Okay? Now What... #02
How to Build a Relationship Template When You’ve Never Seen One Modeled A somatic and subconscious practice for rewiring your map of love
Dear Sav,
My marriage ended following deep betrayal around my future and finances. At the time, I chose to counter-file for divorce from the city where our marital life was built, because accepting a future where my dreams and financial stability were derailed by my partner did not feel survivable to me. That decision came from self-preservation, but the aftermath has been psychologically and somatically destabilising. I’ve experienced suicidal ideation twice in my life — once at 16, and again at 35, in January 2025, during the breakdown of my marriage. I share this not because I am in crisis now, but because it feels important to be transparent about the depth of distress I’ve carried. I have been in long-term therapy and have a strong Buddhist spiritual practice. I genuinely believed I had the tools to handle conflict and emotional intensity. However, over the last year, I’ve come to realise that while I understood things cognitively, I had little awareness of how chronically dysregulated my nervous system was during the three years of my marriage. My responses were not just emotional — they were somatic and survival-based. I am currently trying to make sense of the work I’ve done over the years while also grieving the fact that some guidance I received in previous therapy felt reductive and unrealistic in practice. For example, being told to “not replicate my parents’ marriage and create my own” left me without any real internal template for what a healthy partnership actually looks or feels like, especially when safety and emotional regulation were never consistently modelled. At this stage, I’m trying to understand what I should focus my energies on - attachment, trauma, or nervous system regulation? How does one learn to receive love while navigating relationships and the transition from being independent to interdependent and not becoming codependent? How do I reconcile the years I spent developing insight, spirituality, and independence with the reality that, in intimate partnership, my nervous system defaulted to survival — and how do I now build a felt sense of safety and interdependence when I never had a lived template for receiving love without self-erasure or threat?
Mirsha
Dear Mirsha,
Wow, First thank you for sharing where you have been and what you have been holding. You make many valid points and I appreciate the asking of such rich, layered question one that so many people quietly carry. This is something therapy often overlooks: the difference between being told what not to do and being given a real, embodied alternative. When someone says, “Don’t replicate your parents’ marriage create your own,” HOW CAN YOU!
I hear it.
It sounds empowering on the surface. But without a lived template for what safety, stability, and emotional presence actually feel like in relationship, that kind of advice becomes not just vague, sometimes it can even feel abandoning. It assumes you already know what “healthy” looks like in the nervous system. It skips over the part where most of us are still learning to identify safety as boring or even untrustworthy because we grew up bracing for disruption. You asked if you should focus on attachment, trauma, or nervous system regulation. But these aren’t separate tracks they’re different layers of the same system. Trauma is what your body learned about threat. Attachment is how that learning plays out in relationships. And nervous system regulation is the mechanism that allows either of those to shift. So instead of choosing between them, the real question is: what sequence supports the body to feel safe enough to receive new relational experiences?
Let’s break it down real quick.
The question isn’t whether to focus on trauma, attachment, or nervous system regulation—they’re not separate tracks. They’re layers of the same system working together.
Trauma is what your body learned about threat.
For example: if you were attacked by a dog, your body stores dog = danger. That’s trauma not just the event, but the imprint of threat that gets stored in your nervous system.
From then on, your system (filtration system) doesn’t need a dog in front of you to react—the sound of barking, the sight of fur, or even a memory is enough to trigger survival responses.
Attachment is how that learning now plays out between people or in this case the dogs.
Anytime It see’s or hears a dog, the nervous system responds in the same familiar activation even if that response is not needed because there is not threat. Developeing an insecure attachment around dogs.
The body is reacting to a past imprint, not a current reality.
And here’s the key:
Nervous system regulation is what makes either of those things changeable.
It’s the mechanism that allows your system to update the dog file… or the partner file… or the “asking for help” file. This is when AMIE (The amygdala) becomes regulated, reminded and rewiring the imprint file. Pulling from that memory and cleaning it up. essentially rewiring the neural circuits to adjust to the NEW state of being around dog.
Regulation doesn’t mean “calm.” It means your system has enough internal space to notice:
“This moment isn’t the same as the past.”
That’s what unlocks choice. That’s how healing starts.
You probably already know this so this information is a refresher for you or the viewers who needed it. Now, The first step is learning how to stabilize your system before expecting it to relate differently. This is nervous system work not in the trendy, buzzword sense, but in the real, felt sense of learning how to stay in your body when someone is attuned to you… without immediately trying to overperform, shrink, fix, or flee. You’re not training to be calm; you’re training to stay present in the chaos that disrupts calm. Most people who grew up without consistent emotional regulation learned to become hyper-independent, not because they wanted to, but because it was the safest available option. So it’s no surprise that when intimate partnership enters the picture, our bodies reverts to survival mode because it was use to our isolation.
Attachment work, at this stage, isn’t about labeling yourself as anxious or avoidant. It’s about increasing your capacity to stay intact while being seen (true discomfort for some of us). It means learning how to need without collapsing, how to depend on someone without outsourcing your self, and how to let someone into your emotional world without turning their presence into a threat.
The final piece you asked about—how to tell the difference between codependence and interdependence—is subtle but crucial. Codependence means your regulation depends on the other person’s mood, reactions, or presence. Interdependence means you can be impacted by your partner without being overtaken by them. You still feel, but you don’t fuse. Boundaries don’t mean disconnection. They mean you’re both able to hold your own shape while staying in relationship.
Now here are some actionable steps you can take to start the rewiring process as well as some book recommnedations to start. Fill your mind daily with these teachings and words to help your mind. Continue with the practice daily even if only for 5 minutes. It is still
STEP 1: Enter the Cognitive Gym (Meditative Prep)
You’re going to enter a meditative state not for the sake of “being calm,” but to access the part of your mind where new pathways are built: the subconscious part of the mind.
Options for meditative posture:
Lay on your bed with pillows under your knees
Set up a yoga mat and cover yourself with a light blanket
Sit upright if that helps you stay alert but relaxed
🎧 Suggested audio:
Listen to a Yoga Nidra body scan. This brings your brain into a state between waking and sleeping where it becomes more impressionable. The state we need to unlock the magic
(I’ll link a specific track I use with clients here.) This one is also a personal fave. After a nice warm bath, get cozy in bed, place a pillow behind the knees headphones with noise cancelling if you have them. Just melt into the experience.
STEP 2: What You Don’t Want (Negativity Bias as Entry Point)
Let your mind begin with what it already knows:
What didn’t feel good in past relationships?
What do you know for sure you never want again?
Let it come. Let your system speak.
But don’t stop there. That’s not where we build.
STEP 3: How Do You Want to Feel?
This is the core of the practice. Begin telling your subconscious what to build.
Ask yourself:
“In my ideal relationship… how do I want to feel in my body, in my home, in my presence?”
Some examples:
I want to feel safe.
→ What does that look like for you?
Maybe it’s pulling up to your home and feeling glad to be there.
Maybe it’s walking through the front door and your body doesn’t brace.
I want to feel chosen.
→ Not just when I’m shiny or helpful but daily, in my humanness.
I want to feel calm around my partner.
→ Not a high. Not a thrill. Just… safe, soft, okay.
Let the feeling become vivid.
Attach imagery. Scenes. Smells. Tones.
This is imprinting new possibilities onto your nervous system.
STEP 4: Teach Your Brain There’s More Than Your Past
Right now, your hippocampus (memory center) only stores what it’s lived through.
If it never saw secure love, it can’t recall it because it literally doesn’t exist in the file cabinet.
This is why we consciously imagine and rehearse new scenes.
It’s not fake. It’s future memory storage.
You’re now working with the principles from The Power of Your Subconscious Mind ( Joseph Murphy). I’ll link this book if you want to go deeper.
STEP 5: Rewire Through Repetition
We must understand. This is not a one-time visualization.
The nervous system learns through:
Repetition
Exposure
Emotional engagement
You can build this practice in two ways:
Internal (Meditation, daily voice notes, future-self journaling)
External (Go on low-stakes dates not for romance, but for exposure therapy)
✨ The goal of dating here is not finding “the one.”
It’s giving your system new data so it can learn how to wrangle its inner velociraptors when something unfamiliar (but safe) appears. I will have future videos that demonstrate reparenting work and a exposure therapy experiment.
STEP 6: Audit Your Environment
Your healing isn’t happening in a vacuum.
If you’re trying to grow safety and connection but are constantly surrounded by relationships (friends, family, media) that normalize chaos or disconnection your nervous system stays confused. This is where mental hygiene is important also. What we consume with our minds.
Ask yourself:
“Can my plant survive in this climate?”
If the answer is no, change the light. Change the soil.
This might mean grieving people you’ve outgrown.
It’s okay. You’re not abandoning them, you’re tending to your roots.
STEP 7: Protect Yourself From Self-Abandonment
The fear of losing yourself in love is valid.
Especially for women, this fear often runs beneath the surface:
“If I don’t over-accommodate, will I be left?”
“If I speak my needs, will I be too much?”
“If I become a wife or a mother, who will I be?”
This is where we name the most important rule of all:
You don’t stop being you just because you become a ‘we’.
You must protect your:
Alone time
Rituals
Practices
Purpose
The version of you who thrived while single is not meant to disappear. She is meant to integrate.
STEP 8: Talk to Your Future Self
Try this:
Write a letter to your future self
Record a voice memo for the version of you who may forget
Set a calendar reminder in 6 months to check back in
This is a time capsule of clarity.
When you’re in love, in the mix, in the fog, you’ll have a message from a wiser you who remembered what mattered.
STEP 9: Rewire or Be Rewired
Remember:
If you don’t create daily rituals to rewire your brain…
…the world will do it for you.
Every scroll, every click, every post trains your nervous system for reactivity.
What trains it for love? For rest? For regulation?
Whatever that is ….start there.
And no, you don’t need hobbies at first.
You just need something that’s yours.
Even if it’s 10 minutes. Even if it’s a walk. Even if it’s this practice.
I hope this is a step in the right direction
💭 Curious but not sure what to ask?
This column isn’t just for big life questions. It’s also a soft place to land when you’re unsure, shy, or simply seeking direction. Take advantage of the access. You don’t have to know exactly what you need to begin.
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Your story is safe with me. It might just help someone else too.☺️