You're having the same fight again, and somewhere in your mind, you're asking: What's wrong with us? What's wrong with me?
Beneath every conflict cycle you can't seem to break, your nervous system is running an ancient program designed to keep you safe by detecting threats before your conscious mind even knows what's happening. It's pulling you into fight, flight, or shutdown before you can choose a different response.
This month on Reimagining Love, we're exploring the invisible architecture of relationships– how your long-standing relational patterns and nervous system kicks in during conflict and why you react the way you do when you connect (or clash) with your partner. As you understand yourself (and your partner) more deeply, you can start working with your natural responses and stop blaming yourself or your partner for being broken. As you listen, use the related reflection questions to explore your own patterns. You can practice working with your nervous system so you can stop taking everything a little too personally and reach for connection.
💗 From the Office of Dr. Alexandra
Unpacking your big relationship dynamics and questions
Getting to the Heart of the Matter
🎧 Listen to "200th Episode: Your Questions Answered with Todd"
For Reimagining Love’s 200th episode milestone, Todd and Dr. Alexandra fielded questions from listeners across three continents– about emotional overwhelm in relationships, rebuilding trust after infidelity, the weight of unmet expectations, navigating grief, and what it means to repair after conflict. Their differing perspectives and experience met up with their years of exploring their own relationship dynamics and what emerged was a masterclass in how the best relationships are not about quick fixes but the capacity to sit with nuance, complexity, and competing truths.
Reflection: Think about a recent conflict with your partner. Before the words were exchanged, what was happening in your body? Racing heart? Tension? Shutdown? Your nervous system responded before your thinking brain even engaged. What would change if you both started naming those states out loud?
When Growth Feels Like Growing Apart
🎧 Listen to “I Think I’ve Outgrown My Relationship!”
You're on a healing journey. You’ve decided to become sober. You're accessing deeper truths about what you want and need, maybe for the first time. You're undergoing a change and suddenly your relationship feels too small to hold this new version of you. Sometimes, the feeling that you've outgrown your relationship is actually your body's way of hitting the breaks to keep you safe. Dr. Alexandra guides listeners through these internal struggles, what might be going on in your relationship that’s shaping the feeling that you’ve outgrown it and finally, she shares some strategies that you can use to bring clarity to the situation.
Reflection: If you're feeling like you've outgrown your relationship, ask yourself: Have I actually invited my partner to witness and celebrate my growth? Or have I been protecting this new version of myself, keeping them at arm's length because I'm afraid they won't get it? What would it mean to be vulnerable enough to ask for what you need?
💓 In Conversation with Dr. Alexandra
Thought-provoking conversations with special guests
Your Body Knows Before Your Brain Does
🎧 Listen to “Connecting Through the Nervous System: Polyvagal Theory”
Your nervous system is making split-second decisions about safety and danger before you're consciously aware anything is happening. Deb Dana, the translator of Polyvagal Theory into everyday language, breaks down how your biology drives your relational responses and what it actually means to befriend your nervous system instead of trying to override it.
Reflection: For the next 24 hours, practice noticing: What does my nervous system need right now to feel a bit safer? Don't try to fix it or judge it– just ask the question and listen.
This is your invitation to notice what's happening in your body. There is no magic wand to make conflict disappear, but when you create space for curiosity instead of contempt, repair follows. Here's to making the invisible visible,
xo,
Dr. Alexandra
