How do we know when it’s time to bring in a professional to help manage anxiety? And at what point is therapy really necessary? If you’re asking yourself some of these questions right now, now is the time to stop and reflect.
Think of communication skills as tools. They’re only accessible when your nervous system feels safe enough to access them. In moments when it feels challenging to access our regulation tools and our mind chooses reactivity instead, our brain is simply prioritizing safety over connection.
Teenagers undergo several life-altering transformations that can make it hard to determine what is a symptom of this transition and what is something that warrants mental health support.
Your nervous system is constantly scanning your environment for cues of safety or danger. Most of the time, this happens automatically or outside of your awareness.
Every couple has logistics to manage, and healthy relationships do require collaboration. But what often gets missed is that problem-solving only works well when both partners feel emotionally safe enough to actually stay engaged in the conversation.
One of the most common things I come across with couples when working through an argument is their dissatisfaction with not seeing “eye to eye”. And I get it, it would be SO much easier if we could solve our relationship problems by looking through the same lens or flat-out agreeing on everything. But the truth is, we don’t. And guess what? That’s ok!
Many people expect that a steady, responsive, emotionally available partner will automatically feel calming. Instead, many people feel tense or suspicious when someone shows up in a genuinely healthy way. This isn’t a personality flaw, it’s a predictable attachment and nervous system response. So why is this?
