The relational space ꨄ︎

I’ve been thinking about how many of us feel confused or even ashamed when intimacy feels challenging, especially in dating or romantic relationships.

You finally meet someone kind, steady, and emotionally available, and yet your body pulls away. You freeze. Overanalyze. Perhaps even become fearful… even if there are no “red flags”.

Or maybe you’ve been with a partner for years and it’s a stable relationship, built on love and history… but suddenly (perhaps seemingly out of nowhere) intimacy feels like a challenge. You can’t quite explain why you shut down, or why you feel miles away in moments that used to feel close.

It’s confusing. It can feel shameful.
And, it’s also incredibly common.
So if this has been alive for you, know that you’re not alone. You’re not broken. Your nervous system is doing what it was shaped to do: protect you. Which is highly adaptive and intelligent, even if it can feel like it’s holding you back at times.

And, despite knowing this, it can be quite frustrating to feel this way, especially if you've done a lot of inner work already.

Perhaps you’ve done the meditation, the journalling, the breathwork. But intimacy still feels like a challenge. There feels like a barrier to getting close and going deep with a romantic partner. Or finding the depth you once had.

The confronting truth is: relational wounds aren’t something you can fully heal alone.

Meditation, journaling, breathwork are all beautiful tools. I personally love them, and use them often! And I’m not saying to stop doing them, they can help you come into deeper presence with yourself.

But no amount of meditating alone in your bedroom is going to fully shift relating patterns.

Because healing doesn’t happen in isolation, especially when tending to relational and attachment wounds.

Healing the way you relate, especially if you’ve been through toxic, avoidant, or even abusive dynamics (romantically and/or in childhood), requires something else.

Can you guess what it requires?

It requires relationship... wait whaaat? The problem is also the solution? Yep.

A safe (or safe enough) relationship where you can explore what it means to go deep with someone, without losing yourself in the process, can be incredibly healing

And this doesn’t necessarily have to happen in your romantic relationships at first. In fact, romantic relationships can often be too charged, or too high-stakes. So finding another relationship, a non-romantic relationship, like a trusted friendship or a therapeutic relationship, can be a great place to explore relational practices at first. To help to establish a foundational knowing in your nervous system that not all relationships in your life = 🚨 threat or danger. Teaching your nervous system that in fact, relationships can feel wonderful. Getting close to people is actually vital to our survival. Belonging is a basic nervous system need. Read that again ← ←

When we learn to stay present in those relational spaces, our nervous system starts to learn that it’s ok to be close to another, you don’t have to disappear. You belong.

Spaces where the stakes feel safe enough to practice being deeply, truly with another.

And slowly, intimacy starts to feel less like a threat, and (dare I say) more like a resource.

What saddens me the most is that most people aren’t taught this.

And please know , if you're currently in a partnership, I'm not saying that after reading this you need to run off, end things, and go heal your relational wounding in non-romantic spaces, then start dating again.

Honestly, that’s a story I find many of us carry: that we need to be fully healed, fully whole, and fully figured out before we can be in a partnership. That love is something you earn once you’ve perfected yourself.

But that’s a fantasy. Truly.
A narrative deeply ingrained in our culture that’s obsessed with self-optimization and emotional tidiness.

Meanwhile, relational and attachment healing work can be done in parallel to your partnership (if you’re in one). You can work on tending to and healing attachment wounds in your non-romantic relationships, and integrate the lessons, insights, and growth into your partnership(s).

After all, if you’ve ever been in a partnership, you’ll know what I mean when I say that your partner can trigger your deepest attachment and traumatic wounding 😅 But instead of seeing this as a bad thing, what if we saw it as an opportunity? A way to learn more about ourselves and the way we relate? Information you likely wouldn’t have gathered meditating alone in your bedroom.

And, in case no one has told you lately:
You don’t need to be perfect to be loved.
You don’t need to be fully healed to be held.

Because, the truth is, we heal the way we relate through real, embodied connection. Sometimes, it’s even messy. But that’s the thing: we actually learn through rupture and repair. Especially when we try these processes in steady relationships where the stakes are a little lower. That’s why non-romantic relationships can be such fertile ground for healing relational wounds.

Within friendship, or in therapeutic connection…

…your nervous system can begin to learn: connection can be safe.

Next week Friday, I’ll share a personal story about how I’ve experienced this type of healing first hand in a dear sisterhood friendship of mine. We sat together in an eye gazing practice that helped me heal SO many enmeshment and attachment wounds that were living in my body.

In the meantime, here are 3 gentle somatic partner practices you can try with a trusted friend to begin building that sense of safety in connection:

1. Back-to-back breathing
Sit comfortably, back to back, and let your spines rest into one another.
Feel yourself as a pillar of support for the other person, while simultaneously they are a pillar of support for you. This builds trust in reciprocity 💞 Notice the warmth, contact, and gentle presence of another being. Feel your breath, and theirs. Maybe your breathing begins to naturally sync. No need to force it, just allow. This allows the connection to be more authentic. If your breathing doesn’t end up naturally syncing, that’s ok too! Celebrate that you are different humans, with different rhythms of breath.

2. Mirroring Movement
One person leads gentle/slow movements, and the other follows. Like a mirror 🪞 For the leading partner, see if you can be in-the-moment spontaneous with your movement, intuitive even, instead of performative. After a minute or two (or maybe one full song each, if you’re using music), switch. This builds attunement, presence, and co-regulation.

3. “What I see in you…” practice
Sit comfortably facing one another and take turns naming things you genuinely see in the other: strengths, qualities, characteristics, personality quirks and traits. Be specific and authentic.

With courage, Ayesha xx

p.s. If you are looking for 1x1 support, I offer online and in-person Somatic Processing Sessions 🌊 I’d love to welcome you into this wonderful therapeutic container where we explore the stories the body holds with compassion and curiosity.