When Love Feels UNSAFE: relearning how to feel safe in calm connection.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by love; how we crave it, how we lose it, how it literally can affect how we are feeling throughout the day, and how some of us never really feel safe inside it. I grew up in a home where love faded. There were no shouting matches or slammed doors. My parents were partners, hardworking, building their lives side by side… until one day, they weren’t. And I discovered “Love can disappear. Love can betray. Love can leave.” That became my nervous system’s blueprint for connection.

When the body learns love isn’t safe

As children, we don’t process heartbreak logically; we absorb it. Through tone, tension, and distance. Through the looks that go unreturned. Our nervous system records those experiences not as “memories,” but as patterns. So we grow up craving connection but fearing the cost. We want intimacy, yet prepare ourselves for the pain that might follow it. We start to confuse being loved with being left.

For years, I attracted emotionally distant partners. Situations that made me prove my worth, work for affection, or settle for inconsistency. Not because I didn’t know better, but because my body believed safety was temporary. If love could leave once, it could leave again.

I remember the first time I met someone who made me feel truly safe.
He was steady. Honest. Present. And yet… my body didn’t know how to relax into it. No adrenaline. No guessing games. No drama. Just calm. And instead of peace, I felt panic. That’s when it hit me: My nervous system wasn’t searching for love; it was searching for what felt familiar.

Familiar wasn’t love.
Familiarity was uncertainty.

That day, I learned something crucial: until your body feels safe in love, your mind will keep mistaking safety for boredom.

The education no one gives us

We talk a lot about healing from heartbreak, but not about rewiring the body that expects heartbreak.

That’s the real work. When love feels unsafe, the body goes into protection mode:

• You overthink every message.

• You need constant reassurance.

• You sabotage peace because chaos feels more “alive.”

The problem isn’t you, it’s your nervous system doing its job, trying to prevent pain it once couldn’t control. Healing isn’t about convincing yourself to “trust more.” It’s about teaching your body that love can be calm and still stay.

This week, I listened to a podcast by Marley Rose Harris about nervous system healing. She said something that pierced straight through me:

“If chaos was your comfort zone, peace will feel like withdrawal at first.”

That was exactly what I had lived for years. At first, my body resisted peace, my mind wanted to chase, to test, to fix. But slowly, something rewired.
My breath deepened. My trust softened. And my nervous system stopped waiting for the next goodbye.

Today, as a coach, I help women and men understand what I wish I had known sooner:
Love isn’t built in the mind; it’s built in the body. If your body doesn’t feel safe, no relationship will ever feel stable, no matter how kind or loyal your partner is. So here’s your reminder:

1. Safety first, love second
Before you analyze your relationship, regulate your body. Breathe slowly. Feel your feet on the ground. Remind your system: “We’re not in danger.”
Then decide what love looks like from that grounded place.

2. Recognize emotional flashbacks
When calm feels “off,” it’s not intuition, it’s memory. Your nervous system is comparing now to then. Tell yourself: “This discomfort is old data, not current truth.”

3. Rehearse stability daily
Find one consistent action to repeat: journaling, morning sunlight, or one honest conversation a day. Consistency heals the parts of you that learned love was temporary.

4. Upgrade the love beliefs

Old: “Love leaves.” New: “Love stays when I stay regulated.”
Old: “If it’s calm, it’s not real.” New: “If it’s calm, it’s secure.”

So if you grew up like I did, watching love fade instead of explode, you might carry a quiet fear that every good thing is temporary. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. You can teach your body that love can stay. That affection doesn’t vanish when the workday begins. That calm isn’t the absence of passion, it’s the presence of safety. Because real love doesn’t test your peace. It becomes it.

Inspired by: Marley Rose Harris
The Higher Self App has become part of my daily ritual, a simple way to retrain the nervous system.