The Hidden Secret to Relationship Success: Why Understanding Your Nervous System is Key

There is the type of hard required for launching a new company or training for a marathon and then there is the type of hard that comes from persisting for things that must go your way like a job, relationships or interactions.

I know when something is off when I lie awake at night. I don’t think I slept at all for 3 years. Of course, now with my Oura ring, if you mess with my readiness score, I will cut you out of my life. Ok, I’m only halfway kidding.

There are some things that will impact your readiness scores that are beyond your control like falling in love with someone. You can expect some jacked up readiness scores for a while. Dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin doing its magic to bring you closer to another human being will also impact your nervous system. But it’s science, not love.

Quick recap if you are new to my work: I use HRV (Heart Rate Variability) which reflects the activity of the autonomic nervous system and can be used as an indicator of physiological and emotional state. For me, it is my North Star metric for how my routine impacts my well-being.

Our nervous system impacts how we show up in places

Anxiety caused from relationships can be a nightmarish thing. At least for me, it was a self-inflicted nightmare. All I had to do was pay attention to the dopamine hits I was getting per day to see the imbalance was 100% environmental. This is why when you go no contact with someone for a while, the first few days/weeks feel like death (as you feel with cutting out any addictive substance in the beginning) and then within a few weeks, it gets easier.

What are those obsessive states?

If you say “No way JC…I love him” well that is because you are now in the obsessive state of a breakup. The brain doesn’t know the difference between real pain and imagined pain. By obsessively thinking about the person, you’ve only cemented the idea of them into your brain and created a different kind of feedback loop — equally addictive — but also not real. The way to get over this is to persistently bring your attention to the present moment. I mean persistently. The minute you catch yourself daydreaming, snap your fingers, pay attention to your breath and you do this until your fingers bleed.

Listen, I was once like many of you. I was a hopeless romantic. I believed in angels, soulmates and twin flames for most of my life. But did I really like the guy? The reality is I just liked how they made me feel. Again, chemicals can also impact your feelings.

I’m not trying to kill all your dreams about love. I’m trying to help you remove all the noise of past traumas and anxious thoughts so you can focus on the person, I mean ACTUALLY focus on the person and start evaluating what life with them would be like? Their character? Avoid future pain by remaining objective during the drunk phase of love. Keep going back to answering the question: How does this person make you feel?

Finding someone you can co-regulate your emotions with is key. If he/she is scared when you ask for help dealing with emotions, then wish them well. I’ve learned (very recently) to co-regulate my emotions even with my boss because it is the only way to get through work sometimes. High stress situations require that you have someone you can go to and say, “I need your help.” I’m lucky I can do that. Not all bosses are good “coaches.”

Our nervous system protects us from perceived threats

There are Facebook groups all over the world for finding out if you are dating the same guy. It is called “Are we dating the same guy?” I joined recently to feel better about choosing to remain single. These groups are the most tragic display of the human love experience and reinforcing all of my negative beliefs about dating. However, within 24 hours of reading these messages and comments, the problem is pretty clear. These women are completely oblivious about how to read their nervous system.

A healthy and responsive nervous system (one that is in tune and not manipulated by past traumas, anxiety and fear) will tell you everything you need to know about the other person. Well not everything, as narcissists and avoidants do a good job of love bombing you to convince you to stick around just long enough until they flip or run.

Flipping the script

I consider myself a hopeful romantic now. A hopeful romantic is a pragmatic romantic with a growth mindset. If I had the knowledge I have now, about neurotransmitters and how to monitor my autonomous nervous system, I could have controlled my feelings a lot better at the beginning stages of a relationship. I would have romanticized a lot less and wasted a lot less time pursuing the wrong people who gave me all sorts of chemical highs.

I’m not saying I don’t like how fun chemicals are. They are a blast. So is day drinking on a Saturday. Just be aware in the early stages, that it isn’t love, it isn’t fate, it isn’t serendipity, it isn’t God telling you you belong together. It is just chemicals.

And after some time, those chemicals wear off and you are left with the reality: Do I truly like this person? Does this person make me feel good about myself? Am I compatible with this person? The problem is that by the time the fun chemicals wear off, you are already invested. They’ve become your friend, your lover, your person and it is harder to walk away even if the person is not compatible with you.

The healthiest thing you can do for yourself is to end modern day relationships: situationship, delusionship, illusionship, textationship. Get to really know someone. Be with them because you genuinely like them and respect them as a friend. Hopefully they choose you back but if they don’t, it’s not your job to make people like you. All you can do is show them who you truly are and if they choose to walk away, let them. When you miss them, repeat to yourself, “I love myself enough to let you walk away.” It was never about them to begin with.

Personal note from author: I say all this as someone with an avoidant attachment style. I wanted love. I craved love but when it came looking for me, I ran. I didn’t only do this in romantic relationships, I did it with friends and family. Female friendships are even trickier for me emotionally than romantic relationships. I understand why now. I have a complicated relationship with my mother because she was/is as “tough love” as it gets, when all I needed was a hug. Thankfully I had plenty of male friends growing up who stayed just that…friends. They offered lots of hugs and never made it feel weird. Attachment style theory helped me connect the dots. I learned more from watching a few Tik Toks on this topic than I did in 20 years of therapy trying to figure out “What is wrong with me?” There is nothing wrong with you. You just weren’t given the proper tools to truly care for your well-being. Get to know and train your nervous system. — JC