Feb/Mar 2026 Aspire Magazine FULL Issue | Page 100

Often, it’ s a nervous system response.

Strong chemistry can signal familiarity— especially if your system learned early that love came with uncertainty, intensity, or emotional inconsistency. Your body may interpret that activation as desire, even when it’ s actually signaling old survival wiring. This can be very confusing, no doubt.

Rewriting your love story means learning to pause and ask:

• Does this connection feel regulating or dysregulating?

• Do I feel more myself, or less?

• Is there mutual availability— not just attraction?

Sustainable love tends to feel calm, grounded, and spacious, especially at the beginning. For many people, that calm can initially feel unfamiliar— or even boring— until the nervous system learns that safety is not the absence of passion, but the foundation for real intimacy.

In trauma-informed work, we understand that there are parts of you with different roles and beliefs.

There may be a part that longs deeply for partnership.

And another part that says,“ What’ s the point?”

This protective part might believe:

• Love leads to loss

• Dependence equals danger

• You’ re better off alone

• Vulnerability is dangerous or weak

Rather than trying to bypass or argue with this part, rewriting your love story requires listening to it.

That part is not sabotaging you— it’ s trying to keep you safe; there’ s often wisdom being imparted.

When you approach this part with respect instead of resistance, it often softens. And when protectors soften, deeper healing becomes possible.