What do I think or worry would happen if I shared my true or authentic thoughts, perspectives, or feelings right now?
How would I feel if I shared what I’m really thinking and feeling?
Using the exploratory questions above, spend the next few weeks witnessing yourself throughout the day and within your different relationships, noting any patterns you may discover in the times when you tend to withhold your honest thoughts, perspectives, or feelings from others.
As you begin this practice, it’s normal to find it difficult at first to connect with your heart and what it is that you really think, feel, or desire, likely because you’re distracted by the thoughts in your mind. Continue to practice granting yourself grace and compassion, especially if you have never asked yourself these questions before. Continuing to practice daily body consciousness pauses and consciousness check-ins will help make it easier for you to shift your attention from your thinking mind to your physical body, where you can better hear your heart’s messages. It’s helpful to check in with your heart regularly throughout the day and especially before making big decisions as you continue to rebuild your connection to your authentic Self, or soul.
As you gain some clarity on what your heart may want or need, be patient with yourself as you begin to express these authentic desires to others. You can begin to practice by noticing the times when you say “yes” or agree to things that aren’t true to or don’t interest you. The next time you’re asked to an event, and you know you don’t want to go, instead of immediately agreeing, pause before you answer, giving yourself a moment to consciously choose to respond in alignment with your authentic desires. And remember as you take this time to get to know yourself, discovering what isn’t true or what you don’t want will eventually lead you in the direction of what is true or what you do want for yourself.
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Understanding the concept of the embodied self and the interconnectedness among our body, mind, and soul can help us better understand our journey ahead. It’s an exciting one, and although that excitement may tempt you to skip to certain chapters, it’s important to continue sequentially, as true and lasting healing occurs in stages and unfolds as a living process. What awaits you along your way is a more complete, whole, and centered being. A “you” that’s more you. By acting in alignment with your actual wants and needs as often as you can, you can embody all of you—body, mind, and soul—and begin to create the loving and fulfilling relationships that you’re looking for. And to begin our journey to more authentic relationships, we will need to first understand the neurobiology of our trauma bonds.
3
Understanding the Neurobiology of Trauma Bonds
I heard it often when I was in clinical practice. My clients would tell me that they were always getting into the wrong relationships or were stuck in the same conflicts over and over again. Many described cycles of shaming, blaming, criticizing, and withdrawing from or overreacting to each other. Others depicted something like a tug-of-war in their relationships, continually trying to pull their loved one closer only to feel pushed away, provoking a painful push-pull loop that never seemed to end.
At the time, I was working with couples who came to see me because they were unhappy in their relationship. My clients who were married or partnered often told me that for months or years they had felt trapped in an unloving or unsatisfying relationship that no amount of therapy or attempts at improved communication had been able to help. Those who were single frequently admitted that although they wanted a lasting partnership, they hadn’t been able to find or sustain one, or if they had, the relationship had usually ended the same way, regardless of what they had done, how hard they had tried, or whom they had chosen. That sounded familiar to me, too.
What those clients had in common, was a cycle of repeating behavioral patterns or habits that they couldn’t break. They were convinced instead that something was either wrong with them—that they were “unlovable,” “undatable,” or “broken”—or that they were a victim to uncompromising, unemotional, or unloving partners. Some of my clients even began to worry that all their romantic relationships were doomed.
If this sounds familiar to you, too, I assure you that there’s nothing wrong with you or your loved ones and that loving, authentic relationships are possible. The relationship ruts so many of you find yourselves trapped in aren’t necessarily your fault, nor are they necessarily your loved one’s fault. The relationships we seek out and create as adults, especially with our romantic partners, usually aren’t even the results of decisions we actively make with our conscious mind. Instead, our nervous system is wired to seek out and re-create relational patterns that mirror our earliest relationships with our parent-figures. These repeated dynamics don’t serve our best interests today and often aren’t authentic connections but rather trauma bonds.
In the first two chapters, you read about the work of the interpersonal neurobiologist Dr. Daniel Siegel, whose work illustrates how our earliest relationships physically shape our nervous system and dictate how we’ll think, feel, and act with others for the rest of our lives. In this chapter, we’ll explore the science behind why and how this occurs so that we can better understand the steps we can take—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—to break the trauma bonds habits we’ve developed with our friends, family, colleagues, or romantic partners.
THE TRAUMA BONDS THAT KEEP YOU STUCK: DOMINIK AND MONIQUE’S STORY
When I worked with couples, I didn’t yet understand the nature of trauma bonds. Looking back, if I had been able to integrate what I know now about how our nervous system instinctually drives us to act in certain ways, I would have been better able to help my clients change their relationships. Instead, I watched helplessly as no amount of conventional therapy or other self-help tools made an impact in most people’s relationship patterns: they kept repeating the same cycles, as if they were physically driven or addicted to the habits that were causing their continued suffering.
I can now see how trauma bonds played out in nearly every relationship of every client who sat opposite me in my office, including Dominik and Monique, who first came to see me when their marriage had grown disconnected and resentful.
When they had first met at a concert eight years prior, Dominik and Monique said, they had been immediately “infatuated” with each other. They shared the same taste in music, and being together, they said, had felt “easy” and “natural.” A few years into their marriage, they had begun to experience significant problems. Dominik, a self-employed contractor, was landing fewer jobs and bringing in significantly less income, and Monique, a successful academic, felt that he wasn’t trying hard enough to win new clients. Over time, Monique discovered that Dominik was gambling away the money he did make, which had increased the financial strains on the couple. Monique, who already kept a close eye on Dominik’s activities (or, as Dominik put it, “she’s constantly on my case”), began to monitor and micromanage him to a greater degree. In response, Dominik became even more secretive about his work (or lack thereof) and his gambling habits.
During couples therapy sessions, we explored Dominik and Monique’s childhoods and how each might be contributing to their relationship difficulties. What we didn’t discuss was how their childhoods might have impacted their physical bodies, specifically their nervous systems, and how their brains were instinctually driving them to stay locked in unhealthy relationship dynamics with each other.
Dominik was adopted at a young age into a family with a hypervigilant mother. Hypervigilant parents are similar to the “helicopter parents” you may have heard about or even experienced firsthand: They constantly monitor, micromanage, and try to control their child, driven by their internal anxiety stemming from their own nervous system dysregulation. Though well-meaning and often believing that their surveillance is for their child’s benefit, many hypervigilant parents aren’t able to understand or respect their child’s boundaries. They constantly oversee and overanalyze their child’s thoughts, moods, and behaviors, sometimes even forcing them to pursue certain activities and interests. That was all true of Dominik’s mother.
Dominik’s father, on the other hand, was often distant from the family, regularly socializing with colleagues after working long hours and maintaining only minimal contact with his family. His frequent absence from home left Dominik alone to protect himself against his mother’s intrusive and often shame-inducing behaviors.
When Dominik was young, he reported, he had often felt overwhelmed by his mother’s hypervigilance. She was always yelling at him to be careful, even when there was no threat, and continually told him what to eat, how to feel, and what to do. She regularly inserted herself into his early relationships with his peers, advising him how to react to the experiences he shared with her. Though her intentions may have been well-meaning, her hypervigilance caused Dominik to feel unworthy and shameful at his core, which is common among children with hypervigilant parent-figures: when someone is always trying to control or change you, it sends the underlying message that your natural way of being—your authentic Self—isn’t good enough.
As his mother continued to micromanage and outright direct his behavior at times, Dominik formed the subconscious belief that “love” felt and looked like being overseen and micromanaged for his “best interest.” His earliest interactions with his mother conditioned him to believe that love and affection came with hypervigilance, even if he, like most people, didn’t like how it felt to be controlled.
His mother’s constant oversight didn’t give Dominik any space to share his thoughts, feelings, or perspectives freely. Because his boundaries were constantly violated, he didn’t feel truly safe to be who he was, let alone allow himself to feel loved by others for being so. To cope with the persistent lack of emotional safety and security, Dominik’s nervous system remained consistently stressed, on notice for the next inevitable issue or threat.
When our nervous system initiates a stress response or state of hyperactivation, our body shifts into fight-or-flight mode, giving us the focus and energy needed to face a threat or run away from it. In Dominik’s instance, the perceived threat was his mother’s controlling and intrusive actions, which inadvertently caused him near-constant emotional overwhelm. Though he couldn’t physically run away from his mother because he was dependent on her for his survival, he fled by turning inward, as many children do, retreating to his inner world and distracting himself with his thoughts. Because he hardly ever felt safe or supported, his nervous system stayed stuck in a stress response, repeating patterns of activation in his brain’s developing neural circuitry. As with all young children, those early neural pathways eventually became part of his brain architecture.
As he got older, Dominik continued to run away from any discomfort by turning inward, distracting himself with his thoughts and later with gambling. Many compulsive or addictive behaviors like gambling or using sex, work, or substances are actually a means of escaping deep-rooted pain or other overwhelming emotions. Because the neural circuitry had been wired into his brain since childhood, it felt safe and familiar to him and became the basis of the trauma bond patterns he repeated well into adulthood. His habitual flight-response most often put him into Distractor mode, one of four reactionary styles I’ve identified based on the body’s four stress responses: fight, flight, freeze or shutdown, and fawn. All four modes are listed below, along with how to determine which type you and those around you most frequently embody.
When Dominik met Monique, everything about her felt familiar and safe. She was different from Dominik’s mother in many ways, but she exhibited the same core behaviors that he instinctively understood as “love”: she monitored, micromanaged, and controlled him. At first, those behaviors were subtle. Initially, she would suggest what Dominik should wear out to dinner or what to do to improve his business. But over time, her directives became more obvious, as she started to dictate her preferences for many of his daily choices. Though he didn’t consciously enjoy the oversight and complained about it at times, Monique’s behavior felt like the “love” he knew.
To create space and safety for himself, Dominik tried to run away from Monique, withdrawing emotionally from their relationship by distracting or distancing himself with his thoughts and actions, just as he had done in childhood. Those conditioned behaviors, though instinctual to Dominik, only increased Monique’s need to control what was happening. Feeling threatened whenever he turned inward or away from her, she began to monitor him more closely, consistently asking what was wrong and trying harder to engage him or “snap” him back into the present. The less he worked and the more money he lost gambling, the more closely she monitored him, continuing the reactionary cycles between them.
Monique didn’t intentionally try to micromanage Dominik. Just like him, she had her own trauma history that had resulted in conditioned coping patterns. Monique’s mother suffered from depression, which frequently prevented her from emotionally attuning to her daughter and even from physically caring for her at times. Monique’s father was constantly consumed by working two jobs to support the family and was rarely home. When he was able to spend time with his family and wasn’t distracted by his seemingly endless to-do list and household chores, he was very attentive and loving. But his attention wasn’t consistent or predictable enough to help Monique feel safe or secure.
Often feeling emotionally abandoned and alone as a child, Monique developed the subconscious belief that she wasn’t worthy of having a parent consistently show up to emotionally care for and support her. Because her parents were only occasionally emotionally available to help her navigate her feelings, she had to learn to do it herself, which is overwhelming for any child. Though she always felt physically safe, she rarely felt emotionally safe with either of her parents. To try to soothe those overwhelming feelings, Monique instinctually began to try to control as many aspects of her environment as possible. She monitored her mother to try to prevent anything from happening that might upset her or send her into a depressive episode. Before her father came home, she’d compile a mental list of all the things she could do or say to prevent him from reimmersing himself in his work.
Given her lack of emotional safety and security, Monique’s nervous system consistently activated a fawn response. When we’re in a fawn response, we often deal with perceived threats by monitoring others, whether externally or internally. We may micromanage others or our environment in order to anticipate and avoid the next perceived threat. Locked in a fawn response, Monique often yelled at her brother if he did something to upset her mother or quietly seethed when her father got up from the dinner table to go back to work. As Monique’s body repeated the same response over and over again in its best attempt to create safety, her neurobiology became wired for hypervigilance. As she got older, she could feel physically uncomfortable when she wasn’t on-edge, obsessively trying to control her circumstances. Shifting consistently into Pleaser mode and acting outwardly dominating, she often ended up making those around her feel just as unsafe as she did internally.
Monique was instinctively attracted to Dominik because he was similar to her parents in a major way: he was unpredictable. She was never sure when he’d be present with her or lost in his thoughts, which was how her father had been. Sometimes he’d be happy, while other times he’d be sad, just as her mother had been. Even the nature of his work as an independent contractor was unpredictable: he’d be busy for months, then go weeks without a job. Though his unpredictability made achieving both emotional and financial security difficult, it felt familiar and safe to her; dealing with unpredictability was how she had learned to feel “love” and affection.
Monique and Dominik’s unmet emotional needs from childhood and related neurobiological adaptations helped create their initial feeling of “infatuation” for each other, as well as the reactive cycles that eventually threatened their relationship. Their relationship was a trauma bond in which both unconsciously acted out the different ways each had learned to get their emotional needs met in childhood. Like many of us, they, too, would remain locked in the same stress responses with each other until either they learned how to break these cycles by regulating their nervous systems or one or both decided to end their relationship.
DRIVEN TO RE-CREATE YOUR CHILDHOOD
Monique and Dominik didn’t consciously choose to re-create conditions in their relationship that allowed them to reenact the same stress experiences and resulting coping strategies that they had grown accustomed to since childhood. A trauma bond isn’t something we have active control over, at least not until we become conscious of it. Our conditioned ways of relating with others have become habitual instincts, created by the neural networks we developed as children to cope with the overwhelming emotions in our childhoods.
As we learned in chapter 1, childhood trauma includes more than abuse, neglect, incest, rape, and all the other life-altering events typically associated with the term. For many of us, childhood trauma took a subtler shape. Childhood trauma can be any perceived stress that consistently overwhelms our ability to cope with it. If our caregivers were physically or emotionally absent, we were left unable to soothe our emotional overwhelm. If we didn’t consistently feel emotionally safe or were regularly undersupported whenever we faced emotionally upsetting experiences, regardless of how “good” or well-meaning our parent-figures may have been, we stored childhood trauma in our body and mind.
No matter the type of trauma we experienced as children, the overwhelming stress impacted how our nervous system developed. Because we’re born with underdeveloped nervous systems, our brain grows rapidly, reaching 90 percent of its adult volume before age six and it continues to hone its functioning until our midtwenties.14
The human nervous system is wired to depend on other people, beginning from the moment of conception and it is our earliest relationships that create the neural connections that may last our lifetime. How our parent-figures interacted with us, handled stress, and coped with upsetting experiences influenced the pathways formed in our brains. Through a process known as co-regulation, the safety of their nervous system directly affected the safety of our nervous system, even when we were separated by skin and space.
This means, if we grew up with a parent-figure who was regularly dysregulated in their own stress response and unable to soothe or co-regulate with us, we felt their stress. Unable to feel soothed, our nervous system activated its own stress response, causing us to continue to feel unsafe. Repeating the same nervous system responses over and over again during that critical developmental period strengthened these neural pathways, turning some into highways that are almost instinctual for our brain to follow. We’ll talk a lot more about this process of co-regulation in later chapters and explore how we can intentionally harness the constructive, restorative powers of this practice to create safety within our relationships.
NERVOUS SYSTEM 101
