it.
And for me, I find that I dive deeper into levels of love with my husband. It feels vulnerable because there's a part of me that doesn't want to lose him.
And there's a bigger knowing of myself that can ever lose him. That's more in the spiritual dimension and yet holding both simultaneously.
I think it's such a beautiful paradox. And so just in closing, is there anything that you feel like we haven't spoken about that you know would really serve people if you shared today? I think this is a beautiful opportunity just to kind of speak heart into love and relationships for people that are either trying to find love or be in the relationship that they really desire.
Anything that you want to share with them in parting? Yeah, the piece that's really coming through is around timing. So we can do all of the inner work to prepare our hearts for love, but we don't get to control the timing of what that looks like.
And you could be with the person of your dreams and have the dream relationship and they could still go away. Right? We all die.
We don't get to control the way that our life and our love looks. We only get to control how we show up in it.
So if you're still waiting, remember that you're not broken and that the timing isn't up to you and try to really live life in flow with what you are passionate about and what you love and what you desire now, instead of really sitting and waiting. And it is a lifelong practice to be open to what life is in front of us versus the life that we imagined and sometimes those two line up perfectly and other times they don't and that is a ceremony in itself so much wisdom i'm so grateful to connect with you there's so much alignment with how we view things and i know my audience is going to want to stay connected talk to us about how they do that.
You can find me on Instagram at rising woman and at Shalina Ayana. My website is risingwoman.com.
And of course my books, I have a becoming the one and becoming the one journal. And those are available in bookstores worldwide on Amazon.
And I have a few more books coming out in the coming years. So you can just stay in touch with me that way through Instagram and through my email list on my website.
Beautiful. We'll put all of that in the show notes here below.
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