You can read any room within thirty seconds of walking in. You know exactly when someone’s mood is shifting, what they need from you, how to smooth things over before tension even surfaces.
But when someone asks what you need? Silence. Static. That uncomfortable blank space where an answer should be.
Or maybe you know what you need—you’re not confused about that. The problem is when someone actually tries to give it to you. Help offered, compliments given, care extended without strings attached. And your chest tightens. Your mind scrambles for reasons to deflect, minimize, or immediately reciprocate so you’re not indebted.
Here’s the paradox I see constantly with driven women from complicated families or narcissistic relationships: you’re brilliant at meeting everyone else’s needs while simultaneously allergic to having your own met.
Sound familiar?
Here’s what I’ve learned after years of sitting with women navigating exactly this: it’s not that you don’t want connection. It’s that your nervous system learned—whether in childhood or in a difficult adult partnership—that reaching for what looked like love often meant getting hurt instead. Sugar promised, salt delivered. Over and over until your body learned the lesson: wanting is dangerous, receiving is risky, and being the caretaker is safer than being cared for.
Maybe the person whose mood you tracked most carefully was unpredictable. Maybe love came with conditions you could never quite meet. Perhaps the emotional weather in your childhood home or your recent relationship taught you that disappearing your needs was how you stayed safe.
So you built an impressive life—career, competence, capability. But romantic relationships? They follow different rules. The patterns that protected you then show up in ways that confuse you now. You’re drawn to people who feel “familiar” even when familiar means unavailable, critical, or demanding. Meanwhile, actually safe people feel boring, flat, or somehow “wrong.”
This week’s workbook helps you understand your relational GPS—why it might be pointing you toward what hurts and away from what could help.
These nine practices are yours if you want them.
The full workbook, plus this month’s personal letter about my own journey of learning to receive care, and access to our monthly Q&A where you can bring your specific questions about changing these patterns—it’s all available to paid subscribers.
