Healing in relationships is definitely possible.
My partner Toby and I just celebrated six years together last week 🥂cin, cin!
And I’m not saying that as a humble brag, but as a beacon of hope. Because if I can heal in a relationship – I know you can too.
I’m nothing special. Just a woman who dated enough dickheads to learn a thing or two along the way.
Six years ago, when Toby and I first got together, I was convinced I’d ruin it.
(I also failed to complete Dr Ramani’s full year of singledom that she swears by – the one I always hypocritically recommend you do too)!
I was living with complex PTSD and a nervous system that treated a missed text like a blazing inferno.
Just terrified I’d lose myself again and fall into the same painful patterns without spotting the signs.
So when Toby showed up, all kind and gentle… I didn’t know what to do with that.
I kept waiting for him to turn bad, realise I was too much work, and bail.
But he was different – he didn’t run when things got hard.
So if this last 6 years has taught me anything, it’s that you can heal in a relationship.
You don’t have to be a whole person before you’re allowed to love someone.
Because even though connection can hurt you, it can heal you too. But you need to learn what safe love looks like and how to let your body invite it back in again.
Why You Feel Unsafe in Relationships
After narcissistic abuse, your nervous system learned to associate romantic partners with threat.
So when you finally get back out there and start dating again, you’re suspicious of everyone. Even the good guys.
And that’s because your brain and body have tightened security to keep you extra safe from the bad seeds (not Nick Cave’s ones). They’re doing their best to stop you from ending up in another toxic situation.
Which is why you might feel all hot and flustered on a date and like you have this urgency to run away from them. It’s not logical and rather a survival instinct that kicks in when a threat’s detected.
You see…
Your autonomic nervous system (the part that runs things like your heart rate, breathing and stress responses) is constantly communicating with your brain in both directions. And your brain picks up on cues you’re not even consciously aware of. Like a tone of voice, body language or how quickly someone texts back.
And your brain predicts how you should react to that info based off past experiences.
So if your date smirks like your ex used to, it sets off a whole chain of events…
Behind the scenes your brain’s making lightning decisions about your current situation. It’s making the connection to your ex, it’s activating similar feeling states from the past, and it’s planning your survival strategy.
These are just automatic processes that happen again and again, without you having time to think about it.
So even when you rationally know this current person isn’t your ex, your body responds as if the threat is still present. Which creates this awful push-pull dynamic: where you desperately want connection. But the second intimacy gets too close, your panic spikes.
Triggers in relationships
You might not realise what’s setting you off. It’s not always the obvious stuff like raised voices or broken promises.
Sometimes it’s:
- The way someone breathes when they’re annoyed
- A certain cologne or aftershave
- Being asked “what’s wrong?” in a particular tone
- Silence after a disagreement
- Someone being “too nice” or attentive
It was long pauses between texts that would trigger me. I’d be jumping to conclusions, fretting I was getting the silent treatment and repeatedly opening WhatsApp to check if he was online.
Meanwhile… Toby would just be held up, under a car, fixing one of the thingamajigs and glancing at his phone in between jobs. With absolutely no idea he was causing me a full-on meltdown!
So these are triggers – that evoke body memories of danger. Trauma research shows that nearly anything can serve as a multi-sensory reminder of a traumatic event, triggering automatic survival responses without conscious awareness.
That’s why you can’t just think your way out of feeling unsafe. You have to teach your body how to feel safe again, and in a language it understands.
The Signs You’re Still Living in Relationship Trauma
Most women don’t realise they’re still operating from an overactive nervous system. They just think they’re “difficult” or “too sensitive” or that they “have trust issues”.
But what you’re actually experiencing is nervous system dysregulation – and it shows up in predictable patterns, like:
Pattern 1: The over-explainer
You send paragraph-long texts justifying basic decisions. You rehearse conversations in your head for hours before having them. And you apologise for things that aren’t even problems.
This is your fawn response in action. Your nervous system learned that over-explaining might prevent an attack. So now you do it compulsively – even when there’s no need.
In a healthy relationship, “I can’t make it tonight” is a complete sentence. But your trauma brain tells you that you need to provide a dissertation with supporting evidence, or else.
Pattern 2: The ping-ponger
One minute you’re convinced this person is the one. The next, you’re scanning for red flags and planning your exit strategy.
This isn’t you acting like a “crazy bitch” (even though your ex would have you think that)! It’s your nervous system bouncing between fight/flight (the anxious scanning) and freeze (the urge to disconnect). When you can’t settle into safety, you ping-pong between panic and shutdown.
You might notice your heart pumping faster when they don’t text back immediately. Or feeling a wave of panic when they mention plans for next month. These physical reactions are your body raising internal alarms to prevent you getting too attached (because remember what happened last time you did)!
Pattern 3: The self-saboteur
Things are going well, so you start picking fights, or maybe you pull back emotionally. Or you push them away by being overly picky and cold.
This is your flight response trying to maintain control. Your system has learned that distance equals safety, so it makes you flee (emotionally or physically). Because if you reject them first, they can’t blindside you with abandonment later. Keeping them at arm’s length, means they can’t hurt you the way your ex did.
The fucked up part is you’re creating the very rejection you’re trying to avoid.
I was a nightmare with Toby in the beginning – he didn’t know if I was coming or going! I’d wake up at the crack of dawn, panicking that I shouldn’t have stayed the night. And I’d be legging it out the door before he’d even whispered “good morning”.
Pattern 4: The hypervigilant detective
You analyse every text for hidden meaning, including their social media activity (like “who the fuck is Joanne you holidayed with in 2015”)?! And you ask careful questions to “check” if they’re being honest with you.
This is a hypervigilant fight/flight state. Your poor nervous system is working bloody hard, pumping out stress hormones like cortisol all day, keeping you primed for attack. You’re constantly in threat-scanning mode, looking for evidence that this person will hurt you. It’s exhausting, and it prevents you from ever actually relaxing into the relationship.
The thing is, when you’re looking for problems, you’ll find them. Even innocent behaviour gets filtered through your trauma lens and interpreted as suspicious.
I cringe at the times I’ve accused sweet, innocent Toby of cheating on me! But it happens ladies, it’s very fucking normal to anticipate betrayal happening again! I just hope your partner responds as graciously as mine did… “no babe, want to see my phone though, will that put you at ease?”
Pattern 5: The serial monogamist
We’ve all got that one friend who jumps from relationship to relationship, never truly being single. And this can stem from lots of things, like codependency or a fear of being alone.
But often, it’s your nervous system avoiding the freeze state that comes with being on your own. When you’re alone, you have to sit with yourself your pain and your emptiness. So you jump into the next relationship to stay activated, needed, and distracted.
This is a blend of fawn (needing to be needed, people-pleasing to feel worthy) and freeze avoidance (using connection to escape the collapse that happens in stillness). Being single feels like shutting down, so you keep moving to stay alive.
The problem is, you never give your nervous system the chance to learn it’s safe to just be. And without someone else holding you together.
Trauma can cause the nervous system to become stuck in fight, flight, freeze or fawn responses. Which over time, can lead to chronic stress, anxiety and PTSD. So by gaining somatic awareness, you can learn to recognise and regulate your autonomic responses. And teach your body how to return to a balanced state.
But the goal isn’t to never enter fight/flight or freeze. Because a healthy nervous system moves fluidly between states depending on what’s needed. Like HIIT training – you’re getting your heart rate right up and then bringing it back down when you rest between intervals.
You’re developing the flexibility to move between states and return to safety more quickly. So instead of feeling anxious for days, you can reduce it to hours.
How Healing in Relationships Works – a Somatic Approach
Right, so you know why you feel unsafe. But how do you actually heal in a relationship without waiting years to feel “ready”?
The answer isn’t more therapy where you just talk and talk about your trauma. And it’s definitely not trying to logic yourself into trusting someone.
Healing in relationships requires somatic work – body-based practices that rewire your nervous system’s response to intimacy and connection.
Why traditional therapy isn’t enough for healing in relationships
Look, I’m not knocking talk therapy. In fact, I think it should be mandatory for everyone. Because it would be so helpful if we all understood why we are the way we are.
But here’s what talking didn’t fix for me:
It didn’t change the way I’d burst into tears when Toby raised his voice in a disagreement. Or stop the surge of dread that flooded my insides when he said “I’m fine”.
Body-based approaches like Somatic Experiencing target the physical responses your nervous system learned during trauma. Things like your heart rate increasing, or your stomach dropping, or your muscles tensing. So by retraining these automatic reactions, with new sensory information, it can reduce PTSD symptoms.
Because reliving trauma is a full body experience as well as a mental one. Just think about any broken bones or injuries you’ve had before. I bet you can still feel the shock of the break, how sick you felt and your inability to move the affected body part.
So those body memories that evoke sensations, movements and physiological states need tools that communicate at that level. Because when your body’s in survival mode, words don’t have the same power as body-based tools to calm your nervous system. It’s like trying to talk yourself out of anxiety. You also need to slow your breath down or move your body to release the tension.
Teaching your body that this relationship is different
This is the core of healing in relationships:
Giving your nervous system new experiences that contradict the old trauma patterns.
You have to experience safety repeatedly until your body updates its threat detection system.
Think of it like this:
If you got food poisoning from chicken, you’d probably reject chicken for a while. The memory of that undignified experience of you either vomming up your guts, or bum pissing (too graphic?)… is enough to put you off for a while! But if you slowly reintroduced safe chicken in small amounts and nothing bad happened, eventually your system would learn: “oh, not all chicken will make me sick”.
Same with relationships – your system needs repeated experiences of:
- Conflict that doesn’t end in a disappearing act, or a screaming match
- Vulnerability that doesn’t get weaponised
- Needs being met without punishment
- Boundaries being respected without retaliation
In the beginning with Toby, minor disagreements would overrun me with emotion. Tears running like a tap, sometimes rage that had me storming out; instinctual reactions I couldn’t control.
I’d blow up, calm down and then feel mortified.
At the time, I didn’t have words for what was happening.
But Toby understood (before I did) that my reactions were hurting me, not attacking him. So he’d give me space to process, then I’d come back and we’d repair.
Each time he stayed, my nervous system learned that Toby was safe. And bit by bit, my reactions softened, because I didn’t need to fight or flee anymore.
This is how rewiring happens:
Your partner responding with safety instead of harm, again and again.
But you have to consciously notice these moments, because your trauma brain will dismiss them as “flukes”. So here’s a simple practice to help them stick:
Track your safety
Get a journal and at the end of the day, write down one moment from your relationship where you felt safe, seen, or respected. It can be one small detail. Like your partner making you tea without you asking him or apologising when they snapped at you.
The key is to pause and feel it in your body when you write it down. Notice the subtle changes. Perhaps the warmth in your cheeks, a smile across your mouth, or a hand placed over your heart.
This practice trains your nervous system to recognise and register safety. By repeatedly noticing these moments, you’re strengthening the neural pathways that encode safety rather than threat.
You’re teaching your body to look for—and believe in—the good stuff. Over time, this rewires your default threat response.
And when you share these moments with your partner, you’re creating co-regulation—both nervous systems learning safety together. (More about that below 👀).
Tips for Healing in Relationships
The thing about getting triggered, is it happens so fast that you’re often not conscious of it until it’s over.
So the trick is to practice regulating when you’re not triggered. Because your nervous system needs time to get used to a new technique. That way you can master it before you really need it. You wouldn’t opt for learning to swim while you’re drowning – you learn that life skill before you need it!
Below are some tools you can start practicing when you’re not stressed:
The 4-7-8 breath
I like using this one before going to sleep because it’s a technique that engages your parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and digest state). So it can also get you off to sleep due to its calming effect. And it’s super simple to remember and do:
Inhale through your nose for a count of 4, hold your breath for 7, and then exhale through your mouth for 8. Aim to do a few cycles so you get into the rhythm of it.
The 5-4-3-2-1 technique
If you’ve read some of my blogs, you’ll see I have a few fave grounding techniques that I mention often – this is one of them! It’s my go-to because it works. And all it is, is:
Notice 5 things you can see, 4 you can touch, 3 you can hear, 2 you can smell, and 1 you can taste.
This exercise pulls your attention into the present moment. And gets you noticing the details that help your nervous system register your safety.
Body scanning
This is another great one to use at bed time, when you’re already laid down:
Close your eyes and mentally scan from the top of your head down to your toes (or in reverse if you prefer). Noticing your head, all of your limbs and what you can feel. I even try to see if I can notice each individual toe touching my duvet (super hard)!
Movement
Shake your hands vigorously for 30 seconds, or rub them together back and forth and create some warmth. Do some jumping jacks, or maybe go for a walk around the block. Movement helps discharge the excess energy from your sympathetic nervous system.
How to communicate when you’re dysregulated
Like I highlighted before, it’s not easy to notice when you’re getting triggered. It takes time to build awareness and notice the symptoms of it happening – especially if you’re new to this work.
So there might be times you fly off the handle and have to apologise for it later. The key is to practice slowing down, so you can start to notice your patterns of behaviour.
The next part is learning how to articulate your emotions to your partner. Which can feel exposing and vulnerable – particularly when you fear rejection and abandonment. But part of your rewiring, is communicating your needs and teaching your nervous system it’s safe to do that.
Here’s a script that’s saved my relationship more times than I can count. (Handy when you’re still figuring out what’s happening to you and you don’t have the exact words to explain your experience in the moment):
“I’m feeling triggered right now and I need some time to gather myself before we talk about this. Can we pause for [20 minutes/an hour/until tomorrow] and come back when I feel ready to?”
You’re not avoiding the conversation. And rather, just recognising that you can’t have a productive discussion when your nervous system is in fight/flight/freeze. Because when you’re in one of those states, you can’t access the part of your brain that handles rational thinking and empathy.
A partner who’s healthy for you will respect this boundary. If they push back with “you’re just running away” or “we need to deal with this NOW” – that’s valuable information about whether this relationship supports your healing.
The co-regulation hack
Most people don’t know that you can borrow your partner’s regulated nervous system when yours is struggling. This is called co-regulation, and it’s one of the most powerful tools for healing in relationships.
When you’re dysregulated, sit near your partner (if that feels comfortable for you). Notice their calming presence, their steady breath and slower pace. Maybe even ask for a wee hug and feel their calmness against yours (this is not meant to sound perverted)!
Hugs can also “lower stress levels, reduce blood pressure, and improve mood”. Which is why when I’m feeling fragile, I’ll often ask Toby for a hug. His warm embrace is like a comforting elixir that instantly grounds me and releases an “ahhhh”! Hugs for everyone!
Obviously co-regulation only works if your partner is well regulated. Otherwise you’ve just got two stress heads amplifying each other’s distress!
What to do when old patterns show up
Because they will. Even after months or years of healing, something will trigger you. And you’ll find yourself acting exactly like you did in your toxic relationship.
But don’t panic. This doesn’t mean you’ve failed or that you’re broken forever.
Your brain just has decades of neural pathways for threat response and only weeks or months of new safety pathways. So of course the old patterns will occasionally resurface. That’s normal – it’s why they say healing isn’t linear.
What matters more, is how you handle your trigger after:
- Notice it and name it – “oh, I just did the thing where I got defensive because I’m scared”.
- Regulate yourself – use one of the tools from earlier to try bring yourself back online and into a present state.
- Repair with your partner – “I’m sorry I jumped down your throat. I now recognise I was triggered and I responded badly. Can we try that conversation again?”
The repair process is what builds secure attachment.
What Healing in Relationships Looks Like: Signs You’re Making Progress
The difference between healing alone vs healing together, is that your partner becomes both the test and the proof of your progress.
They’ll press on the tender wounds you thought you’d dealt with. But they’ll also reflect back your transformation – showing you, in real time, how much you’ve changed.
Below are signs you’re healing together:
The markers of a healing relationship
- Your partner enhances what you’ve already built for yourself – they’re not your entire world.
- You’re both committed to growing, and you can witness each other’s struggles without trying to fix or judge them.
- Neither of you is doing all the heavy lifting. You’re both showing up for the healing work.
- There’s curiosity about the other person’s experience, so when something’s off, you ask instead of assuming.
- You can disagree with each other without catastrophising or fearing the relationship’s over.
When You Can’t Heal in a Relationship
I need to be honest with you:
Not all relationships are safe enough for healing.
Learning to tell the difference between healthy and harmful takes time. You have to get clear on your boundaries and trust them enough to follow through. Part of growth is recognising when a relationship is actively preventing your recovery—and having the courage to leave when it is.
The difference between healing relationships and harmful ones
When you’re healing in relationships, there will be difficult moments. That’s normal.
But there’s a difference between feeling uncomfortable because you’re learning new things about yourself. And feeling like your relationship is actively retraumatising you.
Growing pains look like:
- Feeling vulnerable when you set boundaries, but your partner respects them
- Getting triggered by normal relationship conflict, but being able to repair afterwards
- Your partner making mistakes but taking accountability and changing their behaviour
- Feeling scared to trust, but still finding small moments that prove it’s safe
Genuine harm looks like:
- Your partner routinely dismissing or violating your boundaries
- Conflict that consistently escalates into verbal attacks, stonewalling, or threats
- Your partner refusing to acknowledge their impact on you
- You feeling worse about yourself the longer you’re in the relationship
- Your physical health declining (chronic pain, sleep issues, panic attacks)
If you’re experiencing the second list more than the first, your nervous system is giving you accurate data that this relationship ain’t for you.
Some people can’t hold space for your healing
Not everyone has the capacity to be with you while you heal. And that’s okay.
Some people are too triggered by your trauma responses. Some need you to stay small and broken because it serves them. And some, simply don’t have the emotional resources to support deep healing work.
That doesn’t make them evil. But it does make them incompatible with where you are right now.
You need a partner who can:
- Tolerate you being messy while you figure things out
- Give you space to work through triggers without taking it personally
- Be steady and consistent even when your nervous system is testing them
- Do their own work on their patterns and triggers
I got into a relationship sooner than I wanted, and there were definitely moments where we both nearly walked away. Because I was a lot in the beginning and I still had a long way to go.
Overcoming trauma is not an overnight fix, it takes a lot of patience and understanding to get through. I was just really fucking lucky that I met someone who believed in my capacity to change and heal. And he understood I was a working progress.
So if they can’t do the above, you need to know it’s okay to walk away and choose yourself.
Heal While You Love
For the longest time, I thought healing was something you had to do before you could be in a relationship. Like you had to be a whole “fixed” person first.
But being with Toby taught me that you can heal in one too.
I know that sounds backwards. Especially when every self-help guru is advising against that. (I just want to caveat that and say I didn’t waltz into Tobys arms immediately post breakup – I was 10 months out).
But some wounds can only be repaired in connection with another person. You can’t heal attachment trauma in isolation—you need the very thing that hurt you to be the antidote to rewire you.
Relationships are really fucking hard too. And some days you’ll wonder if you’re making any progress at all, questioning whether you’re “just too broken”.
But healing isn’t linear. And it’s not a destination you arrive at where everything’s sorted forever. It’s an ongoing evolution – both individually and together.
The person you are today isn’t the person you’ll be in six months. And your partner will keep changing too. The key is to grow together and love each version as they emerge, rather than clinging to who they used to be.
That takes solid boundaries. Knowing where you end and they begin. Understanding what you need to feel safe, and being able to communicate that without guilt or fear.
Which is exactly what my Boundary Blueprint teaches you.
It’s the first step for getting crystal clear on your own boundaries before you step into another relationship. Because healing in relationships requires you to be an active participant. And that starts with knowing what you need and having the confidence to communicate it.
Get your free copy here and start building your foundation for love.
Suggested reading to deepen your knowledge:
How Do You Prepare For Dating After Narcissistic Abuse?