How past trauma creates negative relationship patterns
By Orit Krug | March 11th, 2020
Our relationships suffer when we have past trauma trapped in our bodies.
Here are the 3 most common ways that past trauma comes back to haunt us in our relationships by creating negative relationship patterns.
1. The past trauma comes rushing back at the first sign of conflict
When you have unresolved trauma from past relationships, your nervous system will automatically react in fight, flight, freeze, or shutdown at the first sign of conflict.
Even though you’re in a healthy, loving relationship, it feels like the past trauma from your childhood or ex-partner is going to happen all over again. This is out of your control, because your brain and body register the threat in under a second and before you know it, you’re in survival-defend-attack mode.
Your mind knows that your partner is nothing like the ones from the past, but your primal body doesn’t know it yet. Instead of being able to stay present in the conversation and become closer by getting through the conflict together with your partner, you fight back, leave the room, become silent, or you completely shut them out.
This is NOT your fault. Your body is wired to react this way right now because of the past trauma, and it creates unhealthy negative relationship patterns of having massive blowouts or avoiding conflict altogether.
2. Love doesn’t feel quite right without all the drama.
Whether you’ve experienced trauma in your childhood or past romantic relationships, your experience of love has been all drama, trauma, and maybe even violence.
It may sound counter-intuitive, but your nervous system and body feels much safer and more “loved” in a tumultuous relationship. So now that you’re in a calm relationship, there’s something missing. Or maybe it feels like they don’t really love you because there’s no grand dramatic gestures (I’m sorry, I love you, here’s a puppy!).
Your partner shows you they care and love you in small ways, but it doesn’t feel like enough. Even when your partner gets mad, they’re pretty chill about it, and it’s like, “Why don’t they CARE?” Because you’re used to your ex-partner yelling and flipping out, and that’s the only way you knew they cared.
When your nervous system is adapted to drama and trauma, it feels reaaally uncomfortable and unsettling in your body. It makes you want to create the drama to fill that void, or you’re just waiting for the shit to hit the fan instead of being present and enjoying your healthy relationship.
3. You need constant reassurance.
Your past trauma is NOT your fault, but deep down your body believes that you deserved all that hurt and abandonment. That’s why you never feel quite good enough for your partner or worthy of their love.
No matter how much your partner shows you love, it’s too hard to believe that it’s true. You need them to keep proving it to you, and even then you still can’t accept it.
It creates doubt and constant worry that they’re eventually going to realize how “flawed” you are and end up leaving (which ironically pushes them away to the point of wanting to leave).
As you question their every act of love, you reject them and show them that what THEY’RE doing isn’t good enough. They feel like they’ll never be able to satisfy you and eventually start building their own walls of self-protection and resentment. The kind that ends many marriages in divorce.
You are capable of experiencing healthy, lasting love even if you experienced trauma in the past.
The good news is that you’re not “damaged goods” forever because you experienced trauma. It’s only damaging your relationship today because you still haven’t fully released it from your body.
No matter how many years you’ve been in talk therapy or tried to convince your mind “I’m safe, I’m safe!” – your body is still holding onto the old story that all relationships end in hurt.
In order to break these old patterns for good, your trauma must be accessed and healed at the level of your nervous system AND body.
That way, you can let go of the old fear and negative relationship patterns and rewire your system for love and connection.
Get on the right path to healing trauma from your body and nervous system.
Many people spend decades and thousands of dollars in traditional therapies trying to heal their trauma. Unfortunately, even the most popular therapies are scientifically shown to be limited in accessing trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body.
Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal from the physical body or the nervous system.
This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for so many people. They often blame themselves for being “un-healable” and decide that they’re broken.
This is NOT true!
Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing from the past, because we all have wiring and neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection, to love and openness.
My unique, scientific-backed process via Dance Therapy has helped hundreds of clients finally heal from past trauma and transform their relationship (even after decades of trying in other therapies).
You can heal too, but you need the right methodology.
Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:
- Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
- Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
- An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.
