Your nervous system doesn’t just keep you from getting hurt.
Sometimes it also stops you from getting what you want, especially if past experiences of love and support came with disappointment or losing yourself.
Capable, self-aware women often think the way to get what they want is to do more.
They believe they need to be more confident, attractive, in control, or successful before they can have the relationship they desire.
Or they feel they need to be more disciplined and consistent before they deserve recognition or financial success.
But while your mind might think you need to improve yourself, your nervous system usually needs something completely different.
It needs to learn that receiving more love, support, or success doesn’t mean losing yourself or becoming overwhelmed.
That is when your system becomes truly available for the life you want.
Availability is not a mindset shift. It’s a felt state where your body says: I have room for this.
Your body makes space for new experiences when it understands that getting what you want won’t mean giving up yourself or losing the security and independence you’ve worked hard to build.
For example, one of my clients was in an emotionally manipulative relationship when she was younger. Her partner would question her decisions, blame her for his feelings, and gradually take over more of her life.
Years later, she was with a kind man who was genuinely interested in her.
But when he wanted more closeness or to spend more time together, she became restless.
She started wondering whether they were truly compatible. Small habits that hadn’t bothered her before suddenly felt much bigger.
She told herself she needed more independence.
As we worked on helping her feel safer, she began to realize she wasn’t pushing love away because she didn’t want it.
A younger part of her still believed that letting someone get close meant losing herself.
She wanted intimacy, but her body was still protecting her from feeling overwhelmed.
Becoming more available to what you want doesn’t usually look like a big change at first.
Often, it begins with being able to stay with the thing you want for a few seconds longer without immediately pulling away, distracting yourself, or creating a new problem to solve.
For this client, it meant noticing the restlessness that appeared when her partner came closer without immediately assuming the relationship was wrong.
In our sessions we showed her body how to stay in that moment of connection a little longer each time.
She noticed she could enjoy his attention and still ask for space.
One small step at a time, she helped the younger part discover that it could let him come closer without giving up her own preferences, routines, or independence.
Some of these changes felt almost invisible at first.
But often, as was true in this case, capacity is built in the moments when the old response still appears and the woman is able to stay present with herself anyway.
She wasn´t forcing herself to be closer than she wanted to be.
Her body was learning that closeness and boundaries can exist at the same time.
This is what we work on in somatic sessions. We don’t try to force your nervous system to believe that love, intimacy, or support are safe.
We help it experience safety in the moments where it has spent years protecting you.
The safety your nervous system needs isn’t built through more information. It’s built through the relationship we create with the part of you that is still bracing.
As that part begins feeling understood, supported, and safe enough to stay present, your body naturally starts making room for the experiences you´ve been wanting, whether that’s deeper love, more support, or work that finally feels sustainable.
Over time, your nervous system won´t have to constantly choose between protecting you and receiving what you want. It will start relating to love and support from a place of greater safety, trust, and capacity.
If that feels like the kind of support you’ve been looking for, you’re welcome to apply for 1:1 somatic work HERE.
