I’ve worked with couples through some incredibly sticky terrain: betrayals, years of built-up resentment, patterns that once felt impossible to break. What I’ve learned is that most ruptures are recoverable when both people truly want to make it work and concrete dealbreakers aren’t misaligned (wanting children vs. not, for instance).
Here’s where it gets tricky: when people reach out and someone already has one foot out the door, it’s often too late. Not because the situation is beyond repair, but because forcing someone into a zoom room (or therapy office) they don’t want to be in is fruitless. To me, this signals that someone has been overriding themselves out of fear for so long they’ve lost their way back to their truth.
Just a heads up: this is not the moment to come to me as a couple. Come to me as soon as something feels slightly off. Come when there’s curiosity. Come when you sense there might be more.
Fear can be louder than our truth, especially when we’ve practiced listening to it. The more airtime fear gets, the more seasons get rolled out on Fear TV. And while fear is completely valid, it is an alarm bell, an indicator, an invitation to growth, it’s also essential to cultivate a deep connection with what’s most true.
As someone who has stayed too long and left too early during different seasons of my life: relationships, jobs, habits, I know how costly it can be to ignore the core of who I am. The truth my body has been quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) asking me to hear.
I remember being with a partner who claimed to be all-in while their actions said something entirely different. My body knew. It tensed. Anxiety flooded in whenever we were apart, like my nervous system was screaming what my mind refused to acknowledge.
And then there was another, someone I tried so hard with, but no matter what I did, I found myself recoiling. One foot perpetually out the door instead of moving headfirst toward them. My body knew that too.
My practice now is simple, but not easy: I stay curious about where yes, no, and maybe originate in my body. Where I feel them arrive. And just as importantly, I meet myself with compassion when I notice I’ve overridden myself again.
Sometimes listening looks like noticing my chest tighten when I say yes to plans I don’t actually want. Sometimes it’s the way my whole body softens around someone who can truly attune to me. It’s the difference between holding my breath and breathing fully.
If you’re still reading, consider this a reminder to make space to hear yourself. Slow down, just enough, to reorient. Check in before you find yourself in a situation you feel as though you didn’t choose. Remember that not choosing is a choice, too.
A bit of a mindfuck. And honestly? I’ve found it deeply empowering. Realizing I can listen. That I can redirect. That I have agency in responding to what I uncover.
This practice can also become a form of reassurance. Self-validation. That holy fuck, I’m here. I did that. I chose things. And now I’m standing on something solid, more like a pile of gold than a pile of shit. How wild is that?
So if you’ve found yourself in a too-long or too-short situation, start by meeting yourself with love and compassion. You did your best with what you had. There’s a perfectly reasonable reason you’re here.
Then get quiet. Journal. Go outside. Feel yourself. Notice the moments where you have listened, whether that’s choosing to put down or pick up the Reese’s (whichever is more true for you). Begin getting acquainted with the part of you that already knows how to listen.
When I remembered how to let this part of me be heard, my romantic connections tidied themselves up, making space for partnership built on brutally loving honesty. It gave the people around me the chance to know the real me. Not the version preoccupied with how I’d be received, whether I’d be rejected, whether I was too much or asking for too much. Just the me who does her best to be herself in as many situations as possible, with the hope, but not held breath, that it will be mirrored back to me in return.
Only when I allow myself to be the most me I can be can I ever begin to expect others to meet me there.
Your body already knows. It always has. This practice isn’t about learning something new, it’s about remembering what you’ve always had access to.
If you're ready to explore what your body has been trying to tell you, to map the landscape of your own pleasure and knowing, I'd love to support you. I’m offering a new 5 week virtual workshop called Pleasure Mapping starting on March 24th , where we’ll practice exactly this; tuning in, listening deeply, and following the breadcrumbs back to yourself.
Best wishes,
from my body to yours.