Relationship Counseling

Do You Feel Lonely And Unsatisfied In Your Relationships?

Does your life lack connection and intimacy? Are you in a relationship that’s beginning to feel stale? Maybe there are unhealthy relationship patterns that you and your partner feel unable to break out of. Perhaps you are frustrated with monogamous and heteronormative scripts about what a partnership should look like. As much as you want to shed these outdated societal expectations, the path forward to building an ideal relationship is not clear yet.

The suffering you face individually may be contributing to your relationship issues, whether they involve friendships, family, a romantic partnership, or a work relationship. Deep down, a lack of self-love or clarity about your emotional needs can make forming healthy connections difficult. Perhaps early childhood relationships taught you to be aggressively self-critical and self-effacing, so you rely on others to validate your self-worth.

Over time, relationship problems can lead to profound loneliness and isolation and even cause depression and anxiety. You may find yourself withdrawing from others even when you need their support. If this is the case, I would be honored to help you. Relationship counseling is a chance to experience peace in your mind and body, free yourself from unhealthy expectations, and enjoy more love in your life.

Many People Today Don’t Have Models For What A Healthy Relationship Looks Like

Today, relationships are more complicated than they have ever been. On one hand, with so much of life happening digitally through screens, it is increasingly difficult to meet someone you feel a genuine connection with. And on the other, because so many of the norms for relationships are changing, there aren’t a lot of models for what healthy and secure attachments look like, even though there are more possibilities for satisfying relationships.

For instance, many people who are polyamorous or part of the LGBTQIA+ community are living in relationships that are creating new scripts for what intimate relationships can look like. Because these types of relationships weren’t as visible in the past, polyamorous and queer folk may not have any elders to look up to. Many people feel like they’re out in uncharted territory.

What’s more, the dominant messages about relationships in our culture are often narrow-minded and harmful. The media—and even the world of therapy—generally promotes only one script for navigating a relationship. According to this script, we have to constantly sacrifice parts of ourselves in order to enjoy healthy connections. Needs for communication, space, and boundaries are generally left out—in fact, we are taught that setting too many boundaries makes a loving relationship impossible. As a result, issues of sexual consent are often seen as unimportant.

A healthy relationship means that there is space in the relationship for everyone’s needs to be met. On your own, however, it’s hard to know what such a relationship looks like—especially if you don’t have models for healthy attachment in your life. In relationship therapy, I will help you meet your own needs first, set healthy boundaries, build intimate connection, and establish a stronger support system so that you can enjoy the attachments you’ve always longed for.

Relationship Counseling Can Help You Build Self-Compassion And Form Healthier Connections

Building a satisfying relationship has so much to do with emotional patterns and embodied experience. Without us knowing it, many relationships activate our fight-flight-or-freeze stress response, impacting us on a bodily level and causing us to isolate or lash out. That’s because attachment and fear of attachment are directly tied to our nervous system. My goal as a therapist is to guide you through the embodied work necessary to form happy, satisfying relationships.

In sessions together, you and I will talk about the barriers you face in relationships. Oftentimes, this means looking at past connections and potential trauma that may be impacting how you approach relationships today. For instance, if you’ve been hurt in relationships before, you may be afraid to pursue new ones for fear that the past will repeat itself. My goal is to help you become mindfully aware of the things that activate your trauma and provide you with skills and tools for self-soothing and self-regulation. This will allow you to move toward the connections you desire and discard the avoidance tactics that trauma may have taught you to fall back on.

Additionally, I want to help you explore your attachment style and uncover what your needs for relationships are. Neglecting yourself in favor of others’ needs often stems from a low sense of self-worth. If you don’t believe that you’re worthy of love, you may not even recognize what your real needs are because your worth is so invested in others. Working together, I want to help you uncover the needs that haven’t been met or have gone unaddressed. Doing so will help you build self-compassion and recognize that you are worthy of love and acceptance. All humans are inherently and irrevocably worthy of being loved, and you are, too.

Part of rewriting the narrative about your self-worth also involves working closely with the body. By learning to connect more deeply with your body—understanding its stressors and knowing what makes it relax—you can learn to be more at home in your own skin and accepting of your feelings. To that end, I may use mindfulness strategies and somatic techniques—such as deep-breathing, body awareness, or meditation—to help you develop a deeper sense of self and access the underlying beliefs and thoughts that are holding you back.

Lastly, you and I will work on establishing healthier boundaries with your loved ones. Contrary to popular belief, boundaries are not a threat to relationships. They can help you and your loved ones gain greater awareness of each other’s needs and deepen your respect for each other. In romantic relationships, working on boundaries can help you establish a clearer sense of sexual consent.

I believe that you have the power to create the relationships you want and the strength that will help you get there already lies within you. My desire is to empower you to unlock your true potential so that you can bring real, lasting change into your life. Resolving your own inner conflicts opens up a pathway to resolving your relationship issues and forming meaningful connections with the ones you love.

You may have some questions about relationship counseling…

Don’t I need to be in a relationship to work on relationship issues?

The quality of relationship we have with ourselves is often the primary reason we can’t find satisfaction in relationships with others. For example, if we are unable to meet our own needs, we may come to rely on other people too much for our fulfillment. Our neediness and inability to enjoy life without them may cause us to become co-dependent or even drive them away. In counseling, you and I will explore the individual issues that prevent you from building healthy relationships.

There is no hope for me to find someone—I’ve been let down too many times.

Relationships don’t need to look the same as they used to. Building your own capacity to love and be loved will bring you more satisfying connections not only romantically, but also with friends and family. Besides, the focus of relationship counseling is not exclusively on finding someone, but on working on your own life so that you are ready when you meet someone who is right for you.

I am stuck in the same relationship patterns and can’t get out.

When something is brought into your awareness, that is a sign that it’s already changing. After all, the first step in all healing and growth is recognizing that something needs to change. If you already have the clarity of mind to know that you’re stuck in the same old relationship patterns, then you have already taken that first step. The next step is seeking help and opening your mind to new ways of looking at relationships.

Let Me Help You Breathe New Life Into Your Relationships

Whether you are struggling with a friendship, a breakup, or a new or ongoing romantic relationship, counseling can help you work through your own inner conflicts and create healthier connections with the ones you love. To get started, you can email me or call me at 720-378-6555 for a free, 30-minute phone consultation.

Nic is currently accepting new clients and sessions are offered in-person or using a HIPPA compliant online video platform.