The morning after

I’ve been noticing how much uncertainty can activate me in the early stages of a relationship.

You meet someone.

There’s chemistry.

The connection feels mutual.

They say all the things that make you believe they’re feeling it too.

And then you go home.

And suddenly there’s space.

You don’t know when they’ll text.

You don’t know if they’ll follow through.

You don’t know if what felt meaningful to you felt equally meaningful to them.

You don’t know what this is going to become.

And if you have a history of people being inconsistent, disappearing, or not choosing you, that ambiguity can feel excruciating.

The mind wants to turn uncertainty into certainty as quickly as possible.

Maybe they’ve lost interest.

Maybe I came on too strong.

Maybe I should text.

Maybe I should check the app.

Maybe I should reread our messages.

Maybe I need some sign that everything is okay.

We call some of these reassurance-seeking behaviors.

And there’s nothing shameful about them. They’re attempts to regulate a nervous system that is saying, Please make this uncertainty stop.

But I’m learning that security isn’t actually getting better at making uncertainty disappear.

It’s getting better at being with myself while I don’t know.

For me, the most powerful part of that has been turning toward the younger part of me who is terrified that someone she wants might not choose her.

Instead of trying to get the other person to reassure her, I let the reassurance come from me.

I know you’re scared.

I know you really want this.

You don’t have to pretend you don’t care.

You don’t have to figure out what’s going to happen.

You don’t have to protect us from disappointment before there has even been a disappointment.

You have me.

If they call, you have me.

If they don’t call, you have me.

If this becomes the relationship you’re hoping for, you have me.

If it doesn’t, and your heart breaks, you have me.

There is no outcome in which I abandon you.

And then comes the harder part:

Letting the uncertainty actually be there.

Feeling the tightness in my chest.

The fluttering in my stomach.

The urge to reach for my phone.

Not compulsively checking.

Not asking someone else to tell me what the other person is thinking.

Not manufacturing certainty that I simply don’t have yet.

Instead, I turn toward the sensations.

Where does the anxiety live in my body?

Can I make a little more room for it?

Can I breathe with it and let it move, without requiring it to go away?

Because the goal isn’t to stop feeling anxious.

The work is expanding our capacity to feel what we feel without immediately needing to do something to make it stop.

And this is not easy work to do alone.

Our deepest relationship wounds were formed in relationship, and there can be something profoundly healing about having a relational container in which to practice something different.

Someone who can stay present with us when our nervous system is activated, not to give us the certainty we’re craving, but to help us stay connected to our bodies and access the grounded adult self who can say:

I’m here.

You don’t have to figure this out right now.

Whatever happens, you have me.

This is a big part of the work I do with my clients as a somatic s*x and relationship coach.

Because no amount of healing can tell me whether someone I just met will follow through.

I have to let them show me.

Maybe that’s what greater security looks like.

Not: I know they’re going to choose me.

But: I don’t know what they’re going to choose.

I know I’m going to choose me.