Why you’re putting up walls to protect yourself in your relationship
By Orit Krug | December 16th, 2021
Are you putting up walls to protect yourself from legitimate pain, or is it just old trauma making you believe you’ll get hurt?
It can be really hard to tell the difference when you’ve experienced unhealthy, toxic, or abusive relationships in the past.
You might logically know that your current relationship is loving and supportive. You may see all the signs that your partner is dedicated to you and thinks you’re incredible.
But no matter how many signs you see or lists you make, you still put up walls to protect yourself in your relationship.
This is NOT your fault. There is a real science behind why you do this.
Putting up walls to protect yourself is a trauma pattern that’s currently wired in your body and nervous system.
It doesn’t matter how much evidence you have that your partner is healthy and safe today. All your nervous system can focus on are the littlest things that remind you how you got hurt in the past.
Even if your partner is generally showing how much they care and love you, it only takes one tiny slip-up to hijack your survival system in overprotection mode.
Let’s say your partner buys your favorite treat whenever they go to the grocery store. They just love seeing your face light up because they know how much you love blueberry muffins.
One day, your partner comes home from the grocery store with all the necessities, but no blueberry muffins.
Red signals and alarms immediately go off in your nervous system and rational brain goes offline:
“He doesn’t love me anymore!”
“He’s leaving me!”
“He’s cheating on me!”
It all happens within a split second and you end up reacting before you know it. You might accuse your partner of all these things or go into freeze mode, where you completely shut them out.
Once you come back to calm, hours or days later, you realize you completely overreacted. Your rational brain comes back online and you think, “I’m so crazy. Why did I say those things… again?!”
You’re NOT crazy, but you continue to act irrationally. In fact, your rational brain has absolutely NO say in the matter when your trauma gets triggered, by something even as small as this. This is because the higher-functioning, rational part of the brain becomes overpowered by the brain’s fear center (Amygdala) in these triggering moments. When the fear center is activated, your body and nervous system immediately go into self-protection mode to keep you safe, even if there’s no real danger.
Remember, it’s not your fault. This is the way that old trauma rewires your nervous system and brain. Fortunately, we have amazing brains and bodies that can be rewired from a constant state of fear, to a baseline of calm, openness, and trust.
You’re putting walls up because you don’t believe that you’re worthy of love.
It’s hard enough that your nervous system reacts at the first “sign” of your partner disappointing you. It’s even more difficult when you can’t even take in the acts of love when they’re 100% there for you.
Because you experienced so much hurt in the past, you believe that – no matter what your partner does – you’ll eventually get rejected or abandoned. And, there’s no possible way that someone could love YOU.
You might think, “Why would someone want to be with me?” You see yourself as damaged goods and unlovable,
Because this belief feels very real to you, your nervous system goes on high alert, especially when things are going well.
Healthy acts of love feel suspicious to you. It makes you wonder if your partner is hiding something.
You may also believe that it’s TOO good to last. You “know” your partner will eventually turn into a monster and sh*t will hit the fan, sooner or later.
This explains why you’re putting up walls to protect yourself even when things are going really well in your relationship.
Learn the difference between “red flags” and normal relationship behavior.
In a normally healthy relationship, your partner will sometimes go the extra mile to make you happy and sweep you off your feet.
In other phases of your relationship, your partner will be more busy, stressed, and distracted. They won’t have the energy to do anything other than the basics: cook dinner and kiss goodnight.
Sometimes, your partner will be incredibly impressed by you and won’t be able to keep their hands off you. Other times, your partner will feel bored. They’ll prefer to binge watch TV than be intimate.
As a healthy, loving partner, you will experience all of these different phases.
You can still have a baseline of love, respect, and attraction for each other AND go through these dips of excitement in your relationship.
However, unresolved trauma will make you believe that these dips mean SO much more. You’ll feel threatened and overreact. You’ll spend most of your days wondering if your partner is right for you or not. You may sabotage a normal, healthy relationship. Possibly the best one you’ve ever had.
To let down your guard, rewire your nervous system & release trauma from your body.
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 in a way that truly lasts, 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.
