Stop Acting Like Roommates, Start Feeling Like Lovers

It’s easy to blame “too many feelings” for the distance in a relationship. The truth is harder—and far more hopeful: emotions aren’t the problem; misalignment, suppression, and tone are. After weeks on the road and deep reflection, I’m sharing the tools and stories that helped me see why some bonds thrive through hard conversations while others collapse into polite cohabiting.

We dig into how the nervous system shapes every conflict. When PMDD or trauma flips the threat switch, the amygdala drowns out logic and language. You can’t out-think a hijacked brain—but you can regulate it. I walk through the difference between suppression and real regulation, why stonewalling hurts as much as rage, and how to process in real time without making your partner your therapist. You’ll learn to catch the story you tell yourself—“they don’t care” versus “they had a hard day”—and pick the thought that leads to compassion, not combat.

We also talk alignment: if you need solitude to process, choose someone who self-soothes instead of chasing you with insecurity. If you process out loud, you need a listener who treats sharing as intimacy, not a threat. Communication tone becomes the hinge: the same boundary can sound like control or love depending on delivery. I share scripts, boundary phrases, and a framework that keeps connection front and center while you solve the problem. Leadership emerges here too; respect is earned by tenderness and steadiness, not demanded by volume or titles.

If you’re ready to replace endless “knowledge” with steady implementation, my January monthly coaching packages are opening with limited spots. We’ll uncover blind spots, install PMDD-aware tools, and practice the small, daily moves that keep you close even in the hard moments. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with the one tool you’ll try this week. Your emotions can be the bridge back to intimacy—let’s build it together.

Transcript

Back From Travels And A Life Shift

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Welcome back to another episode. It has officially been 21 days since my 22 days since my last episode. And that has been so hard for me. I have been traveling all over the world. This is my birthday month, or it was my birthday month. My birthday was November the 29th. And I took some time to travel. And I just got back in the US. I went to Korea. I went to Malaysia. I went to Thailand. I went to Bali. I went to Taiwan. And I just spent some time. I've been on this journey of just really checking in with myself, checking in with what comes up, and just allowing myself to recharge. A lot of the year, you know, you're my private client. I have spent pouring into you all. And, you know, you just get to a point where you just get really reflective. I felt the shift going on in my life personally, professionally. And instead of just ignoring it and rushing past it and sticking to my previous routine of this is what I'm going to do, this is what I have mapped out. I'm very intuitive in a sense of if I feel a shift, I kind of lean into it. But I want to make sure that I understand it, not just for myself, but for my clients as well. And I'm going to share a lot of what has been going on in my journey over the next couple of weeks. But one of the biggest things that kept coming up for me was emotions. You know, I was having these moments where really strong emotions were coming up. And I remember earlier in my journey, I used to try to feel like, oh my gosh, I just don't need to be so emotional. You know, there's been times where I've been told by partners that I'm too sensitive, or I've been told that my they don't want to talk about their feelings all the time. I, you know, it's it's a very unique thing to be in a relationship with someone who desires to talk about their emotions, who desires to talk about their feelings and doesn't think that it's a bad thing, or doesn't think that it has to be a problem. And that's what I really realized is I was made to feel for so long that discussing my emotions, discussing my feelings, and really processing them with my partner was something that was a burden versus a blessing. And that's when I realized it's not that discussing my emotions is a burden itself. It is a burden, it's a burden to somebody that's not aligned with who is supposed to be with me. That is what I learned. And it gave me so much confidence and so much joy to feel like I didn't have to change a part of myself that I genuinely liked. You know, it serves me, it serves my clients, it serves me in parenting with my daughter. And I just always used to feel like I needed to get to a place where I didn't have so many emotions, I didn't express so many emotions, I didn't um want to talk about how I manage emotions. Like it was just one of those things where you're just supposed to operate as if everything's okay all of the time and not talk about the times where things are not okay or hurry up and fix yourself and patch yourself back up so that you can get back out there. And I resented that. I resented not being able to talk about my feelings without it being portrayed as an argument or a fight or a conflict or disagreement because a lot of times the emotions that I was having while I was in relationships wasn't even about the other person necessarily. It was about things that were going on with me. And I'm a very self-aware person and I monitor my emotions very closely. And I think that, you know, having emotions, sharing emotions, processing emotions is not a bad thing. I just think that the way in which you process emotions need to be aligned with the kind of partner that you choose. I'm gonna repeat that. The way that you process your emotions needs to be in alignment with the person that you choose. Meaning, if you're one of those individuals that when you process emotions, you shut down and you just need time for yourself and you just need to kind of go in the hole until you got it all figured out, then you need to be with a person that's able to self-soothe and regulate and they're not gonna get offended and are not gonna project their insecurities from you taking space onto you and make your issues even worse and your emotions even worse and trigger you even worse, because then you're not gonna have the peace to process the emotions in the way that you need to without it being a problem, without it feeling like, well, why aren't you talking to me? What's wrong with me? And all of these things that you're they're feeling like it has to do with them when it really just has to do with you. So, one of the ways that I want to teach you today is I want you to think about how you process emotions. Number one, I want you to recognize the emotions are not a bad thing. We need to take that off the table. Emotions are not a bad thing. I know you may be thinking about rage, you may be thinking about anger, you may be thinking about being triggered, you may be thinking about being offended, you may be thinking about all of these negative things, but on the opposite end of that, there's being happy, there's being filled with joy, that's feeling passionate, that's feeling intimate, there's all this, these good emotions that we're kind of throwing away. When we're saying that emotions are bad, you're not just throwing away the bad emotions, you're throwing away the good emotions. Because I've had couples that I've worked with where they've both decided to subconsciously or consciously turn off their emotions and they're in an emotionless relationship. There's no intimacy, they're going through the emotions, they're acting like roommates, they're not seeing eye to eye, they're giving up hope that they're ever going to be at a place that they were originally when they chose to be with this person. Because at the end of the day, you would never choose to be with someone without an emotional connection. At some point, your emotions were involved when it came to you connecting with this person. And when you decide to turn them off because you've seen so many negative emotions, that connection that you have with your partner is now severed. There's nothing left. You're operating on the basis of nothing. It's not a relationship if you're not actually relating. In order to relate, there needs to be emotions involved. So the easiest solution when you get into big blow ups and you get into fights and it feels bad and you have all the stress and this arguing, a lot of times you think you just need to hide. I need you to turn my emotions off. I just need to get rid of my emotions. And I remember one time I had a partner that did that. And I used to be the one that was like, no, we need to talk about this, we need to work this out. We need, you know, and I had all my tools and all my plans. And one day I realized they didn't want to address any of the emotions. They didn't want to talk about them. They didn't want to deal with them. They didn't want to fix it in that way. They just wanted to wipe over it and pretend like nothing was wrong. And so one day I remember I decided, you know what, I was so exhausted from saying, hey, we need to talk about this. Hey, let, you know, let's work out a plan. Let's just like I wanted a solution so we didn't have to keep arguing about the same thing and it was messing with the closeness. And I didn't even really feel like being around the person at the time. And I'm pretty sure they didn't feel like being around me because there was no emotions. There was nothing connecting us. It was just, we were just operating like robots. And so one day I said, you know what, I give up. I'm just gonna pretend like they're pretending. They're pretending like nothing's bothering them. I'm gonna pretend like nothing's bothering me. And do you know what happened? We hide on the outside what looked like the perfect day. We didn't argue, we didn't fight, we handled all of our responsibilities. And, you know, he took it as a win. He was like, see, this is what I'm talking about. We can really be together and not fight and not argue. And I remember him being so happy that we weren't fighting and we weren't arguing. And I got in the shower that night and I cried. I balled my eyes out because I literally kept thinking this cannot be my life. Because what I had done as one day experiment of turning off my emotions and not expressing them and just pretending like I wasn't feeling, like I was really feeling, that's what he ultimately wanted. It was the picture was so clear for me that he didn't desire to address any of those things. And this is not any shade to him. It's just it was a it was a wake-up call for me to understand the type of partner that I was with and what I was dealing with. And I had to ask myself this question. And I challenge you to ask yourself this question. Do I have the capacity to sustain a relationship in which I do not I do not talk about my feelings? And I only talk about the happy times and I always only pretend like I'm happy. And if I try to bring up any emotions, they're the bad guy. They they automatically think I'm trying to fight with them just by having a conversation. And I was crying in the shower because I was realizing I cannot be with this person because I cannot in good conscience sustain a relationship to where I would have to mask myself and what it is that I needed and desired in a relationship for eternity because they didn't want to feel the uncomfortableness of having these conversations. And you know, I didn't blame my partner at the time because I realized there are people that have the capacity to do that. There are people that things just don't really hit as deeply with them. There are people that, you know, they things roll off their shoulder, right? They're kind of like they're not really deep. And I don't mean like they're not deep, like they're they're not smart. I just mean like as far as emotions are concerned, they're very simple. They just want to be happy, they just want to have a good time, they just want peace, and that's it. There's no complexity to it. There's nothing that you have to like do to orchestrate it so much. You know, a lot of things that you do, they may let go just because it doesn't matter that much to them. And and they're not neither wrong or right. It's not about a person being wrong or right. If you are with a person who's like that, then it would make sense that you're aligned with someone who doesn't desire the same thing. They don't desire to talk about the feelings because then you're you there's nobody that's pressing you. I never want a partner to do something that they don't desire to do. And I've realized that that's what I was doing. I was, I was forcing my partner to address these issues that we had in the relationship that he didn't want to address because he would rather just pretend like they didn't exist. And for me, that I would be gaslighting myself because they were still on my mind. They were heavy on my mind. And I thought about them and I went to bed and I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking about them, and it was affecting every area of my life. You know, I was trying to concentrate at work, but it was always like, I need a solution to this. Like, we need to figure this out. Like, that's how I am in partnerships and relationships. If there's something that is off, I can't pretend like it's not off. I can't pretend like everything's great. I'm not one of those individuals that can put on a fake smile and just be like, it's fine, it's totally fine when inside it's not. And I know that there's moments in which you have to do that. Like if you're going out in public and you just had a fight in the car, I'm not saying you go in there, you disrespect your partner by acting weird and all of the things. But I'm the type of person that if say, for example, because this has happened to me so many times, I don't know why car arguments are a thing. I think it's like you're on the way to an event, you're on the way somewhere, and then one person says something and it kind of just makes you spiral into what the real issue is. But I've had so many conversations where I'm on my way to an event where we're supposed to be happy, and maybe we were happy when we first got in the car. And then I say something or they say something, it doesn't matter who says something, and then an issue comes up and it doesn't get resolved while we're in the car. But then we get to the destination, it's time to get out of the car. And one partner, which is my partners in the past, maybe like, okay, well, let's just go in here and pretend like nothing happened. I mean, obviously they don't say pretend like nothing happened, but they're like, let's just go in. Whereas I'm like very solution-based, I'm like, hey, I would rather take a good 10 minutes of intentional time in the car and talk about the actual issue and come to a resolution to where I can walk in, hold your hand, look at you lovingly, and genuinely mean it and not be fake with it. And not go in there and not be holding hands and split and look across the room and like there's no eye contact, there's no intimacy, there's no nothing. It's just, I don't desire a relationship that that it lives in that kind of delusion, delulu land, where you're on the outside, people may be like, oh my gosh, you're so happy. But internally, you get back in the car and you're not speaking to one another. That for me is like, what are we doing? What is the point of this? Why am I here? I start to question everything. My cause my brain is like, okay, if you were going to be this disconnected, you could just be alone. Like you could have more fun just being by yourself versus being in a relationship with somebody that doesn't desire to relate to you. Like it's called a relationship. And I think a lot of times the easier route for some people is to just avoid, avoid emotional closeness in a sense of, hey, we really need to talk about this. Or it doesn't have to be like a super serious like thing, like we need to talk, but just find something that you both enjoy doing and let it come up in conversation. You know, it is it is my hope that you are continuously having conversations. Like I always tell my private clients, what what I teach them is to continuously have open dialogue so that when you do have to talk about issues, that it's not a big deal. I feel like if you never talk about issues or you never talk about disagreements or you never talk about things in your relationship, then when you finally do have to talk about something, it's all of a sudden a big deal. And you're like, oh my gosh, they want to talk. It's like you should have already been talking. Why are you not talking? Why is everything surface level? For me, that's not fulfilling because it's based off of the ego. That means for the ego's sake, you want it to look like you're the perfect couple. You want it to look like you're so happy in front of friends, look like you're so happy in front of family when behind closed doors, you're getting into bed, turning your backs to each other, and not touching, getting up in the morning, you do you going your way, they're going their way, and not talking about your day, not saying good morning, not being patient, not being kind, not doing any of those things that are the whole point for me is being in a relationship. I know for some people, they get in relationships for you know what they can gain out of it, kind of like a business deal, like, oh, well, we would have good kids together, or oh, we would, you know, financially our families are, you know, we're set up to provide ourselves with good children and you know, a lifestyle, or we could, yeah, we could have a good lifestyle together and blah, blah. So it's all these surface level things. When I am I'm all I'm like, where's the intimacy? When you're in an intimate relationship with a person, there are things that you share with them that you cannot share with anyone else. Do you understand how important that out of eight billion people in the world you're choosing to do things with this person that you're not doing with the other eight billion people in the world? Hopefully, you're faithful and you're loyal. And so I think a lot of times what happens with my private clients that have rejection sensitivity, specifically with PMDD and trauma, um, is when one partner shuts down and they don't want to talk about an issue that they're having, the other person feels rejected because they're what I call alone with their thoughts. They're still thinking about it. They you can go to bed, you can you can I think that's so painful. And I've been in this situation before where a partner can literally go to bed, sleep peacefully while I'm up crying over something that's going on in a relationship. And for me to get to that point, a lot of times it's out of frustration. It's out of like, I'm trying and I'm trying and I'm trying, and this is not working, and I'm feeling like I'm like I feel it, I feel it slipping away. And I feel like that for me is the most heartbreaking thing when I come into every relationship with so much hope, with an open heart, with a fresh slate, with all of these things. And if I'm getting to the point where I'm that frustrated, where I'm, you know, my emotions are just so down, it's because I'm getting to this place of hopelessness, where I'm losing hope, where I'm feeling like the relationship is slipping away. And one of the biggest ways that happens is not being able to communicate emotions effectively because I know for me that's not sustainable. I'm the type of individual where I will ask and ask and give you space and time and all the things. So it's not in a nagging way, but I'll keep presenting the opportunity to like, hey, let's because I want the relationships to be better, let's let's talk about this, whatever. And at some point, when the when the something clicks in my mind, and I realize that it's not gonna happen, and I realize I have to let the person go. And that's the part where it hurts me the most because I know me. And I think one of the best things that you can do in any relationship is know yourself and what you have the capacity to endure and what you have the capacity to sustain. What I mean by endure is put up with. It means take it in in a way that's not doing damage to yourself. To sustain, I mean what do you have the capacity to keep doing in order for the relationships to work that's not tearing you down, that's not making you lose the most beautiful parts of yourself, which I've done so many times and regret it so many times. Um I've done so many things in relationships for partners and and I and I do it from my heart. And I do it because it's an investment in us, in you know, our future. And when it doesn't work out, it is is really heartbreaking because I'm I don't have to do anything. I don't like, I think it's less heartbreaking for people that don't really put a lot into it. And by a lot, I mean like energy, money, time, all of that. If you don't really put a lot, if you don't invest a lot in something, then if you lose it, it's kind of like meh. That's how you see people who break up and move on to the next so quickly because they weren't that invested. It didn't, it didn't, it's no sweat off their back. They they all probably thought it was only a matter of time. You know, they they've already rationalized the breakup before it's actually happened. So by the time it happens, they're kind of like moving on so quickly. And I am the type that will believe up until it's done. And so managing emotions, and I hate to use that word managing because it's like so common. It's like, how do I manage my emotions? What that looks like is because I've done this a lot of the last couple of months, especially traveling. I've noticed that I have so many emotions on a day-to-day basis, and I was just like, oh my gosh, I have all of these emotions, but I've been processing them by myself and regulating them and examining them and just being curious, being really curious about the emotion, not saying this is a bad emotion. Like even times where I felt down, I felt sad, like I felt tired, I felt, you know, I've had all of these things, I don't look at it as like, oh, it's a bad thing. I'm just kind of curious with it. And so I really thought the problem was that I experienced too many emotions. And what I really realized that was actually happening is my nervous system wasn't in a place where I could process them with the relationships that I have been in in the past. That is not the case right now. And I've noticed such a shift in my nervous system. My actual nervous system when I experience even strong emotions, negative emotions. I don't freak out like I used to. I don't get anxiety like I used to. I don't get depression like I used to. I still experience emotions. So that's the thing. I haven't gotten to a place where I'm not experiencing emotions. So if you're in that place where you're thinking, I just need to have less emotions. No, you can have your same emotions, but who you are connected to matters and how you operate within your relationship matters as to whether your emotions are going to cause you suffering or if they're just something that you have to process either alone or together. And I think a lot of times we may think because we're in a relationship that we have to process every emotion with our partner. That is the biggest lie that is ever told, that everything that you go through, your partner has to go through. Everything that you're thinking, your partner has to know. Everything that you're processing, your partner has to know. They have the capacity to manage their own emotions that you have the capacity to manage yours. When you put it on someone else to do both, you're putting a burden on them and you're putting pressure on them that they're later going to resent because they're going to start to feel like, wait a minute, what if I'm having a bad day? How am I ever going to process my own emotions if I'm so busy helping you regulate your own? There has to be a level of responsibility where you're saying to yourself, I am responsible for my own emotions. I'm responsible for regulating them. I'm responsible for processing them. I'm responsible for how I react to my emotions. Not my partner, not my coworker, not my boss, not my friend. No one else is responsible for the way that you process your emotions but you. This includes PMDD rage. This includes feeling depressed. This includes all of these different emotions, anxiety, all of these things, what however you're feeling in any given moment is your responsibility. I'm going to repeat that because this is something that I had to tell my clients again and again and again when they're like, you made me feel like this, you made me feel like this. And I and I heard one time where a partner was like, I didn't make you feel anyway. You're feeling how you're feeling because you're choosing to. Number one, I don't think that you choose your emotions, but I do believe that the emotions that you feel are a result of the thoughts that you're thinking in your mind. So if you start thinking negative thoughts, if you start making up stories in your mind, if you start having intrusive thoughts like you do when you have PMDD, emotions are going to follow. So does that mean that you're creating them and you're making yourself feel the right? No. It is just the fact that because of your thoughts, you're now experiencing these emotions. And guess what? That's on you. Because the emotions came from a thought that was in your mind, not your partner's mind. Your partner may have said or done something that made you think a certain way so they can make you think a certain way. Like they do something, they not do something. They say something, they don't say something, and you have a thought in your mind, that thought creates an emotion. For example, say if your partner was supposed to bring something home when they came home from work. And I use this example a lot because it's a very innocent one that can turn horrible. Where, you know, I love lemons and because I drink lemon water every day. Say if your partner was supposed to bring home lemons and your partner, you told them before, you know, they went to work, hey, I'm gonna be cooking this and I need lemons. They go all day, they have a hard day at work, they come home and there's no lemons. You then have a thought in your mind immediately where you they come in the house and you're like, babe, do you have the lemons? And they're like, oh, I forgot. What you tell yourself in that moment is gonna determine the emotions that you're gonna have about their response. You can A, tell yourself, oh my gosh, they don't care about me, they don't think about me, I'm over here trying to fix this meal for us. And they didn't even bother to remind themselves, they could have put an alarm on their phone, they could have written themselves a note, they could have gotten it on their lunch break, they could have done all of these things, but they don't really value me enough, they don't care about me. That's why they didn't bring home the limits. If you tell yourself that story in your mind, you're the immediate emotion that you're gonna feel is offense. And when you get offended, your whole entire mood shifts towards your partner. Or if you see that your partner came home without the limits, you could have a second thought, option B, which is oh, they must have had such a hard day. I know that they said before they left for work that they were gonna bring home the lemons. And I know that they would have done it. They're always, you know, bringing home stuff for me. This is this is out of the norm that they really didn't do it. They probably had a hard day. Let me let me see what's really going on with them. Let me see how I can help them. I'll probably see if I can go to the store and get the lemons or if I can make something else that doesn't require the lemons. That's the emotion that you would have when you're having compassion. You now have taken it out of the place of offense and you've turned it into compassion for your partner by really examining their pattern. Remember, I said, oh, they don't normally do this. So if their normal pattern is to bring home whatever it is that they're gonna bring home, this is one of the things that you have to do when you're determining what kind of emotion that you want to have, it all starts with your mind. It all starts with creating the thought that is in alignment with the emotion that you want to have. This is the tool. You create a thought in your mind that is in alignment with the with the reaction and emotion that you want to have. So if your partner didn't bring home the limits and you want to be compassionate because that's a response that's gonna allow you to stay connected throughout the evening, throughout the next day, you're not gonna be fighting, you're not gonna be arguing, you're not gonna be saying anything that you know wanna take back later on. If you want it compassion, it all starts with the thought. It all starts with the story that you tell yourself in your mind. If you choose to go to default mode, remember the brain's default mode a lot of times is negative. So the default mode is gonna go to, oh, we're offended, this ego coming in. Like, how dare they not bring home the limits after all you did for them? Look what you brought home last week. This is the ego talking. And the ego wants you to be in a negative state of mind. PMDD wants you to be in a negative state of mind. So it's gonna tell you a nasty story in your mind that's gonna make you feel offended. And guess what? If you take the bait, if you take the bait off of the story that you tell yourself in your mind, you're gonna end up offended and you're gonna end up not being connected, and you're gonna end up fighting and you're gonna end up arguing, you're gonna end up not being on the same page, you're gonna end up not being connected, the intimacy is gonna be gone. It's gonna take you days to get back on the same page, all because of the story, the thought that you told yourself in your mind. So it's not that you have to get to a point where you're not experiencing emotions. It is, are you at a point where your emotions are being regulated by the thoughts that you are choosing to think? You have the power to choose which thought that you want to have. The negative thought is always gonna be there. The positive thought is always gonna be there. But here's the thing: it's gonna take more effort for you to choose the positive thought because you have to dig for a little bit. You have to kind of get past the initial negative thought. The initial negative thought is gonna be in your face immediately. Immediately, you're gonna be told with the story. I can't believe they did that. They don't appreciate you after all you did. That's the immediate negative thought. You have to let that pass. You have to recognize it. You're not denying that it's there. You're recognizing that that's an option. You could you could choose that route. And then after that, once you say, I don't want to feel this way, I don't want to feel offended, I don't want to feel angry, I don't want to feel bitter, I don't want to feel petty, I don't want to feel any of those things towards my partner. What do I want to feel? I want to feel compassion, I want to feel connected, I want to feel close. Okay, so what are the thoughts that I need to tell myself in order for me to feel this way? And this is a tool that you can use in any scenario. Ask yourself, how do you want to feel? And nine times out of nine, whenever you're in an intimate relationship, you want to feel close. All couples want to feel respected, loved, and adored. And you want to feel safe. And the way that you do that is you choose the emotions that are in alignment with how you want to feel within your relationship. This is gonna stop you from getting in the cycle of feeling like, I need to get rid of my emotions, I don't need to have them anymore. Yes, you can have your emotions, but how you choose to manage your emotions and your thoughts is what's gonna make the difference in your relationship. And the sooner that you recognize this, the sooner you can start accepting what it is that's coming up for you all the time, because emotions are gonna come because thoughts come all day long. We have so many thoughts. And so, have you ever really told yourself, I just need to control my emotions? Only to find that the next time you have an argument, you can you explode the same way, and then you beat yourself up and be like, I can't believe I went off again. I can't believe I said that again, especially when you see how much it hurts your partner, when you see how much the connection is severed and you you guys are just not seeing eye to eye. It's like before an argument happens, you you kind of try to stay calm, but then your body goes into rage or you shut down or you panic, and then there's no more logic that shows up. You've already reacted, you've already done the damage. And maybe on the other side of that, have you ever felt like no matter what you say, it just makes things worse? I have this with a lot of my partners. They feel like everything that they say when their partner's in PMDD is taken out of context. It's like anything you say can and will be held against you in the court of law. They feel like I could say, oh, the sky is blue, and you guys could start having an argument about that in PMDD and the Ludeal phase because all of a sudden they don't agree with it. And what do you mean by the sky is blue? And the next thing you know, you're asking yourself, what are we even arguing about? Do I even really care about what we're arguing about? The answer is no. But am I in a situation where we're getting in the same fight, the cycle of fights again and again and again? So then what do you do? You either shut down, you walk away, or you take the bait and explode back. Because then you're both, it's kind of like now we're both messed up. Nobody wants to be the one that stayed calm and then one went off because then when the blame comes around, it's like, oh, it's your fault. I didn't do anything. I stayed calm. You were the one that went off. There's a lot of comparison when it comes to how people, you know, um respond to the conflicts and go and their emotions. Shutting down is just as painful as going off. I want to let you know that because a lot of partners and a lot of individuals that suffer with PMDD or they suffer with trauma, they tend to think that, oh, if I shut down, it's the safest thing to do, it's the best thing to do, it's not doing any damage. It is emotionally damaging. It's called stonewalling. And when you're doing that to your partner, your partner does suffer in the same manner that it does if you would have gone off. And a lot of times when you're shutting down and you're stonewalling them, the emotions haven't gone anywhere. What you're doing is you're holding those emotions inside. They're locked inside of you, they're not going anywhere. Matter of fact, they're building up. The more that you shut down, the more that you hold everything in, when you finally do blow up, the blowup is bigger. And I think you've seen yourself be bigger when it comes to rage and when it comes to anger. You've seen that. And that doesn't come from one instance. No, that poking comes from it's been poking at you and poking at you and poking at you from multiple triggers, multiple instances that multiple things you've seen and you try to brush it off, like, oh, it doesn't matter. Oh, it's no big deal. I'm not gonna bring it up. This is a whole lot of time of you not processing your emotions until one day you feel like you can't take it anymore and you explode. You do not need to get to that point. When I work with my clients and we're talking about things that are coming up in this in their relationship, this is where my PMDD pyramid package comes on because we meet weekly. My monthly package, we are meeting weekly and we're talking about things that have come up in a safe space. And you know, I tried to do this on my own. Honestly, I did. Me and my exes have gotten counselors before, and it's really, really helped because um trying to talk to your partner sometimes when you're the other person in the relationship and you're trying to, you cannot counsel yourself. I I know this from being a counselor, from having so many clients, and it's like I can have all the tools in the world, but you need an outside party. I there's a couple of people that I have in my life right now that um I've hired for my childhood trauma, for things that have come up for me in business. I have outsourced and hired people because yes, can I go and, you know, obviously I'm a doctor, I know how to do research. I can go and research a whole bunch of things on my own, but it doesn't work when it comes to strategy and implementation. Knowledge, knowing things is not the same thing as implementing them. And that's what I really need you to understand. You can read all of the books, you can read all of the newspaper articles and all of these things that come out, but without strategy and implementation and actual tools, knowledge is just knowledge. It's just a greater awareness of the issues that you have. If I become more aware of issues that I have, does it make the issues go away? No. Does it solve the issues? No. Does processing them? Yes. Can I process them on my own? No. I need an outside party because there's a lot of blind spots that I things that I didn't see that someone else can see. And I respect that. And I want someone that's gonna call me out and I want someone that's gonna hold me accountable for, hey, I know you were saying that, you know, you came to me about this, but what about this? I'm noticing that this comes up. And I'm just like, oh my gosh, like I didn't even see that. Like the time that I went to um one of my psychotherapists, and they said I was a people pleaser or I had people pleasing um tendencies. I never would have called myself a people pleaser. That's another thing that happens when you when you get help, is someone ends up giving you a label of something that you can now work on. First, I had to get past the shock and I had to say, okay, I don't want to get offended. I don't want to be in a place where I'm not taking in what they're saying because obviously, because they were able to back it up with examples that I had given them. And I was like, well, yeah, yeah, that is me. Yeah, I do do that. Yeah, I did think that. Yeah, I do. And so the answer was check, check, check, check, check. Yeah, so you're a people pleaser. And after I swallowed my pride and my ego and my shock, I now knew what to work on. And that's what I do for my private clients. I shine the light on what it is that you actually need to work on so you don't waste your time working on something that you've that you don't really need to work on. Like, for example, in this episode, I'm telling you, you don't need to just stop having emotions. You don't need to just stay calm and everything will be better. That's not sustainable. You're a human, you're not an AI, you're not a robot, you are a human with emotions. And to say that the only way that your relationship is gonna be healthy is if you don't have emotions. It's counterproductive because it's unrealistic and you're automatically gonna feel like a failure. You're automatically gonna feel like a failure if you're not able to do it. And I'm saying don't do it. Don't try to get rid of your emotions. Do not try to have less emotions, do not try to push them away. Do not try to pretend that they don't exist or that they, yeah, pretend that they don't exist. Do not try to do that. PMDD amplifies emotional intensity, rejection, sensitivity specifically, and fear. PMDD intensifies those things. They're all emotions. It makes the emotions that you're experienced heightened. It makes them larger than life, it makes them bigger than they normally would be. How you feel in your luteal phase when you're experiencing emotions is completely different from how you feel in your follicular phase and your ovulation and your menstruation. You're when you're in PMDD, it goes into a threat response. It thinks something is wrong. We need to get out of here. We need to either fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Those are the common responses to when you get into that high level of emotion and high level of stress. And so if you're the partner, your emotions, you may live in the constant anticipation cycle for my PMDD partners. You often feel confused, you feel blamed, you feel emotionally unsafe, you feel hopeless. You feel all of these things because you're feeling like I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing. This is why I created the course my partner has PMDD now what? So you don't have to keep walking on eggshells. And the truth of the matter is when you get into this fight, flight, freeze, or spawn, you can't logic your way out of it. You can't just make sense. And you can't just give yourself a whole bunch of knowledge and then all of a sudden your emotions are shifted. Your emotions are not shifted by more knowledge. Your emotions are not shifted by more knowledge. There's an implementation, there's a tool, there's a strategy that is used, that is action that is taken. Not just digesting more information and understanding, oh, I'm triggered because of this. Okay, great. Now that you know you're triggered about this, are you still triggered? Or is the knowledge of you being triggered enough for you to not be triggered anymore? You can answer that honestly. If you know why you're triggered, does it make you less triggered, or does it just make you more hyper-aware of the fact that you're triggered? It may be different for everybody. But when you're experiencing PMDD and when you're experiencing trauma, and trauma is PMDD, that's why I call them my PMDD trauma transformational tools, the amygdala takes over. The part of your brain, the amygdala takes over. There's a part of your brain called the prefrontal cortex. And this part of the brain is responsible for logic, what makes sense. It's also responsible for communicating the logic and what makes sense. When you're experiencing PMDD rage, or if you're the partner and you're experiencing a lot of trauma as a result of being in a PMDD relationship, or maybe you have other things that are going on in your life that are traumatic, the prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain that makes sense of things, and the part of your brain that's to be able to communicate them effectively and in a healthy manner, it's offline. Think of it as like a Wi-Fi with no password. It's not connecting. That part of your brain is not connecting. It's dead. It is dead. You cannot communicate effectively from a brain that thinks it's in danger. If your brain thinks that your partner is doing something to you and is and it wants to get you away from them, and this is when you feel like you want to um, you know, blow up and then break up. That's because your brain, your PMD brain is like, get the heck up out of there. So there's a real difference between emotional suppression, meaning holding in your emotions and regulating your emotions. Suppression looks like holding it in. Versus regulation, when you choose to regulate your emotions, you're letting it move safely through you. You're observing the emotion and let it go by. Think of it as like, oh, I'm angry. I'm acknowledging that I'm angry. I'm feeling angry right now. You're not denying it, you're accepting it. You're saying it's there. This is how I'm feeling. And then you're letting it pass. That's regulating yourself. Another form of suppression is holding it in and exploding later. When you start holding a lot of things in, like I said before, the way that it comes out is so you can be you can act so out of character because of the way that you've been suppressing things. Versus regulation is I'm gonna process it in real time. And I've done this so many times, especially lately. Something has happened, I've experienced strong emotions, and I'm like, okay, let me let me unpack this. This has been a new thing that I've been um utilizing that's really been helping. Let me unpack this. Unpack that is telling my brain we need a process. Process this in real time. I'm not gonna let a day go by because here's the thing: the longer that you wait for time to go by, the more stories you're gonna tell yourself in your mind. And the stories that you're telling yourself are 100% gonna be negative. 100%. And they're gonna get worse and worse, and it's gonna build and build and build. How many times have you told yourself a story about why your partner hasn't answered your call, why they haven't texted you back, why they didn't bring the lemon homes? Like all of these things, you've told yourself a story that's negative. And as time goes by, you get more and more bitter, and your nervous system is being damaged by that. The more bitter you get, the more you shut down, the more you contract, your body is reacting to what is going on with you emotionally. Are you aware of that? I'm aware of that because I get massages quite often. Massages are one of my levels of self-care. Um, and when I'm holding a lot of tension, bitterness, offense, anything that I'm holding in, meaning on the outside, I'm like, oh, fine. When I go get the massages, it's all in my body. And my masseuse can immediately say, You're you're holding in a lot of stress. You're holding in a lot. And I can't deny, you can't deny the body doesn't lie. Trauma is in the body, the body keeps the score. You know that book about trauma. The body keeps the score. So whatever it is that you're trying to hold in, your body is holding it in, and it's taking a lot for your body to hold it in. The next one is one of the things that I was just talking about, people pleasing. That's suppressing. That is, I'm not gonna talk about my needs. I'm gonna pretend like I don't have any needs just to meet the needs of my partner. Regulation looks like self-respecting communication and boundaries. I understand that you want this, but I need I need to do this right now. I understand that you want me to go out right now, you want me to have fun. I need sleep right now. I'm not gonna be well if I stay out tonight. Babe, I need sleep. Is that something that you can allow me to do? That's regulating your emotions. That's communicating, standing up for yourself and communicating what it is that you really need. The other form of suppression is emotional numbing. Where you're just pretending like you don't have any emotions or you're just shutting them down as soon as they come, versus regulation is, hey, I'm gonna openly talk about my emotions. I'm feeling like this. I just wanted to let you know. Many couples think you think that you have a rage problem, especially PMDD, like you think you have a PMDD rage problem, you really don't. You think that you have an anger problem, you really don't. You have a regulation and communication problem. You have a problem regulating your emotions, and then you have a problem communicating your emotions in a way that is not damaging to your relationship. So the real problem is you're trying to manage emotions individually in a system that's relational. What that means is your nervous system gets activated in a relationship, especially a PMDD relationship. Your nervous system gets activated in a relationship, not in isolation. This is why you can kind of say, Oh, I think I should just be better off single, because then I wouldn't have to deal with this. You're trying to disconnect from something that's activating, triggering things in your nervous system and the relationship. You're thinking that the relationship is the problem, and it's really not the relationship, it's the way that you're handling emotions within the relationship. And so fights don't escalate because of what is said. It's not about the words that are said, it's about how it's said. And the nervous system, your nervous system really reacts to how communication is said to you. You know, I've had so many times where where partners have said the most direct things to me in the most loving way, and I've been able to receive it. For example, here's an example for you that's been used with me. I want to do something, I really, really want to do something. And that's kind of like how I am. Like, I want to do something, I really want to do it. So let's just use a trip, for example, since I love to travel. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I want to go to this rabe. I want to go on this trip, I want to go da-da-da-da-da. I have a partner saying, No, we're not doing that. No, you can't go. No, that's not happening. No, you don't need to keep going to all them rains, or you don't need to keep going traveling, you don't need to do that. My nervous system immediately is activated by that. It does not feel good. My body gets into, I don't go into fights, I go into flight mode. I don't freeze because I'm steadily processing, but I will go into flight mode. Um, flight or fawn. Fawn is the people pleasing. So I've done that before. I've gone into people pleasing where I'm like, okay, I'm just not gonna go to the rave. I guess I won't go anymore because it triggers you. I guess blah, blah, blah. That's the fawn. I've also gone to flight where I'm just like, oh, I gotta get the heck up out of here because I feel like my core value of freedom is being taken from me. So that's one way that communication has been like, you need to do this and you need to do that. And I feel controlled and I feel backed in a corner and I feel claustrophobic. I'm an Enneagram 7. I'm a free spirit. If you keep telling me what I can't do, I'm gonna start to feel like the walls are closing in on me. Like I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here. The opposite has been communicated to me the same thing, but in the opposite way. Mean babe, I noticed that you said you wanted to go to this way where you want to go on this trip. Do you think we can reschedule that? I really want to spend some time with you. Or maybe we don't catch this one, maybe you catch the next one. Or if they say something in a way where it's sweet and it's nice and it's kind and it's loving, you can ask me to do the exact same thing and my nervous system is not activated. I'm like, okay, babe, yeah, you're right. Like, let's just, you know, let's let's do something local, let's do something here, let's go to happy hour, or you know, let's go get some dinner, let's go, blah, blah. Like, I'm more open to suggestions because you're talking to me with kindness, with love, with care, with compassion, not forget what you want to do. We're not doing that. I don't do well with that. That style of communication does not do well with me. So going into a relationship, that was something that I needed to learn. I cannot be connected to someone that is gonna speak to me in a way that is not in alignment with the way that I can receive it and process it and comply with it. Because it's really is my desire to be submitted, and I'm probably gonna get so much backlash for this, so much backlash for this. But here we go, because we're talking about me and you know, not my personal example, because I know it helps you all, but it is my desire to be submissive in a relationship. And not in a way where it's demeaning, not in a way where you know my needs aren't getting met, or it's blah, blah. It's the way God intended. And if I feel like you are a leader, then I am ready to follow. In order for me to follow, you have to lead with love, you have to lead with kindness, and I have to respect the way in which you lead. That is the misconception, is that people think like I'm the leader, I can tell you what to do and I can do this, and you're treating your partner horribly. No one's gonna follow without resentment or bitterness, someone that is treating them horribly and saying that they need to do something just because they need to do it. But if I know that you're leading me with from a good heart, from a place of love, I'm gonna follow. I'm gonna be submissive. But because you have earned my respect because of how you handle me, because of how you treat me. When you start treating me bad, my respect for you will diminish, and then I'm no longer able to follow. I'm no longer able to do that because I no longer respect you in that way. You've lost my respect. Once you start to mistreat me, you lose my respect and you lose my ability to follow you. It is all connected. So if your partner isn't, if you're the head of the household, whatever gender that is, if you're the head of the household and you're feeling like your partner is not following you in the way that you desire, I would ask you, how are you leading? Are you leading with kindness? Are you leading with tenderness? Are you leading with gentleness? Are you leading with love? Are you leading with demands? Are you deleting with ego? Are you leading with all of this entitlement? Oh, I'm paying all the bills, so you need to follow what I'm saying. No, no, how you handle your partner is in direct correlation to how they will handle you, and it's not a tit for tat. It's it if it's a flow. It is literally an effortless flow. If I'm following someone that is respecting me, that is honoring me, that is cherishing me, you don't you're not even gonna have to ask for me to be, oh, I need you to follow me. You're not gonna have to ask. I'm gonna be right there. And you're gonna feel that because I respect you, because I trust you, that you're not going to lead me in the wilderness in a in a way. So one of the things that really, really help my clients when it comes to this, um, is really understanding that the person and I'll and I'll do a step. I'm gonna do a a step, I'm gonna do a part two of this because I have more to uncover, but I want you to really digest a lot of what I've been saying. Um, I have so much to share with you. Um so much, so much, so much, so much, so much in the direction of in love with PMDD and and everything. But I want you to recognize trauma responses when it comes to emotional reactions. Meaning, if you've had traumatic moments within your PMDD relationship, within your relationship, if you've had traumatic moments and you've responded in ways that have not been healthy, and then you move on to go and you wonder why you're having a problem with conflict, those things need to be regulated and healed so that you don't have the same trauma response. And this is what I do with my private clients. I am going to be taking new clients for the month of January. So when it comes to January, we're now on December the 5th. When it comes to January, I will be accepting new clients after the holidays here in the US. I'm going to go ahead and close out a lot of things with my current clients. Um, but my monthly sessions will be open in January at this year, 2026. I will only be taking a certain amount of clients per month. I am no longer going to be, and you'll receive an email from me. Um, if you're my private client or you've been on my email list, go to inlove with pmdd.com. I'm not gonna be doing a lot of the the one drop-off sessions because they don't really help long term. They help for patching up something, but then you have something else. I need to work with you for at least a month. That is gonna be my prerequisite because I need to make sure that you and your partner have the tools that are sustainable that are gonna give you the results that you actually need. And to have years, months of trauma and PDD and all of these things be uncovered in one session is unrealistic. I have tried to do that before, and it's doing you a disservice, honestly, because there's so much to unpack. There's so many different tools that I need to teach you, that I need to give you in order for you to actually have results in your relationship. It needs to be a continuous thing, and I need at least a month. And then if you want to continue on after that, you're more than welcome. But if you're fine after that, that's fine too. So my monthly packages will be opening up for the month of January. I'm gonna put the link in the show notes of where you can go ahead and book those because again, once they're full, they're full, and then we'll have to be moved on to the next month. And that's how I'm gonna have to do it because it's the way that serves you best, that gets you in that place of getting the sustainable results and the sustainable tools, not just for you, but for your partner. So if that's something that you're interested in, go to the link down there in the show notes, go to InLove with PMDD. If you're not following me on Instagram, it is now drose underscore trauma transformations. We're gonna talk a lot about that because I am actually rebranding in a way of dealing a lot of with the trauma-based aspects of PMDD. Again, my trauma transformational tools are very customized to what is specifically going to help you uncover those trauma wounds and get to the root of what's really causing the fights and arguments in your PMDD relationship. But until next time, we got this. I am back, and I'll see you next time. Love ya.